Page 86 of Eldritch

“I don’t want to hear you. Don’t want to feel you. Do you hear me?”

Chapter Fifteen

“I’m sorry, Miss Alderan, but no one can come out and look at your van or the tracker today,” the law enforcement officer said over the phone.

She’d asked for the female sheriff’s deputy that had helped her before, but the person who answered the phone had told her Deputy Alyssa Annapolis wouldn’t be available.

“We have the tracker in a baggy here at the house. Maybe we shouldn’t have touched it, but...” She drifted off.

“It’s all right.” The man cleared his throat. “So, you’re buddies with Douglas MacKenzie?”

“Yes.”

“Ah, okay. He knows what he’s doing. We’ll get someone out there when we aren’t up to our ears with this storm. It’s letting up, but we’ve got a lot of traffic accidents. We’re stretched thin. My advice is to watch your back. I’ve got your information here, and I’ll check into this Taggert guy when I can.”

She smiled, pleased with the fact that this sheriff’s deputy hadn’t blown her off.

Later that day, she worked in the cellar with the other ladies, but she discovered no other evidence that last night had been more than a dream. The tracks she had seen in her dream were absent from the basement. Telling the other women any of it seemed risky. They’d already settled into this routine of cleaning the cellar, and she didn’t want to spook anyone. They’d finished up in the cellar for that evening when the doorbell rang.

“Sybil and Doug, sittin’ in a tree,” Pauline said as they all climbed the cellar stairs.

“K-i-s-s-i-n-g,” Letisha finished as they entered the Great Hall.

“Shut up,” Sybil said with a smile. “There is no kissing.”

Maria beamed. “Too bad.”

Sybil headed for the front door. She checked the peephole. Doug, bundled up for the wintery weather, waited at the entrance.

“Hey,” she said as she let him inside. “Can you come in for a few moments? I let time run away from me, and I’m not ready.”

He smiled. “Sure. I’ll hang out in Great Hall if that’s okay.”

They entered the Great Hall and Letisha sat near the fireplace, staring into the cold grate.

Letisha waved him over as Sybil ran upstairs. Sybil was down in record time, dressed in her winter outwear. She found Letisha and Doug having a conversation about the weather.

Sybil breathed in the frosty night air as she walked to Doug’s truck, barely hearing her footsteps through the powdery snow.

As she climbed into the passenger side of the truck, she said, “That air is so fresh. So much better than the air in that house.”

“It is kinda heavy in there, isn’t it?” He started the truck. “Is Letisha okay?”

She looked over at him, catching his calm but inquisitive expression before he drove the truck away from the house.

“Fine, I think. Why do you ask?”

He shrugged. “I dunno. Maybe it’s my imagination, but every time I talk to one of your co-workers they seem more morose. I’m getting a complex.”

“Complex?”

“Yeah. I wonder if it is me they don’t like.”

“They’ve been very complimentary about you. And...” Her face heated. “If you tell them this, I’ll deny it...but they think you’re hot. The name Thor was tossed around when they first met you.”

A booming laugh escaped him. “Wow. I don’t know if I should be flattered or not. Thor as in cartoon god?”

She waggled her eyebrows. “As in, better than Chris Hemsworth Thor.”

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