Page 131 of Evil Bones
“The cat. Describe him.”
“He’s all white,” I shouted. “And should be looking guilty as hell.”
Hall gave yet another double thumbs-up.
The woman must have liked doing that.
I’m not an alarmist. But by late afternoon I was growing concerned.
Ryan hadn’t returned.
Katy hadn’t heard from Ruthie. She’d phoned Meloy but only gotten voice mail and left a message.
No cat.
I tried calling the two who were carrying phones.
Neither answered.
Though the temperature had risen into the midnineties, I decided to go out for another brief hunt for Birdie.
I’d done a quick spin around the property and was rounding my neighbor’s hedge, hot, sweaty, and peeved as hell, when footsteps sounded behind me.
As I turned, I felt something sting my left arm.
A moment of dizziness.
Then the world went black.
CHAPTER 30
I awakened to total darkness.
A foul odor.
A wet, gritty hardness beneath me.
My frontal lobe throbbed.
My rib cage screamed.
Had I suffered a concussion? A skull or rib fracture?
Was I badly hurt?
I tried lifting my head.
Lightning forked across both retinas.
Queasiness roiled in my chest and bile flooded my mouth.
I swallowed.
The nausea refused to back down.
I swallowed again, mentally ordering my gut to settle. After a few moments I felt a wave of relief that seemed less than fully committed.
Inching trembling fingers up to my face, I felt the edge of a blindfold. Warm dampness on my right temple and cheek.
