Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 103665 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 518(@200wpm)___ 415(@250wpm)___ 346(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103665 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 518(@200wpm)___ 415(@250wpm)___ 346(@300wpm)
He raised both hands, palms up. Bruised knuckles, fresh cuts, skin split at the base of the thumb. “I’m good for more than you think. Do you need my help?”
She sighed. “Seriously? What is it with you Osprey brothers taking over and wanting to help? If Christian helps Amka any longer, it’s going to be right into his bed.”
Ace coughed. “Huh?”
She rolled her spectacular blue eyes. With that blonde hair, she looked more like a sexy cheerleader than an accomplished doctor. Her gaze hit his hands. “Don’t worry about it right now. Your knuckles are bruised. Do you want ice?”
“No.”
She cleaned a different gash without another word.
He watched her. Every step. Every breath. She was listening for something. Every time the building creaked, she flinched just slightly. She didn’t know she was doing it.
Someone or something had her spooked.
And here he was—wounded, useless, and sitting in her light like a stray dog who knew the vet wouldn’t turn him away. He liked the pain and not just because he deserved it. Because pain got her in the room with him. That made him the worst kind of a selfish bastard.
She moved to another cut near his ear. Her hand brushed his jaw. He knew she could feel the bruise there. “You should’ve iced this,” she said.
“I wasn’t aiming to fix anything. Just didn’t want to stitch my own face.”
“You don’t need stitches. These strips will do the trick.” Her breath was shallow. Her eyes kept flicking to the window.
He couldn’t take it anymore. “May.”
“What?”
“You scared of something?”
She didn’t answer right away and just tied off the thread, cut it, and dropped the needle into the tray like she was trying to hurt the metal. “That’s the thing,” she said finally. “I don’t get to be scared. I have to fix people. Patch them up. Get them back out there.”
He let that sit a second. “Even so, I’m happy to help.”
Her eyes, when she met his, were a carnelian blue in the soft light. “You can’t even help yourself, Ace Osprey.”
Ouch. But that didn’t mean she was wrong. “Maybe I’ve just been waiting for the right motivation, Doc.”
The flash of alarm in her expression settled through him and landed hard. Yeah. That.
Mud clung to Christian’s boots like it had teeth. Each step squelched, slow and loud in the soaked undergrowth. Rain came down steady now in a relentless drizzle. Needle-fine and cold enough to sting where it touched skin.
Dutch stood ahead with his arms crossed, jaw tight, hat dripping. The beam from his flashlight cut a white path through the dark. Just off the trail, two kids stood by their four-wheelers—Ty Weaver and Kyle Denton. Juniors from the high school. Christian had seen them around school events, mostly grinning like idiots. Tonight, they weren’t smiling.
Ty’s face was blotchy and pale. Kyle wouldn’t take his eyes off the tree line.
“They touch anything?” Christian asked.
“No,” Dutch said. “They had the sense to call right away and sat tight until I got here. But they’re spooked.”
Christian scanned the area. “Can’t blame them.” He stepped into the clearing. “Why did they call you and not Brock?”
Dutch rolled his neck, looking down the river. “Kyle wants to be an AWT, so we get together whenever I’m in town to play chess. He has my number on his phone, so he called me. I guess we can call in Brock if you want.”
Why wake him up? Christian angled his head to see better. The body was sprawled wrong, like it had fallen from a height or been dropped. Limbs twisted. One hand buried in the mud like it had tried to dig its way down. The man’s shirt was torn open.
Christian crouched. Dutch’s flashlight beam caught the face, and Christian went still. The eyes were gone. Not just closed. Not swollen. Gone. Hollow sockets stared back at him, dark and ragged at the edges. “Jesus,” he muttered.
Dutch stepped up beside him, mouth a hard line. “Told you.”
Blood streaked across the man's face, dried now except where the rain had diluted it into something slick and ruddy. His mouth was open like he’d been screaming. Christian didn’t want to imagine what it sounded like. He stood and backed off a few paces. “No animal did that.”
“No.” Dutch said quietly. “We’d see prints. Scat. Tracks going in or out. This was a human.”
“Someone who took their time,” Christian said. He turned toward the boys. “Ty. Kyle. Either of you recognize the victim?”
Both shook their heads fast. Ty looked like he might puke.
“He just…he was just there,” Kyle said. “We thought it was a tarp at first. I went closer. Then I saw his shirt. And…his face.”
Ty wiped his nose on his sleeve. “Why would somebody take his eyes?”
“I don’t know.” Christian turned back toward the body. The trees pressed in on all sides—thick, dripping, watching. Somewhere out there, someone had done this with their own hands. Not from a distance. Up close. Personal.