Page 176 of Hidden Nature

“Do you have to go in?” Drea asked when she came back.

“No.”

“Good, because Dad wants two out of three.”

“Sure. We can taunt them a second time.”

“Don’t Monty Python me, little girl.” Dean shoved up his sleeves. “We found our rhythm.”

When they won, handily, Sloan and Drea exchanged high fives.

“I’m retiring undefeated.” Sloan gave her father a hug.

It took time, more hugs, insistence on taking home some leftover ham.

“Be safe.” Sloan clutched Joel hard. “And send more pictures of the new house. And you.” She turned to wrap around Sari. “It was so good to see you face-to-face. Wow,” she added as the baby kicked. “Goal!”

“Tell me about it. And I’d tell you not to work too hard, but I’d be wasting my breath.”

Nash waited until they drove away. “What was the phone call? It wasn’t good news.”

“No. I didn’t want to say anything, bring all that positive energy down. It was Detective O’Hara. There’s been another abduction.”

While they drove the short distance to Sloan’s, Sam wheeled Lori Preston’s remains, and Clara brought the bag of lye.

Together, in the chilly dark and moaning wind, they dragged the heavy safety lid off the old, abandoned well.

“It’s a shame she didn’t have a story to tell.” Clara took a moment to catch her breath as Sam began to toss the bags into the well. “I think this one was in denial, doll, and that might be because the story was a dark one.”

The sorrow weighed on her as she helped him drop the bags down. “I got a sense of that, a sense she’s one who’ll be paying for her sins in this life in the next.”

“Screamed and cried herself into puking.”

“Trying to rid herself of the fear of the punishment coming. Reap and sow, Sam. Reap and sow.” She started to lift the bag of lye from the second barrow.

“Don’t you go lifting that, babe. That’s man’s work.”

She stepped back with a sigh as he laid the bag on the lip of the well, trying to block the lye from the wind as he poured it down the hole.

Some of it flew up and away, and Clara saw it as a symbol of souls escaping the dark, or rushing into it.

“I don’t think she’s at peace yet, but we helped her take a step toward finding it.”

Sam tossed the empty bag of lye into the well, and together they covered it again.

“God forgives,” she said, “and in time God will forgive His daughter Lori Preston.” She rose, stretched her back. “How about we go wash up, then have some of those cookies I made this afternoon?”

Together, always together, they wheeled the barrows away.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

It was a few days before O’Hara sent her the file on Lori Preston. She took some heart from the fact he and the other leads not only coordinated now but had cleared her to consult.

A late March blizzard dumped fourteen fresh inches, and she thought of the crocus she’d seen. Buried now, but it would show its blooms again.

She hoped the late-season storm would slow whatever plans those who stole lives had for the next.

There would be a next.

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