A/N:
Once again, thank you so much for reading. And, as always, your reviews are welcomed! I enjoy hearing from you, thanks again!
Chapter 19:
It was close to midnight by the time Sara got on scene out in the middle of the desert. Lights had been set up so they could canvas the truck, ground, and surrounding area. Only one local deputy's car was on site, along with Catherine, who was snapping pictures and processing tire threads when she arrived. Zipping up her jacket, she headed over to where Catherine was standing a good distance away from the truck at an intersection for a dirt road off the main highway.
Seeing her approaching, Catherine explained, "Tire tracks indicate that another vehicle pulled up alongside the box truck and then crossed the highway and continued along Sun Valley Road. From the wheelbase being 19 and a half feet, and the width about seven, my guess is a pickup truck."
As Catherine spoke the words, another vehicle pulled up alongside the road and she watched as Detective Sofia Curtis got out of the detective's car. She neared them but stopped just outside of the crime scene tape, she was looking over the perimeter as a former CSI would. "I've been reassigned by Captain Brass to assist."
Sara turned her attention back to Catherine and asked, "Seems like you have everything covered." She wasn't trying to get off the case, she was just worried about Gil. He hadn't called, and when she tried to call him, it went to voicemail.
"Still could use the help, and another set of eyes. I was about to follow the tire tracks as far as we can, maybe they'll lead us to the pickup. Ready for a hike?"
Pulling the flashlight out of her jacket pocket, she clicked it on. "At least it's sixty degrees instead of a hundred." And that forty-degree drop was why they needed their jackets. Record low in the desert in August was the low forties. The temp was still dropping.
While Deputy Grant stayed with the scene and CSI SUV, following along very slowly in the detective's car behind them was Sofia. As they walked, scanning their lights over the dirty ground, the vast nothingness of the desert, Sara couldn't stop her mind from thinking and heart from feeling. Both were aching with a fear that had been growing ever since this case started, but the seeds for that fear had been planted long ago. With her parents, with her past boyfriends, with Hank. Fear that she was just not good enough and wasn't worth it.
She tried not to feel it creep inside her and settle the way it had, but it didn't help that Gil dismissed her to go be with Heather. Granted, he said it was to get her statement, and she was his friend, but they also had a previous relationship. Though she had no idea what it consisted of, she could guess. Doubt had always plagued her. Self-doubt, in herself and her ability to keep a man happy. To keep him devoted to her.
She always thought that if a guy wanted to be with her then he would make the time and effort, and have the patience, for her. She wasn't one to jump into bed on the first date. She had to know the man's mind first, his heart, before wanting to have sex. Then after being dejected a few times with guys with no patience, she started to doubt herself. Thinking that in order to keep a guy around long enough to get to know him then she had to go ahead and put out before felt comfortable.That led to her being handed the wrong pair of underwear by the guy in college. Not making that mistake again, and feeling incredibly bad about herself, she told herself never again. If she didn't trust a guy, didn't respect him, or didn't love him, then she wouldn't have sex with him.
All her dates after that decision lasted two to four dates before the guy realized she wasn't kidding. She wanted time to get to know who they were.Then Gil came along, though he didn't know it at the time, but she was stricken head over heels for the guy upon their first meeting. Something inside of her just knew he was the one. And then her patience for him was put to the ultimate test. Emotionally unavailable; check. Married to the job; check. Unattainable? She had thought so. Habitual dater who would never commit out of his own inability to make the time and effort for anyone outside of the job.
She had thought he'd never be ready, never take the chance to open himself up to anyone. Then her thoughts were confirmed during an interrogation of Dr. Vincent Lurie. He said he couldn't do it. He couldn't risk his career for anyone, not even someone like her. Someone he could love.She wasn't worth it. She wasn't worth the risk, but also the time, the effort, or his heart and trust. She just wasn't worth it. And those words settled inside and grew right alongside her own sense of worthlessness and all her doubts of being good enough, and the next thing she knew she was drinking a little too much.
Every conversation with Gil afterwards was tainted by bitterness in order to distance him from her. She wanted to hate him. His decision to give Nick the promotion over her became stupid.It hadn't been stupid. He actually had a very good reason. One she would have understood if she hadn't been so bitter. This was her problem. Gil was right, in a way. She did allow her heart to blind her mind at times. In some ways it could be a good thing, in others not so much.
