Page 9 of Midnight Between Us
It’s almost like the trees have agreed not to speak too loud.Like they know what’s here and want no part of it.I cross the ditch.Mud pulls at my shoes, thick enough to suck a person straight down if they don’t know how to navigate through it.A flashlight sweeps across the wreckage—metal crumpled like paper, the front end kissing a pine trunk.The driver’s side door hangs open, bent at an odd angle as if someone kicked it from the inside.
The car appears to have tried to blend into the forest and failed.
“Where’s the victim?”I ask, already dreading the answer.
A deputy gestures toward the back.“Trunk.We found him cuffed.We’re almost done opening it enough so we can get him out.”
I freeze.“Cuffed?”
“Zip-ties.Tape, too.Black sleeve over his head.Real fucked-up scene.”
Something tightens low in my gut.No part of this suggests an accident.This is staged.A goddamn message.Someone didn’t want him found—didn’t want him getting out at all.Okay, it’s not just Del’s mom.
What is going on in Birchwood Springs?
I move toward the trunk, feeling my palms grow hot and itchy, adrenaline licking up my spine.The taillights are dim but still glowing, like the car itself is bleeding out.Another officer is crouched, his flashlight trained on the inside.
He steps back when he sees me coming.
The body’s curled in on itself—bare chest smeared with blood, bruised, streaked with dirt and pine needles.One leg’s twisted the wrong way, bone straining beneath skin.His arms are marked up—bruises running from purple to almost bloody-black.A broken zip-tie dangles from one wrist.The tape near his mouth is barely hanging on.
“Is he alive?”I ask, because this body looks ready to head straight to the morgue.
“Yeah.Barely.He’s holding onto the last thread of his life.”
And his face ...God.
His face is a disaster.
Swollen, bloodied, almost beyond recognition.
Some poor?—
I stop.
Because when I really look past the wreckage and blood and what’s been broken, I see it.
I see him.
Which is insane because there’s no way it could be him.
No fucking way.
But that jaw is clenched even now.That mouth I kissed more times than I can count.The scar beneath his collarbone—the one I used to trace with my fingertip, back when life was different and hope was still around.Back when everything felt possible.
It’s him.
Keir.
Keir Timberbridge.
“What the fuck did you do?”I mumble under my breath while the ground sways.I grab the trunk just to stay upright, nails biting into the cold metal.
“Help me lift him out.”
“Doc, maybe we should wait?—”
Wait for what?For him to die?I don’t think so.“Help.Me.Lift him.”My voice comes out desperate, urgent.I can’t let him die.
