“What’s happening here?” Constance whispered.
“I don’t know,” he replied. “I’ve been hopin’ for eight years now that someone could tell me… ” He paused for a moment, then said, “You can get out if you want, but stay next to the car. Don’t go near her. I’m serious.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s my responsibility. That’s all I have time to explain right now.”
With that, he climbed out of the vehicle and walked around to the back where he lifted the trunk lid. A moment later he slammed it closed and trundled back around, a blanket tucked under his arm.
Constance popped her door and stepped out onto the street after he had passed. Questions were dancing on the end of her tongue, but when she opened her mouth, the music stopped and she couldn’t seem to give them voice. Instead she wandered a few steps forward and stood next to the front of the cruiser as she’d been instructed, watching as Sheriff Carmichael knelt down on the snowy pavement and wrapped the blanket around the little girl. The child continued to stare blankly into space as he bundled her in the thick fabric. Hooking his arms around and hugging her close so that her head lay against his shoulder, he hefted her up, then stood. The weariness of both age and exhaustion were apparent in his struggle as he rose to his feet. The lingering pain of Constance’s hammer-handed punch was still showing in his gait as he turned and began walking back to the car.
Constance could see his lips moving as he drew closer. She swiveled slowly in place, following him with her bewildered gaze as he headed toward the back door of the cruiser. She was finally able to hear what he was saying as he trundled past her. He was whispering, voice cracking with the repressed emotion of an old wound, freshly opened.
“It’s okay, Merrie,” he soothed. “You’re safe now, sweetheart. You’re safe… He can’t hurt you anymore… I promise…”
C HAPTER 27
Constance reached up and absently pushed a damp shock of hair from her face while she stared out the windshield of the police cruiser. Her eyes were burning as the warm air from the vent caused them to dry, but she couldn’t stop staring. The faint reflection of a disheveled woman gazed back at her from the inside of the glass. It looked horrifyingly old.
She forced herself to blink then looked beyond the slanted glass. The snowy landscape ahead loomed in the headlights as they rolled along the street. However, as with each time before when she would try to stay focused on a distant point, whatever she locked onto would grow to fill the window, then slip past and disappear into their wake. Her eyes would always come back to the unpleasant reflection.
She closed her eyes and allowed her head to drift forward, dropping her chin against her chest. Reaching up with both hands, she massaged her scalp through tangles of damp hair.
She was somewhere in the early stages of an annoying headache. At first she assumed it was a product of the head butt she’d delivered, especially since there was a fresh knot on the back of her scalp, courtesy of Skip’s chin. While that had probably been partially responsible, the epicenter seemed to be a dull ache radiating through her ears and into her temples. It took some time for her to realize that her jaw was tightly clenched, and she was grinding her teeth-a side effect of too many caffeine pills mixed with the jitters that always followed an adrenalin dump from hell.
She forced herself to open her mouth, then took in a deep breath and tried to relax, but it was an exercise in futility. There was no way she could relax while her mind was still racing. Unfortunately, since it had no idea where it was racing to, it was doing little more than following itself around in a confusing circle, looking for an off ramp that didn’t seem to exist.
She needed a drink. Maybe two. Followed by twenty-four hours of uninterrupted sleep. Better yet, she needed someone to tell her that this was all just an exceptionally vivid nightmare and that she would be waking up very soon.
Constance puffed out her cheeks with a heavy sigh and dropped her arms back to her sides. Then she pushed herself up in the seat and started turning around to check on the little girl in the back. She’d lost count of how many times she had turned to look at her. She wondered silently how much of it was to check on the girl’s well being and how much was simply to see if she was really there.
Skip threw an understanding glance at her, just as he’d done each time before when she’d twisted around to look upon the girl. She gazed back at him for a moment, but said nothing. Right now, there didn’t seem to be any words that would make sense.
She shifted some more and completed her turn in the seat. Although it was dark in the back of the vehicle, there was enough ambient light for her to see. What met her eyes was pitiful and heartbreaking. It would have been so even if she didn’t know the circumstances behind it.
Better than fifteen minutes had passed since they had picked up the little girl, but almost nothing about her had changed.
She was still mute, and unmoving.
Although she absolutely had to be chilled all the way to the bone, she didn’t shiver. She didn’t tremble. She didn’t huddle into the blanket. She didn’t even cry. She simply sat there, her only visible movement being that which was forced upon her slight form by the jostling of the vehicle as it bumped along the road.
Her expression had remained constant as well, in that she really bore no expression at all. Her face was slack, relaxed in a way that reminded Constance of death. That morbid thought was bolstered by the fact that the child’s pallor was ashen, almost devoid of any color behind the smears of blood and dirt.
And that was the one thing that had changed. In fact, she seemed to be graying more with each passing minute.
Her eyes were unblinking as she gazed straight ahead from behind matted clumps of chestnut hair that had fallen across her sallow face. The glassy stare was the same one she’d worn inside the house. What Merrie saw with those eyes was something that only she knew, but Constance doubted it was anything good. She was also convinced that whatever it was, it lay somewhere beyond the confines of this world. She found herself wishing Rowan were here. This sort of thing was his forte. The seemingly fantastic and the paranormal were where his expertise dwelled. Even if it didn’t make sense to everyone else, he always seemed to accept it for what it was and find a way to deal with it.
She desperately needed a way to deal with this.
Mandalay felt the vehicle starting to slow and then yaw a bit as it started into a turn. She braced herself and tossed a quick glance at Sheriff Carmichael, then twisted back around in her own seat and looked out through the windshield once again. For a brief instant, the sign for the Holly-Oak Assisted Living facility was framed in the headlights, then it quickly slipped sideways into the darkness as they turned into the entrance.
“Shouldn’t we be taking her to a hospital?” she asked.
“No,” Skip replied.
“But…”
“Trust me. I’ve been down this road before.”
Skip drove around to the back of the building, made a tight circle through the empty lot in order to turn around, and then pulled up close to the back door. As the vehicle rolled to a stop, flood lamps above the rear entrance sprang to life, spilling their brilliance outward and casting the passenger side of the cruiser in a stark light. After cranking the shift lever into park, Carmichael switched off the engine and dragged himself out from behind the wheel.
Before swinging the driver’s side door shut, he peered back in through the opening at Constance and said, “Get Merrie’s door for me, will you…”
Constance glanced quickly back over her shoulder at Merrie, then shouldered her own door open and climbed out into the cold wind. By the time she had levered it back closed, Skip had come around to her side, so she pulled the cruiser’s rear door open for him.
“We’re home,” he said to the girl as he pushed his frame in through the opening.
After unbuckling the seatbelt, he wrapped the loose folds of the blanket tighter, taking care to make sure
