Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #4: Books 13-16 (A Dead Cold Box Set), Blake Banner [story read aloud .txt] 📗

the tree, now she doubted she would recognize it. A twist of despair and panic gripped her gut and a wave of nausea washed over her. She should have brought a team with her. She should have waited for the inspector to finish his briefing. But the panic, the urgency to find him had blinded her.

She reached for her phone, intending to call for backup, but a noise made her stop. An animal perhaps, a small, feral predator seeking food. She stood motionless, listening, trying to rein in her imagination. Had she been led here? Had she been drawn here so the killer could get her too? It was irrational. How could the killer have known she would come without backup? How could he have known she would come at all? How could he, or she, know that Dehan would be there alone?

The noise came again: a large body pushing through undergrowth. A crack of a dry branch under a heavy foot. Then silence.

Dehan killed the flashlight, pulled her piece and backed away from the noise into the cover of a large tree. Behind her, to her right, she could hear the lap and splash of the river. On her left were tall, thick ferns. Ahead, just beyond the clearing, there was a gap in the trees and what looked like a narrow footpath. She crouched down and leveled her gun at the gap, and waited.

A shadow, darker than the shadows around it, shifted near the footpath. She narrowed her eyes, unsure if it had been a moving branch or a body. Another shift and then a pale reflection, like skin, a face half seen among the shadows of the leaves.

She took aim and shouted, “NYPD! Identify yourself! Step into the clearing!”

Nothing happened for a moment. Then there was another rustle, as of a body moving among branches and foliage. The pallid face became clearer, dancing disembodied among the shadows.

She shouted again. “This is the New York Police Department! Identify yourself!” Another step forward.

The face drew closer, staring blindly ahead, as though suspended from the branches above. It stopped. Sick panic gripped her. It was impossible in the darkness of the forest to make out any body beneath the head. It seemed to hang, gaping in the air. A voice, a hoarse whisper, filtered through the undergrowth above the ripple of the stream and the croak of the frogs. “Dehan? Is that you? Did you come…?”

She switched on the flashlight and stood, shouting, “Identify yourself!”

The funnel of light picked out a tall man. His clothes were dark gray or black. He held up his right arm to shield his eyes and took a step forward. Again he said, “Dehan? What the hell are you doing here?”

She stepped toward him, seeing now that his clothes were covered in slime and mud, recognizing his face in the light, smeared also with sludge and mire.

“Stone? Oh God, Stone!” She ran, hurled herself at him, taking him in her arms and crushing him to her. “You’re alive! Thank God you’re alive!”

He held onto her, leaned against her and then fell to the ground. She knelt by his side, feeling for a pulse. It was faint, but there. She felt his hands and face. They were cold. She rubbed them hard, then grabbed her phone and called the inspector.

“Dehan! Where the hell are you? Why were you not at the briefing?”

“I have him, sir. I think he’s going into hypothermia. He needs a doctor right now, and probably hospital. I am sending you my location. You need to come in off the Williams Bridge. Please hurry!”

“You have him? What in the name of…? Is he OK? Where are you?”

“Sir? Can we talk later? Just get here, please!”

“All right! All right! We’re on our way.”

He hung up and she sent him her location. Then she wrapped Stone in her jacket and began to slap and pat his face until he slowly came around again.

“Stone? Stone! I know you’re tired. I know you want to sleep. But you have to do this for me, OK? You need to stand up. I’ll support you. I’ll hold you, but you need to stand up and you need to walk. We need to walk to the car, OK? I’m going to take you home and get you warm. Come on, big fella, get up!”

He struggled and she heaved him to his feet, hooking his arm over her shoulder. He swayed and groaned, but stayed upright. Then they staggered, one step at a time, toward the footpath, where they turned left and headed slowly through the dense shadows and the looming trees, back toward the Charger, and home.

“I knew you’d come,” he said.

“You bet your ass you knew. You owe me six kids and a retirement home in Madison, remember.”

They staggered on. “I remember,” he said.

SEVENTEEN

When I woke up, I wasn’t sure who I was, and I had no idea where I was. I knew I wasn’t where I had been. I had been in a cellar, and there had been a wire across my throat. My hands and feet had been tied so hard I couldn’t move them. I couldn’t remember how I had gotten there. But I knew that was where I had been.

Before.

Then it had been dark and wet, and I couldn’t move and I couldn’t breathe. I felt the thrash of panic inside me and took deep breaths, long, slow, deep breaths. That was before. Now I was OK.

I was in a room in a hospital. The walls were white. There was a TV up on the wall that was switched off. On my right there was a white door with a clipboard hanging on a hook. On my left there was a window with panoramic views of New York. As I looked, I realized that