Page 12 of Mountain Murder

Audrey shoved upright, every muscle in her body aching from her awkward position across the chairs. She scrubbed the sleep from her eyes. The clock on the wall across from her said she’d passed out about three hours ago. Someone should’ve told her about Lance already. “Yeah. I like gum.”

“You can have some of mine.” The girl’s thin face worked overtime to chew a piece she must’ve been working on for hours. Five years old—maybe six—if Audrey had to guess. There was an open curiosity and grace in the girl’s bright blue eyes as she unpocketed a pink container from her coat jacket and pulled a length of gum free. Offering it to Audrey, the girl clutched a stuffed animal. Something like a dragon mixed with a unicorn in an array of rainbow colors and faux fur. Blond hair tendrilled around the girl’s face.

“Thank you.” The words caught in her throat as her stomach growled at the prospect of something—anything—to eat. White and pink circus cookies didn’t count. She took a bite, brought back to the days when her grandmother would let her walk to the gas station down the road to get this exact type of gum. When the world wasn’t as scary as it was now.

“Penny Dwyer-Hudson, you know you’re not supposed to run away from me.” Heels echoed along the corridor as a woman with fire in her eyes targeted the girl. “Your mama is going to kill me dead if she finds out. Just before your daddy dances on my grave.”

Penny. The girl’s name was Penny. She tucked her gum back into her coat pocket, not the least bit shaken by the tornado of red hair and floral dress coming at her. “This lady needed gum.”

The woman—the girl’s caretaker?—lost a bit of that fury, her mouth thinning into a straight line as she crouched to meet Penny’s gaze. She brushed the girl’s hair back behind one ear. “That was very nice of you, but you’ve already given me a scare. Twice. You understand?”

“I know, Aunt Macie.” Penny hugged her dragon-unicorn closer, and a good chunk of brightness in her eyes dimmed. It was in that moment Audrey didn’t just see shame for running away, but a whole world of pain hiding beneath the surface. Something no five-year-old should’ve ever had to carry. “I won’t do it again.”

Recognition flared.

“Macie. You’re Battle Mountain PD’s dispatcher. Macie Barclay..” Audrey tried to brush the wrinkles from her t-shirt, but it was no use. Twenty-four hours of running off fumes, exhaustion, and hunger wasn’t pretty. No matter which way she sliced it. She pressed her palms into her thighs as she stood. “Have you heard anything about the man who was stabbed tonight?”

Macie hugged the girl into her side as she straightened. “You must be Audrey. Easton told me what happened out at the ranch. I’m sorry. I’ve just… My brain is still trying to catch up with everything that happened tonight.”

“Easton?” Confusion and a heavy dose of sleeplessness intensified the floating feeling in her body.

“Oh. Right. You all probably call him Ford out there. I call him a pain in the ass.” Macie offered a weak smile, as though they were close enough for Audrey to understand that joke. “Last I heard, the guy you came in with was out of surgery, but they had to keep him sedated. Something about him wanting to fight his physicians.”

“Lance. His name is Lance.” Her nerves caught fire. Audrey grabbed the coat she’d used as a pillow and crumpled it against her chest. Lance wouldn’t like to be stuck in one place. “No one would give me any information because I’m not family. Do you know where his room is?”

“They haven’t told you anything? Um, yeah. Penny and I can show you, can’t we, babe?” Macie interlaced her hand in Penny’s as the girl slid another full piece of gum into her mouth.

Within minutes, Macie and Penny led her to a perpendicular corridor with two Battle Mountain PD officers she hadn’t met before posted outside a single room.

Audrey lowered her voice as the five-year-old went ahead to offer the officers bright pink bubble gum. “Penny is the daughter of the two officers who were at Jake Dugan’s house, isn’t she?”

“Yeah. She is.” The dispatcher watched the trio with amusement.

“She was the little girl who was kidnapped a few months ago?” That explained the shutdown response she’d noted in Penny a few minutes before. Being taken from your home, your family, was possibly one of the most traumatizing events that could happen in a kid’s life. And it would stay with her forever.

“She’s strong,” Macie said. “Just like her mom.”

Audrey couldn’t help but absorb the joy on that little girl’s face as the officers accepted her offering. It was amazing, really. How the pain that’d taken over Battle Mountain had forged relationships she actually wished she’d had for herself. That connection to another human. Unbreakable and solid.

She approached the officers posted outside Lance’s room. Neither stopped her from entering, and she shoved inside. Never surer of her future than right then.

***

They’d had him sedated.

Lance fought through the haze of the drugs. His skin itched, and there was nothing he could do to douse the sensation. The last of the anesthesia burned through him, ticking his heart rate into dangerous territory. The incessant beep of the monitor beside his bed aggravated every sense he owned.

The door groaned on its hinges.

He couldn’t see past the sheet surrounding his bed. Lance pulled against the drug’s effects holding him prisoner.

“Lance?” That voice. He knew that voice. It drove through frenzy of survival and injected a measure of calm. Audrey ripped the curtain back on its track. She was here. “Hi.”

She closed the distance between them. “I’m so sorry. I would’ve been here sooner, but nobody would tell me anything. They wouldn’t even tell me where you were.”

He encircled her in his arms the second she got close enough. As though not touching her would finish what the killer had started. Hints of sweat and dirt overwhelmed the chemical scent of bleach and antiseptic. The combination wasn’t the best thing he’d ever smelled, but it told him she’d stayed all this time. Waited for him. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“Me, too.” Audrey tucked her face into his shoulder. “I should’ve stayed in the truck.”

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