Page 71 of Unharmed

For a few minutes, I stayed rooted to the spot. I couldn’t quite figure it out, but I couldn’t seem to take those first steps away from him. Maybe it was because I knew that once I did, I would officially be letting Graham go. I’d always love him, and I’d come back to visit him, but my heart had to release its hold on him.

I inhaled deeply, and only after I turned to take the first step in the opposite direction did I start to exhale.

As I walked out of the cemetery and onto the sidewalk lined with piles of snow and cars parked along the road, I felt like a weight had been lifted off my chest.

But that feeling was brief.

Because barely a moment later, something caught my eye.

At the sight off to my right side, a cold feeling settled in the pit of my stomach. I knew. I knew with just one look that what I was seeing was not a mistake or a figment of my imagination.

Desperate to confirm my suspicions, I did the stupidest thing I could have done.

“Henry!” I yelled.

The dog stopped moving, and his ears perked up.

It was my dog. It was Henry.

“Henry!” I called again.

He looked in my direction. The instant he saw me, it was clear he recognized me. His tail started wagging, and he jerked his body in my direction.

I started to move that way, and when I did, Henry was pulled farther away from me. That’s when my eyes traveled up the lead connected to Henry’s collar, and I saw the man holding it. I didn’t know him, didn’t recognize him from anywhere, but with one look at me, I believed the man knew exactly who I was.

He opened the door to the SUV immediately in front of him and threw Henry into the back of it. I started running, believing I’d be able to make it there on time, but the second I had that thought, I slipped on some ice and fell hard onto my hip.

The man had already made it to the driver’s side door, and when I looked up, I could see Henry going crazy in the back of the vehicle.

By the time I was on my feet again, the man had pulled away, taking my dog with him.

NINETEEN

Banks

Opening my front door not even twenty-four hours after Lamise left and seeing her standing there should have made me feel good. It should have overwhelmed me with positive thoughts that she enjoyed what we had so much, she couldn’t stay away.

It should have felt great. It was anything but, because it was abundantly clear that something was wrong.

Lamise was in tears, devastated, and looking utterly defeated. The sight of her looking like that immediately set me on edge.

I reached out, curled my fingers around her arm, and tugged her forward, and into the house. Never was I more grateful for the fact Rhys was on a schedule and had just gone down for his afternoon nap.

“What’s wrong?” I asked her, the tension coursing through my body.

Her bottom lip trembled. “He’s alive.”

In my line of work, I could have come up with at least adozen possible scenarios. I could have gotten creative in formulating a couple of conceivable explanations for why Lamise looked the way she did.

And yet, no matter how many reasons I could have come up with, there wasn’t a question in my mind that I’d never have the words that just came out of her mouth anywhere in the realm of possibilities.

He was alive.

My body tensed as I considered those words.

How was that even possible? How could a man who’d been bitten by a snake and pronounced dead suddenly be alive?

Had someone improperly identified him? Had he gone missing instead?

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