underbrush, causing accidents and injuries to both car and driver. The only motion she saw came from the branches that swayed in the wind and the flutter of leaves that fell one after another from the canopy of boughs overhead.
She checked her odometer. Five miles into the darkness seemed an eternity tonight. Maybe it was the anticipation of knowing the captain was already at the farmhouse. She wanted to be on the scene when he and the chaplain broke the news to Corporal Taylor’s widow. The initial reactions from loved ones could be telling, especially in a criminal investigation.
At this point, Kelly had no evidence to indicate foul play. A training accident more than likely would be the final determination. Tomorrow she would review Phil’s operations order to determine if there were any safety issues with the plan.
Phil Thibodeaux seemed competent and concerned about his soldiers. Hard to imagine he had made a blatant mistake, but the unit had been in the field for the past four days, and fatigue could be a significant factor. As much as Phil seemed to have his act together, looks could be deceiving.
Her father’s face floated through her mind. Everything about that no-good Cajun had been a sham. Each time he had returned home, he had taken her mother for a ride, wiping out her money and her emotional stability. When he tired of pretending to love her, he hightailed it out of Savannah and headed west, more often than not back to his beloved bayou.
Even as a child, Kelly had questioned her father’s here-again gone-again behavior. By puberty, she recognized him for who he really was—a conniver who thought only of himself. She’d asked God to take him out of her life, but God seemed occupied with other people’s problems instead of hers. When her dad had become abusive to her mother, she’d prayed he would be attacked by snakes and eaten by alligators in the Louisiana swamps he loved more than his own daughter.
God hadn’t answered that prayer, either.
Eventually she decided that since she couldn’t count on her earthly father, she shouldn’t rely on her heavenly one, either. Instead she vowed to never be subservient to a man, like her mother had been whenever her father came back to Savannah with his proverbial hat in hand and a string of excuses for being gone so long.
Kelly shoved her hair away from her face. Luckily she had moved beyond the pain of growing up in a dysfunctional family and being the only one to have at least a smattering of common sense, which she needed to use today instead of returning to memories that should remain buried under a thick layer of Mississippi Delta mud.
She glanced once again at the odometer. Another mile until she would reach the turnoff for the farm, if the first sergeant’s directions were accurate. Just in case he had guesstimated the mileage, she watched for a mailbox at the roadside along with a split rail fence, which supposedly were the only landmarks that identified the long driveway that led to the Taylor home.
Up ahead, the road curved to the right. Kelly eased her foot off the gas. Halfway into the turn, a teenager dashed out from nowhere and ran across the road. For a second, he was spotlighted in the beam of her headlights.
Shaved head, tattoos, body piercings and blood.
Her heart jolted.
Kelly stomped on the brakes and gripped the steering wheel as the tires skidded over the pavement, narrowly missing the boy.
In the blink of an eye, he was gone.
Adrenaline coursed through her veins and rammed her pulse into high gear. Gasping at the close call, she steered the car to the edge of the road and leaned back against the headrest. A roar of disbelief filled her ears at what had almost happened.
Kyle Foglio?
The teen had visited his lieutenant colonel father on post more than two years ago when Kelly had first hauled him in for questioning. Kyle had turned explosive, and the father had sent him back to be with his first wife, the boy’s mother, who lived up north. On one other occasion Kelly had run into the teen on Fort Rickman property, but that, too, hadn’t ended well.
Doing an instant rewind of the near miss, Kelly watched in her mind’s eye as Kyle raised his right hand to his face to block the glare of the headlights. Easy enough to recognize the tattoos and body metal. She had seen him in the bleachers today at the live-fire demonstration, sitting next to a teenage girl, so she had known he was in the area. The kid could be trouble, and Kelly had made sure on his previous two visits that he toed a straight line while he was on post. Not that Kyle had appreciated her intervention.
What she hadn’t expected tonight were the cuts that slashed through the underside of his forearms and the blood that had spattered his shirt. How had he been injured, and why had he run into the underbrush?
Reaching under her seat, Kelly grabbed her Maglite and stepped onto the pavement. The temperature had dropped, and she pulled her navy-blue windbreaker closed and shined the light over the roadway, picking out the droplets of blood that had splattered across the asphalt. The kid should be at the emergency room getting medical treatment instead of running through the woods.
“Kyle?” She shined the light into the woods. An eerie sense of foreboding tingled along her spine. “I want to help you, Kyle.”
Hearing no response, she followed the trail of blood. The smell of Georgia clay and rotting leaves rose from the dew-dampened earth. She pushed into the dense forest where prickly thorns scraped against her hand as she shoved her way deeper into the darkness.
“Kyle?”
Even the cicadas and tree frogs were silent tonight.
She aimed the Maglite into the underbrush. The beam flickered. Giving the flashlight a firm shake, she was rewarded with the return of a powerful beam that eventually revealed a dirt path and a clearing beyond.
Kelly headed for the open space. Her foot stepped onto a bed of fallen leaves. Something wrapped around her ankle. Her heart pounded an instant warning.
Before she could glance down, a whoosh of air and a powerful jerk knocked the flashlight from her hand and propelled her airborne in a topsy-turvy swirl of motion.
A gasp escaped her lips, and her stomach roiled in protest. The forest twirled around her. Heart pounding in her throat, she saw the earth below and realized she was dangling upside down. Her leg burned with pain from the jolt and the rope that tightened around her ankle. What had she gotten tangled up in? Some type of animal trap?
Blood rushed to her head. She tried to reach up and grab the thick hemp that held her bound. When that failed, she grasped her holster and unsheathed her weapon. Her fingers latched onto the cold steel. The only way to get down was to shoot the rope in two.
The sound of twigs breaking and the crackle of leaves came from the dense underbrush. A small animal was skittering for shelter or—?
Footsteps.
Her already erratic heartbeat cranked up a notch.
Friend or foe?
On the ground far below where she had dropped it, the flashlight dimmed and the beam faded into darkness. Her pulse hammered in her ears.
She gripped the gun, her finger firm against the trigger. Was Kyle coming back for her or was someone else roaming through the forest? And if so, why?
Surely Phil would still be talking to the two Mrs. Taylors. Hopefully, he’d see her car
