Page 126 of Evil Bones
The same pair of strong hands gripped me under my pits. One minor stumble, and I was upright. Seconds later we were trudging uphill, me brushing dirt and grass from my belly and butt, Ryan arm-draping my back for support.
Once inside the Annex, I phoned Katy. She’d had no word from Ruthie.
“I’m going to call it a night,” she said with an exasperated, perhaps exhausted, sigh.
“Oh?”
“Before Ruthie came to Charlotte her dad warned me that she’d pulled this kind of shit before.”
“Taking off without leaving word?”
“Yes.”
“Not cool.”
“Not cool at all,” she agreed.
“Now what?”
“I’m out of ideas.”
What could I say? While it may have been wishful thinking—a part of me didn’t dare contemplate otherwise—I assured Katy that all would be well and promised to take action in the morning if Ruthie hadn’t appeared. Wanting no fuss, I didn’t mention my tumble.
Then I hurried upstairs to shower. Insisting that I leave the door ajar, Ryan stripped to his jockeys, got into bed, and clicked on the TV.
While the hot water pounded my body and stung my abraded elbows and knees, and the muted sound of baseball play-by-play rose and fell in the next room, I ran through the incident again and again.
What the hell had just happened?
Had I simply face-planted?
That seemed unlikely. I’d been proceeding very carefully, aware of the slope.
Had I tripped, as Ryan suggested?
Again, unlikely. I’d scanned the ground as he and I returned to the Annex. Seen nothing larger than a twig.
I recalled the sense of a sudden spasm in my lower back.
A muscle cramp?
A thrust?
Was it possible I’d been pushed?
If so, by whom?
If I’d been pushed, had it been random, a case of my being in the wrong place at the wrong time? Had I crossed paths with an intruder? With a kid caught doing something he shouldn’t? With a startled animal?
A gut-clenching alternative capered into the mix. One that had arisen cold and ugly as I lay on the ground.
Might the doer be the creep nailing decorated corpses to trees?Might this sicko be so incensed at the disruption I’d caused to his hobby that he’d kidnapped my niece?
Realizing such musings were pointless, I turned off the spigot, got out, and wrapped myself in a towel. Minutes later, hair de-tangled, face moisturized, teeth brushed, I joined Ryan in bed.
“You good?” he asked, face crimped with concern.
“Just a banged knee,” I said.
