promising retribution.
She let out a small cry.
“Miss. Can you hear me?” A man’s deep voice, thick with concern as he knelt beside her, his back turned to evil incarnate.
The devil slowly drew a large, serrated knife from the holder strapped to his thigh.
She sucked in a breath and tried to warn the stranger. But she couldn’t make her lips form any words. Blood bubbled up in her throat, choking her. Can’t breathe. Can’t. Breathe.
The stranger kneeling beside her, ever so carefully, tilted her head. Her airway cleared. She coughed and tried again to warn him.
Run! She tried to tell him. He’ll kill you! She tried to raise her hand, to wave toward the devil. But she didn’t seem to have control over her body anymore. Everything was going numb. And cold, so cold.
Satan took a step toward the stranger, knife raised.
“My name is Zack Scott.” Her would-be rescuer leaned down into her field of vision, his handsome face lined with worry. He scooted a bunched-up cloth of some kind beneath her head. “I’m the chief of police of Mystic Glades. Just hold on. I’ve got you.”
The devil paused.
“Turn around.” She forced the words past her bruised lips, but they came out a gurgle.
“Don’t try to talk. Lie as still as you can. Don’t move.”
A rumbling noise echoed through the trees. Another car? Brakes squealed. A door slammed. Footsteps pounded.
The devil jerked back beside a tree, a shadow amongst shadows.
“What the...?” Another man’s voice. Dirt sliding as he dropped to his knees beside Zack. “What happened? Who is she?”
“She ran out in front of my truck. Try your phone, Cole. We might be far enough from Mystic Glades to have cell service.”
Turn around, Zack. Look behind you, Cole. Her fingers curled helplessly into the dirt as she stared at Satan. Why couldn’t she make herself form the words to warn them? Her throat was so tight. Everything hurt.
Zack’s warm fingers pressed against her neck. “Her pulse is weak.” He glanced toward Cole then nodded and looked at her again. “The call went through. Help is on the way. You’re going to be okay. Everything’s going to be okay. Just, please, hold on.”
The devil’s eyes flashed.
She whimpered and surrendered to the darkness.
Zack paced the hospital waiting room.
“Will you stop already?” Cole shifted in his chair. “You’re making everyone around us dizzy. And you’re making me want to slug you. Sit down.”
Zack was surprised to realize that most of the dozen or so people scattered around the large waiting room were indeed watching him. He rubbed the back of his neck and made himself sit beside Cole. But keeping still proved impossible. Nervous energy had his foot tapping up and down as he leaned forward, resting his forearms on the tops of his thighs.
After a few minutes of sitting, he jumped to his feet again.
Cole let out a low curse.
“The ambulance brought our Jane Doe here over two hours ago,” Zack complained. “Someone should have told us something by now. What if she’s...what if she’s dead? What if she’s alive but paralyzed? I tilted her head when she was lying on the road, shoved one of my socks under her neck to keep her face angled up. What if she had a spinal cord injury and I made it worse?”
“Is that why you’re acting like a caged tiger? You blame yourself?”
“Well, of course I blame myself. I ran her over with my truck. Who else should I blame?”
“Her. She ran out in front of you. And you didn’t run her over. You tapped her with the bumper.”
“Tapped?” Zack gave his friend an incredulous look. “She went somersaulting through the air like a rag doll and...” He fisted his hands, trying to block out the memory of her body flipping end over end, landing in a crumpled heap. That she’d still been breathing when he’d reached her was a miracle. But then, when blood had bubbled from her mouth, he’d... “I shouldn’t have moved her head.”
“She was choking on her own blood according to what you told the EMTs when they arrived. The reason you propped her head up was so she could breathe. Or am I wrong about that?”
“No. But I—”
“But nothing. You did what you had to do to save her life. So jump off the guilt-trip train already. Instead, ask yourself what she was even doing there in the first place. You saw her clothes—dirty, torn, not just from the accident either, is my guess. And she wasn’t even wearing shoes.”
“Yeah, I know. Her hair was matted, really matted. And her skin was grimy, as if she’d been out there a long time. There’s something really wrong here. But I can’t even begin to focus on starting an investigation until I know whether she’s going to be okay.”
And, God, please, with no life-altering deficits caused by him.
“Since you’re still setting up the police department in Mystic Glades, my boss has already sent men out to the swamp to start checking things out. And he’s fine with me staying here as long as needed, until we get some answers. And an update on our Jane Doe.”
Zack nodded his thanks.
On the other side of the waiting room there was a short hallway that led into the bowels of the emergency room. Doctors and nurses kept going in and out of the door at the end, but so far none of them had spoken to either him or Cole.
“Why hasn’t anyone come out to talk to us?”
Instead of answering, Cole crossed his arms, obviously giving up on trying to talk Zack out of worrying.
The door to the ER opened again. And just like dozens of times before, a nurse stepped out. But this one didn’t hurry away. Instead, she stopped at the information desk and spoke to the volunteer sitting there. Zack watched them intently. The volunteer checked her clipboard then pointed toward Zack and Cole. Finally.
As the nurse hurried toward them, Cole rose to stand shoulder to shoulder with Zack.
“Just remember—” Cole kept his voice low “—no matter what she tells us, none of this is your fault.”
Maybe. Maybe not. But nothing could change the fact that it was his truck that had slammed into the young woman who was fighting for her life right now, assuming that she was even still alive. If he’d killed her...no, he wouldn’t go there, couldn’t go there. Having something like that on his conscience was a burden he didn’t think he could bear. She had to make it.
“Chief Scott, Detective Larson?” She looked from one to the other,
