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I was just about to turn around, satisfied that I was just being paranoid, that I hadn’t actually seen anything the night of the storm.
But it was that exact moment when I heard something. Something familiar.
The crunch of a shovel in the ground.
Lord knows I’d dug enough graves to recognize that sound when I heard it.
Panic gripped my system, wondering if I’d missed the cops, if they were out here, looking for the bodies.
But no.
I wouldn’t have missed that, no matter how distracted I was.
I tamped down the anxiety and took a few steps forward, pretending to ignore the way my stomach tensed as I realized where this was.
Really, really fucking close to the graves I’d dug.
Taking a deep breath, I glanced beyond a big tree.
Then I saw it.
The proof that I wasn’t losing my fucking mind.
That flash of red?
It had been hair.
Hair belonging to the woman who was steadily digging in the dirt.
A few feet away, a puppy was attached to a tree, rolled over on his back, and sunning his undercarriage.
He was some kind of mutt, colorful and long-haired.
“I’m so so sorry,” a soft, sing-song voice said, making me stiffen at the unexpected sound.
But she hadn’t seen me.
She wasn’t talking to me.
“You deserved better,” she added, reaching toward something hidden from my view.
A dog crate.
And were those… dead dogs in it?
Puppies, like the one oblivious to the woman’s distress as she tried to reach for one of the bodies, then fell bag on a gag.
I watched as a sob racked her body, taking her down to her knees in the mud, this time partially facing me.
And, fuck.
I lived in a city with over four million fucking women.
Still, no one had ever made me feel winded just by looking at them.
The sharp jaw, the plump lips, the light eyes that had to be either blue or gray, but she was too far away to tell.
Her hair was lighter now that it wasn’t wet, more of a dark copper shade.
