cotton, with a bra to match. For her feet, sandals not unlike the ones she’d had.
She hadn’t cried, not once, during her entire ordeal. She hadn’t even begged for her life. But now she felt the pressure of tears against the back of her throat. She felt a stinging in her eyes. She blinked, her fingers curling tightly into the fabric of the top.
“Hey, if you don’t like them,” he said quickly, “I can get something else.”
He tried to take the clothes from her, but she wouldn’t let go.
“It’s okay.” His little show of panic got her past the danger point. She no longer felt like dissolving into a storm of weeping. “These are fine.”
“Right. Okay.” He dug into the front pocket of his jeans and pulled out a knife. He opened it and sliced the tags from the clothes. Finished, he threw the tags away and closed the knife blade against his leg before pocketing it. Then he stepped outside the door to give her privacy.
Cleo slipped on the panties, but couldn’t undo the knot in the gown. She ended up calling for Daniel’s help. She bent her head, chin to chest, while he fumbled at the back of her neck, untying the knot. Then he quickly disappeared again.
She let the gown fall to her waist, then went about trying to fasten the bra. Her arms were too weak, her fingers too stiff, and she had to give up. The top was easier. That was followed by the skirt, and finally the sandals, which she dropped to the floor, toed into position, and slipped on her feet. They were a half size too small, but it didn’t matter because of the open back. She stuck the bra in the bag.
Daniel appeared again, his eyes going over her, lingering on her chest, where the fabric clung to her breasts, then moving back to her face. “Okay?” he asked.
She grabbed the bag and stood, waiting a moment for a spell of light-headedness to pass.
Daniel had parked near the front door of the hospital, but her legs were shaking by the time she was inside the truck, Daniel closing the door behind her.
He was acting as if nothing had happened between them. And maybe that was good. She was in no shape to try to analyze the situation, if there was a situation to analyze. She didn’t know how to have any kind of relationship with anyone anymore. She didn’t want to know how. At least that’s what she told herself. It had been easy to be with Daniel that night because she’d thought she would never see him again. That knowledge had given her a freedom, a lack of inhibition, that she normally wouldn’t have had.
He put the truck in gear and pulled away from the curb. “There are no leads on Campbell -”
“It’s just my word against his, and who’s going to believe me?” she finished for him.
“What do you think about going back to the barn? Maybe you could do that trance thing and pick up something.”
“Does that mean you no longer think I’m a fraud?”
“You may have faked it last time, but earlier… I’m thinking that was real.”
She thought about what she’d seen that day, about the hole in the ground. She’d assumed it was a premonition, that she was the one in the hole, but maybe not.
“Go to the barn,” she told him.
“I didn’t mean now. I meant when you’re feeling stronger. I saw how you were shaking.”
“I won’t be able to rest until Campbell is in jail. Drive me to the barn.”
It was early evening when Daniel pulled the truck to a stop in the same weed-filled lane he’d carried Cleo through the day before. All she recalled was a hazy sensation of relief, of feeling safe, the sun shining down with a brilliance that was blinding, the drugs Campbell had pumped into her, running warm and slow through her veins.
Now the sun was low in the sky, big and orange.
“We don’t have to do this now,” Daniel said, as if sensing her trepidation.
“I need to.” She slipped from the truck, her legs feeling a little stronger. She walked slowly in the direction of the barn, her feet, with their red toenails, moving over the packed dirt of the lane, like her vision, yet unlike it. In her vision she’d worn the black slip. In her vision she’d been barefoot. In her vision she’d been alone.
The shadow of the barn crept over her, blocking the sunlight, bringing with it a damp chill, even though the evening was warm. Without the brightness of the sun, everything turned colorless, awash in drab grays.
Daniel waited for her at the barn door.
She froze, unable to make herself take another step. “Maybe this is far enough.” She closed her eyes, trying to picture the interior. Stalls. A jagged hole in the ceiling. She imagined herself taking slow steps, finding herself drawn to the area of the barn where the floor was dirt.
She opened her eyes and stared at Daniel. He looked tired, as if he hadn’t slept in days. His eyes were glassy, bloodshot. Those eyebrows. Those beautiful, sun-bleached eyebrows. He had the most intriguing face. Looking at him made her feel safe…
If they’d met under other circumstances, would things have been different? What if they’d taken classes at a college somewhere, and during the break they’d had coffee together? Or maybe they’d used the same library and tried to check out the same book at the same time, realizing they shared an interest in ancient civilizations?
A different life. Another life. Far, far away.
“I have to go inside,” she told him.
He nodded and opened the door.
“The smell.” She brought a hand to her nose.
“It smells like an old barn.”
“No, this is different.” She stepped forward, into the darkness, into the smell, the putrid smell of bad things, bad places.
Light poured down from the hole above and cut through the cracks in the walls, looking like laser beams, starting out fine and condensed, to broaden and finally fade to nothing.
Her sandals whispered indistinct words, shushing across the floor as she moved toward the spot she needed to show Daniel. She walked past the stalls until she stood beneath the hole in the roof. “Here. You have to dig here.”
Daniel rummaged around to return a minute later with a rusty shovel. With his foot, he pressed the shovel deep, digging until sweat ran down his face and soaked his shirt.
She knew what he would find. “A pumpkin,” she said with conviction.
Daniel stopped digging to lean over the hole, hands braced on his knees. “Maybe you’d better go.”
Her thoughts exactly, but her feet wouldn’t move.
“I don’t think you should see this.”
Too late. She’d already seen it in her mind. “A print dress,” she said. “Red, with white polka dots-no, white flowers on it.”
Suddenly Cleo was aware of a change. Something was different. Something wasn’t right. She turned-and saw Burton Campbell standing there with his elect-me-for-mayor smile, a gun in his hand.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Daniel heard Cleo’s gasp. Keeping a grip on the shovel, he slowly straightened from the hole to find himself looking down the barrel of a revolver.
“Burton Campbell,” he said with no surprise. A range of possible tactics raced through Daniel’s mind, each quickly discarded. Cleo was standing too close to Campbell. If Daniel could get her to step away without attracting the guy’s attention…
“I don’t know what you’ve done,” Daniel began in what he hoped was a conversational tone, “but anything
