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Nessie—no—Liam reached the woman in no time. Kris recalled reports of the monster’s incredible speed despite her great bulk. What else that had been reported about her—make that him—was true?
The creature sunk below the surface like stone, straight down, an impossibility that had also been reported before. However, the ripples formed by that huge body seemed to drag the woman down as well. Kris cried out as she disappeared from sight.
Had Kris been wrong? Had Nessie— Kris cursed. Had Liam pulled the woman under? Once he was a monster was he truly a monster? If so, then why had he saved her?
An instant later, the beast surfaced. The woman, obviously spent and nearly unconsciousness, clung to his back. The thing that was Liam slowly turned toward Kris and began to move.
Kris scanned the area. Was this woman another victim of the copycat serial killer? Or had she merely fallen in, then could not get out?
The latter seemed too far-fetched. How lame would you have to be to trip on the shore, fall into the water, thrash around until you were too far out to make it back on your own, then scream for help at a time of day—or almost night—when there was little chance of getting it?
This whole situation smelled worse than the oldest salmon in the loch.
All questions were put aside when Liam reached the shallows. Instead of dumping the woman’s body from his back, then nudging her toward the shore as he’d done the last time, he actually pulled himself onto land.
He was massive—the body of an elephant, the neck of a moray eel, and the head of a boa constrictor combined. When Kris moved forward to take the woman, she felt dwarfed, both frightened and humbled. This creature had existed for centuries. The things he had seen and done, the people he had encountered, all that he knew … she couldn’t get her mind around it. Nor the idea that she’d touched and kissed and—admit it, Kris—loved this being in his human form, was too much for her mind right now as well.
Something about her feelings, her responses, tickled the edge of her brain, and if Kris had had time to think, she might have drawn it out. But when she went to her knees in the mud and damp grass next to the woman, every thought but one fled her head.
“She isn’t breathing.”
Kris had taken CPR, but it had been a while and she’d never had to use it. Still, she found the steps coming back.
Clear the airway. Position the head. Pinch the nose. Mouth over mouth and exhale, one one thousand, then again, two one thousand. Check to see if she’d started to breathe on her own.
No. Dammit!
Chest compressions. One and two and three and—
Kris reached thirty, breathed for the woman twice more, and went back to the compressions. By the time Kris thought to look for Nessie, the creature was gone.
The woman suddenly drew in a great, gasping breath and began to choke. Kris turned her on her side, and lake water poured forth like a river.
“What-what—?”
Kris pressed her back on the ground, which was cold and wet but all they had. Together they shivered violently enough to shake loose a few teeth. Kris would have given the woman her sweater, but it lay in the mud, as soaked as her hair.
“Stay still,” Kris said. “You nearly drowned.”
“I—” The woman lifted her hand to her head and winced. “Someone hit me.”
“That seems to be going around,” Kris muttered.
She glanced toward the road, hoping a car would happen by. The sun was up, but it was early yet.
“Then they were carrying me, but it was dark, and I couldnae see.”
Sounded familiar.
“Then I was in the water, and it was cold and deep and I couldnae get anywhere no matter how hard I tried.”
Kris remembered feeling the same way when she was in the loch, then—
“Nessie came,” the woman whispered. “Did ye see her?”
Lies did get easier the more they were told. Kris had no problem at all meeting the woman’s eyes and saying, “No.”
*
