Page 68 of Shielding Instinct

She was fine with it.

Quasi-fine with it.

Alone had its good points and its bad.

She sure did like the idea today that all she needed to do was put up a bat signal and Hawkeye would be there by her side, helping her to navigate the challenge.

That and he could give a mighty fine kiss.

Petra held her index finger out in front of her face, forcing herself to focus there.

A lot had happened that day—over the last two days.

A lot.

And all her thoughts felt like they were crowding up on each other, pinging into one another.

It was as if she was hunkering in the middle of a swarm, one of which was a killer bee. She needed to find it and keep her eye on it.

Petra’s survival brain had been on overdrive since she landed in St. Croix. It was too long.

Anxiety was a terrible sensation.

Coffee would be good—a generous hit usually helped her regulate her dopamine.

While coffee woke her colleagues up, it made Petra feel like taking a nap.

Coffeewouldhelp—but Petra couldn’t motivate herself off her seat to see if she could find a pot somewhere.

Besides, she needed to be here so the nurse could find her and hand her the script. Petra wanted to get home and take a shower, wash the scrapes, and throw away this sundress.

Exhaustion was settling in as adrenaline left her system just like it had for Terry—like it would for any human after a day like today, she reminded herself.

Her thoughts flitted over the day from patch discovery, to doctor, to meeting Lucky and taking a ride over the rutted red earth being smacked in the face by tree limbs as they careened past.

She thought about Herb in the front seat and how her antennae had gone up. The look in his eyes. The tone of his speech. There was something shiny and plastic about him.

Something about him made Petra’s teeth itch.

Petra patted the pocket of her sundress and was surprised to find that the girl’s necklace was still there.

She didn’t pull it out. She’d look at it later.

Petra wondered what happened when the girl’s parents discovered the necklace was missing.

Jenny.

Jenny!

Shoot. Petra had used her connection with Holly Smokes to see if she could gather some information about the design of the pendant.

But now that Petra thought about it, maybe that was a bad idea.

Either way, Petra should definitely give Holly a heads-up.

Petra didn’t have Holly’s contact information with her, and it might be hours before she got back to the hotel and her computer.

Avery was Holly’s editor.

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