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Cracked skull.
Broken spine.
Paralysis.
You’ve seen it all, yet you never reacted likethisbefore.
I shake the thought away, only to have it return with a vengeance as Dahlia hides her face against my shirt, dampening the material with her tears.
You still care about her.
Mierda.
I’m not given more than a second to process the thought before Dahlia speaks up again.
She sniffles. “This is all so stupid.”
I stalk toward the exit. “What is?”
“Breaking my arm like this.”
“How did it happen?” I walk toward the stairwell while doing my best to keep her steady.
“I had a run-in with a spider.”
“A spider?”
“I know what you’re thinking. But that beast was the size of a tarantula and had a set of fangs like a snake.” She trembles against me when I take the first step down the stairs.
You should have been here.
I knew leaving Dahlia behind to finish what we started wasn’t polite, but I had a phone call I needed to take and a meeting I couldn’t miss.
Couldn’t or wouldn’t?
The best part of my day was doing the walk-through with her—an anomaly in itself—and the last thing I wanted to do was head back to the office.
The artery in my neck pulses with each annoying thump of my heart.
I missed a part of Dahlia’s ramblings, but it’s easy to catch on as she continues. “The creature was a thing of nightmares. I’m lucky to be alive right now to tell the tale.”
Dahlia only talks to me like this when she is anxious or in pain. So to keep her occupied, I entertain her with conversation while walking through the mansion.
“Should I contact pest control?’’ I ask.
“Pest control? No way. You need the Department of Natural Resources to come out here and drop fumigation bombs because I have a feeling that creature was one of many.”
“You think there are more?”
“Of course. Perhaps hundreds.” She glances toward the ceiling. “Actually, no.Thousands. Make sure the DNR knows all of this when you give them a call tomorrow. When it comes to the government, you need to exaggerate matters to get anyone’s attention.”
“But by the time they get around to the case, the property will be overrun with spiders the size of people.”
She tucks her face against my chest in a poor attempt tohide her smile, only to pull back after a sniffle. “What happened to your cologne?”
I nearly trip over my own feet. “What?”
“The one you wore on the day of the car accident?”
