Page 12 of The Lost Bones
“I’ll get it back then?”
He nodded. “Tomorrow.”
“Anything else?”
He smiled. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“Nick!” she moaned. “Please.”
“They found muskrat fur on the rug. Don’t know what it means. Have sent it for further analysis.”
“Muskrat fur?”
“Yep. And Riverview sent over the tape they’d gotten from the bus station in Lakemore.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “We didn’t catch anything on it.”
“Can I take a look?”
Nick looked conflicted. “There’s nothing there. I need to talk to Austin again tomorrow. Not looking forward to that.”
Mackenzie felt deflated when he changed the topic. She picked at the torn hem of her jacket and watched Luna hop from one game to another. When she wanted to shoot balloons with a toy gun but was too short, she called for Nick to help her. Mackenzie watched them, that easy bond, that love and security that seeped down to the molecules, that tranquil happiness without any fluff or pretense. It was something she had lacked most of her life.
A strange thought crossed her mind. She imagined herself with Nick and Luna, and not just as a friend. As something more.
And for a moment, she felt like she was soaring.
She shook her head, snapping out of it.
Silly thoughts.
It was nothing. Just some meaningless fantasy as a result of being lonely. She wandered towards a patch of land outside the carnival, a few feet away from the dark woods. A gust of cold wind made her shiver, and she tightened her jacket around her. The sounds of the carnival were fainter here, and instead she could hear the rustling of the leaves ahead of her. She stared at the trees, lost in thoughts.
Then she noticed something.
A movement. Not from the wind.
She paused and blinked. It was dark. She squinted. A shadow was moving near the edge of the woods. Her feet carried her forward, her hand moving to the Glock tucked in the waistband of her jeans. She crept closer and closer, convinced that something—or someone—was there.
Just as she reached the edge, a woman stumbled forward and fell at her feet.
EIGHT
“Help me,” the woman breathed. Her eyes rolled back in their sockets and she sank further into the ground.
“Oh my God!” Mackenzie bent down and grabbed her frail arm. “Can you hear me?”
The woman was limp, her head lolling like it was detached from her shoulders. Her thin lips were parted as she tried sucking in air, and she made a sound in the back of her throat.
“Shit.” Mackenzie called 911 and relayed her badge number, requesting an ambulance. While she talked to the operator, the woman’s eyes gained focus for a few seconds. Then they closed and she passed out.
Mackenzie checked her pulse. It was there, but faint. The woman was bony and small, wearing a tattered white dress. Dirt was tangled in her short black hair cut in a pixie cut. Her skin was covered in bruises and scrapes, some fresh and some old.
“Mack!” Nick called out. As he approached, he saw the woman in her arms and instructed Luna to stay at a distance. “What the hell is going on?”
“I don’t know. She just came out of the woods and passed out.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Was she running from someone?”
“I couldn’t tell.” She followed his gaze to the dark woods. The moonlight was blotted out by thick clouds. The woods looked like a bottomless pit. Like the world was cut off at the threshold and there was oblivion beyond it.
