Page 104 of Buried in the Woods Below

Blackness.

Chapter 48

I wake to birdsong.

Sparrows chatter overhead. A loon cries somewhere across the lake, insistent, melancholy, like it’s warning me. My body is leaden. My head pounds with a sharp, rhythmic pain, like something is hammering against my skull from the inside.

A poisonous film coats my tongue.

What did Eric put in my tea?

Men’s voices murmur. I feel my body shift, jolt. I’m moving, bouncing, being carried. One bounce. Two. Three. The ground underneath me is damp, the scent of wet grass and mud thick in the air, but the rain has stopped. The breeze is sharp and crisp, electrifying my skin.

I force my eyes open.

Dawn is breaking. The sky nuclear. Eric’s boat bobs lazily next to the dock.

But it’s not alone.

Five police boats surround it.

I gaze at them, blinking hard, as if my vision might be playing tricks on me. But it’s the first one that makes my stomach drop. Detective Gonzalez’s boat.

A pulse of cold shoots through me. Was it yesterday he arrived? It feels like a memory viewed through fogged glass. My limbs tingle as my body finally registers the weight at my wrists.

I try to sit up.

Steel bites into my skin and jerks me back down.

I suck in a breath, forcing myself to move more slowly this time. The world spins, but I push past it, blinking against the blur. A stretcher. I’m strapped to a stretcher. Handcuffed.

My breath quickens.

Two paramedics flank me—one with a beard, the other young, baby-faced. Their expressions are careful, but something heavy crouches behind their eyes. Pity. Wariness.

Like they’re handling a wounded animal. Or something more dangerous.

“Easy,” The Beard says.

Easy?

Panic floods my veins like an electric current. My breath shortens. My ribs lock. It’s happening too fast. The events of last night burst inside me all at once: the twins, the forest, the carousel spinning in the rain. Eric. The knives. His voice whispering about Olivia.

Could it be true?

No.

No, they’re twisting things. The tea. I’ve been drugged. Everyone has been twisting things since I got here. I search the grounds for Olivia. She’s here. I can feel her.

My pulse races against the cuffs, skin scraping raw. My thoughts won’t hold still, fracturing, shattering. I tip my head back, searching the sky, looking for something real, something solid.

But even the clouds look distorted. Floating smears of white, shifting like they’re hiding something. I search the grounds. Familiar faces. Russ Neuman being interviewed by a cop. Eyes twitching. And Carlos. Worry scrawled on his face. What is he doing here?

And then I hear that familiar news-anchor purr.

Eric.

His voice is low, his words muffled by the static in my ears, but it’s him. My head jerks left, my neck straining. He’s standing on the Parkers’ lawn, his back to me. Talking to Gonzalez.