Page 27 of Rescued Faith

The warmth of his hand helped ground her.

She couldn’t tell if it had been a few seconds or hours, but eventually her lungs cooperated and relaxed enough to get a full breath.

“That’s right. Take it nice and slow.” Bryce knelt in front of her, rubbing her arms, fighting off the chill that overtook her.

The spotty vision cleared. It wasn’t just Bryce with her. Tony and Olivia stood behind him, obvious concern in their gazes.

“Hey, girl, are you okay?” Olivia squatted down. She handed Penny a bottle of water.

Was she? Penny tried to open the cap, but her hand was too weak. Bryce opened it, even held the bottle to her lips. After a few sips, the fuzzy thoughts sharpened back into words.

“I’m sorry. I’m fine now. I just…spaced out or something.”

Bryce searched her face. “Is it the concussion? Do you feel like you’re going to black out?”

She shook her head. Slowly. “I don’t know. This has never happened before. But I’m okay now.” But something inside told her it wasn’t the head injury throwing her into a tailspin.

She started to stand. He was right there, gently pulling her to her feet but not letting go of her arms until she stepped away. Even then his brow furrowed.

“I’m fine, Bryce. I promise.”

Tony and Olivia stared too. “So, where were we?” she asked them. “We have investigating to do.”

“You wanna check out this storm cellar with me?” Tony asked.

Absolutely not. Her lungs seized again at the thought. She backed away. “How about I check another part of the house?”

“We already checked everything else,” Olivia said. “There’s nothing here. There’s evidence of boxes of some sort in that shed, dust patterns on the floor, but they’re gone now. We’ll wait for the lab guys to collect samples and see if they can find anything, but our initial sweep is almost done.”

“Okay if I poke around the main level?” Penny asked.

“Go for it.” Tony turned toward the cellar doors. “If this place is as empty as the rest of it, this won’t take us long. Tazwell, why don’t you come with me?”

Penny couldn’t watch as he and Olivia started down the stairs.

Bryce didn’t say anything, but he stuck close to her side as she walked to the back door that was still propped open. The kitchen was straight out of the eighties with almond-colored appliances and a dusty blue-and-pink wallpaper border. An old farmhouse table stood off to the side. The honey-oak cabinets were open, revealing bare shelves. They walked into the equally empty living room and followed the blue shag carpet down the hall to the bedrooms and bathroom. Nothing but an old bed in one room and a big table lamp on the floor in the other. So much for this lead.

Tony and Olivia found them as they walked back to the kitchen.

“Nothing in the storm cellar either, but like that shed, there had been something recently moved. The dust pattern suggests more boxes.” Olivia leaned against the counter.

“Guess this place is a bust.” Tony led them all back outside.

“They might find trace evidence we can use.” Olivia held the door open. Once Bryce and Penny walked through, she closed it up. “But for now, we’ll have to wait. I’ll go back to the station and start digging into Gomez and Hernandez more.”

“I’ll see what I can get from my sources too,” Penny said. She gave the storm cellar a wide berth as they passed it to walk around to the front of the house.

“Do you want me to drive?” Bryce asked as they approached her car.

He asked it so gently, not demanding or fussy, no implication that she couldn’t do it herself. Just a simple request. And as drained as her body was from whatever that had been on the back lawn and the beginning of what was sure to be a major headache, she couldn’t deny the relief of letting someone else take the wheel.

“Sure.” She dug the keys out of her pocket and handed them over.

Penny sank into her own passenger seat. A residue of unease she couldn’t shake still filled her. Bryce pulled out of the driveway and back onto the road.

She closed her eyes.

Suddenly, she was there. That horrible musty place. The cold floor seeping through her clothes and turning her bones to ice. The spiders. The smell.

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