Page 53 of The Woman in the Hollow
Because when I’d scraped that last bit of dirt away, it had been eyes staring up at me. Open. Unblinking.Familiar.They were the same eyes I saw behind my lids each night when I tried to sleep.
Except, of course, they were no longer looking at me through the face of a freshly murdered body.
Oh, no.
This was a several-day-old corpse. The peachy skin was a mottled gray-green with darkened veins, clouded and sunken eyes, and a rounder, more bloated-looking face.
And, well, we weren’t going to talk about the insect activity.
Even just thinking it made me flip over onto all fours, dry heaving for several long, agonizing moments.
The scent was strong, drifting out of the makeshift grave on the breeze that started to kick up the leaves around me.
“Okay. Alright. Okay,” I murmured to myself, crawling a few more feet away, sure a little distance would help my stomach stop rolling.
This was what I thought I would find. There was no reason to be losing it like this.
My hands were sweating profusely, so I slipped off my gloves.
I sat back on my heels, trying to talk myself into turning around, pulling out my phone, and taking a picture.
Because what if cameras did see me? What if they came back and moved the body?
The cops would think I was crazy.
I needed proof.
Swallowing hard, I reached for my phone, unlocking it, then toggling over to my camera.
Then I turned, hoping that seeing the corpse through the lens might make it easier to detach myself from it.
As I raised my hand, I did catch a face.
But it wasn’t one belonging to the body on the ground.
No.
It was a man in the woods just a few yards behind him.
My heart lurched.
The sweat on my body turned to ice water.
Some voice in my head told me not to panic, that there were many reasons for someone to be in the woods. Hell, I took walks and hikes through the woods all the time. Granted, those were woods belonging to the state, not private property. But people did stuff like that all the time, didn’t they? Go where they didn’t belong?
That said, weren’t people usuallydressedfor an early morning walk or hike? In bright colors, with reflective gear? Not decked out all in black. Like a criminal.Like me.
But when people both randomly out for a stroll unexpectedly came across each other, they said something, they waved, they offered a pressed-lip smile.
This guy stared at me, dark eyes unreadable.
Some heightened animal instinct in me saw the way his muscles tensed just a second before he lunged.
And I ran.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Hazel
