Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 81831 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 409(@200wpm)___ 327(@250wpm)___ 273(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81831 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 409(@200wpm)___ 327(@250wpm)___ 273(@300wpm)
“You forgot,” I echo, pretty sure she’s lying.
“Yeah,” she says, avoiding eye contact. “I’ll be back. Send me lucky vibes.”
“Okay,” I say, though I’m not sure what constitutes “luck” in this case. Are we lucky if she finds something and we have confirmation that we were both visited by the ghost of a murdered child? Or are we lucky if her digging doesn’t bear fruit and there’s no explanation for our eerily similar dreams? “Be safe. And take your cell. Just in case you need to call for help.”
“I’ll be fine.” She shrugs into her coat and flashes a shaky smile. “See you in a little while.”
After she’s gone, I busy myself folding up my bedding, which takes forever with one arm, as does almost everything else in my new life. Then, I head into the kitchen to wash up the strawberries, so they’ll be ready when Chase wakes up. I make coffee, eat a banana, and am considering looking for some cartoons on the television to embrace my inner child, when Mel slams back in the door.
I look up from the kitchen island, where I’ve been scrolling through the morning’s headlines. “Hey. How’d it go?”
She leans back against the door, still breathing faster. Her face is as white as the ghost in my dreams. Finally, she nods, a quick, tight nod that makes my stomach drop.
“Fuck,” I mutter.
She nods again and swallows, shrugging out of her coat. “I couldn’t believe it at first, but there it was. A f-finger bone. Just an inch down. It’s totally feasible an animal could have found it.”
I sigh. “So, we say he was digging around yesterday, it bothered us all night, and you went to check it out this morning?”
“Yeah,” she says, rubbing her hands together. “I’ll say I listen to too much true crime while I’m cooking, and it warped my brain. Which is true.”
“Okay. Do you want me to call 911?”
She shakes her head. “No, I’ll do it.” She pulls in a bracing breath, her brow furrowing as she crosses the room. “But if you want to stand close and rub my back while I do it, that would be great. I don’t know why, but I’m not my usual tough girl self, right now.”
“You just dug up a body.” I draw close, rubbing what I hope is a soothing palm between her shoulders. “A child’s body.”
Her tongue slips out to dampen her lips. “Yeah, but she’s been gone a long time. Probably over a hundred years. I’m not the best with historical clothing, but her dress looked like it was from the late 1800s. Maybe 1910 at the latest.”
“It doesn’t matter. A kid is a kid. And a murder is a murder. But maybe this is a good thing. Maybe she can finally be at peace now that her body’s been found.”
Mel leans against me. “I hope so. And I hope they can get enough evidence from her skeleton to prove her stepfather did it. That fucker needs to pay.”
“Agreed.” I stay close as she calls the Bad Dog PD and quickly explains the situation.
I’m sure the stepfather is dead by now, too, but he deserves to have whatever legacy he left behind destroyed for what he did. If I’m lucky enough to be a stepfather someday, if the woman I love trusts me with her child, I would go above and beyond to make sure that kid felt loved and safe. The fact that this monster poisoned a little girl because he didn’t want to raise another man’s child, or whatever his issue was, makes me physically ill.
But not so ill that the sausage, onions, and peppers Mel puts on to sauté after hanging up with the police don’t make my stomach growl…
“Damn, those smell good,” I say, taking another sip of my coffee.
She smiles. “A man after my own heart. Stress makes me hungry, too. And grief. You should see me eat my feelings after a funeral.”
“I’d rather not,” I say. “No funerals. No sad things. No more bad news. Once this is sorted out, it’s going to be smooth sailing from now on.” She doesn’t answer, her focus remaining fixed on the pan in front of her. “Right, Freckles?”
“I was going to end it. Us. Whatever we’re doing,” she whispers. “When I went to sleep last night, I had it all worked out.”
“But then we had the same creepy dream and you realized this is destiny?” I ask, the joke falling flat when Mel turns to face me, tears in her eyes. I go to her, cupping her cheek. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make light of this. Any of it.”
Her throat works as she pulls in a bracing breath. “No, it wasn’t the dream. It was because I came out and saw you sleeping and I…” She swallows. “I couldn’t imagine not seeing you sleep again. Not hearing your voice. Not knowing what you think and feel about…everything. I have feelings for you, too, Aaron. Big feelings. But I don’t know how this works. You and me. Not in the real world.”