All that started to change when he did take the risk. He'd been proving to her over the last six months that she was wrong. She was good enough, and worth it, and he made her happy. At least, she thought so up until tonight when he completely shut himself down after she'd told him not to do that. She hadn't just meant at that moment in his house, but anytime.
She wanted to yell at him again in his office but held back. She couldn't get into it with him at work because they both agreed not to talk about their relationship or any personal problems at work. There had been times when during a case something brought up the subject matter, and they made some comments, but never a full-blown argument or conversation. He was still her supervisor, and she was still his subordinate, and they had a job to do. They had rules to follow, and ethical matters to consider. They had to be careful, which she completely understood as she didn't' want her personal life broadcasted all over the lab either. She agreed with him that it should be private.
Just, why Heather?
"How's it going with Grissom?" Catherine's words caught her off guard as she looked over at the other woman. Does she know? Upon catching her look, she said, "Brass let it slip." When she didn't say anything, just went back to following the tire tracks with her flashlight, Catherine continued saying, "It's just I'm surprised. Not that he's with you, but with anyone, really. You know he's emotionally unavailable, right?"
"We're fine, Catherine, thanks for asking."
"All I'm saying is, be careful. You know who he is and how he can be. He's Grissom. There will be times when you need him, or he'll need you, but he won't say anything or act on it. He'll keep himself closed off, even when he's drowning."
"He makes the effort."
"That's good. It means he wants it to work. Just, don't expect him to change."
"I'm not trying to change him."
"Good. I've always heard that if you find the right person, and that you really love them, you wouldn't want them to. Never happened to me. Even though I loved Eddie, and we had some good times, I wanted something from him that he had no idea how to give me and there was nothing I could do to change him in order to get it. He was who he was, and still decided to marry him."
"Catherine, I'm really not the uh, girl bonding type," she finally said as she looked back over at her. There was not where to go to get away from this conversation. They were out in the middle of nowhere.
"I know you're not, but we all need a friend, Sara. I'm sure Grissom has someone that he talks to when he thinks he can't talk to you."
"Who? You? Brass?"
"No," she said as she huffed out a laugh. "I have to pry things out of him the same way I have to pry him to lift his head up out of his work once in a while. Gently coaxing him and then guilt trip him into spilling something personal or meaningful. I have to wear him down until he says something just to get me off his back. Maybe you should ask Sofia, he did take her to dinner once." Sara stopped walking as she shined the light into Catherine's face. She held up her hand as she said, "Hey, light awareness! Watch where you aim that thing."
Sara dropped the light back to the ground as she started walking. "He did?"
"I thought you knew."
"Why would I? I'm just his girlfriend." She didn't say anything else the rest of the walk as the anger and bitterness once again filled her chest and crept into her heart. Damn it.
After nearly fifteen minutes of walking, they came upon another dirt road that led up into the hills and mountains. The tire tracks veered off toward the mountains. They both stopped, shined their lights up along the long, winding road, and sighed.
Sara was the first to say it. "We're not walking through the mountains."
"No, but we can drive. We'll do a canvas, see if we can find anything. Not much else we can do. But there is one thing we do know."
Sara gave a nod. "Yeah. They didn't leave the state."
"You two need a lift?"
She turned and saw Sofia hanging out of the driver's side window of the detective's car.
Catherine made the command decision for them as she said, "Sure. I've got seniority, so shotgun," she told Sara as she headed to the front passenger door.
Sara eyed the car, the woman in the driver's seat, and said, "I'm good. You two can go ahead while I walk back to the SUV, follow you." Catherine went to protest when she said, "I'll be fine."
"It's a fifteen-minute walk, alone—"
"We've walked this far. I can hoof it back. I did run the last 5k marathon in under 25 minutes. This is a cakewalk—"
"It doesn't matter. It's dangerous and as supervisor—"
"It's the job," she countered before she started walking.
Catherine was getting out of the car as she said, "Then it should be my job—"
"I'll be right behind you before you know it," she said before she started to jog back to the SUV, not giving Catherine time to say or do anything else about it.
"Sara!" Catherine called after her; she ignored it.
The Ford pickup truck carrying the unconscious body of Graham's son had been gone for hours now. During that time, he had made himself comfortable on his perch on the mountain a good distance away from the abandoned box truck along the side of the highway, only a few yards east of California. He was good at waiting, watching, and thinking. He could sit still for hours whether in the desert heat, in the freezing cold of Lithuania, or in the solitude of a prison cell.
He could visualize every move he had to make as well as every move they would make. He'd put the pieces into play now it was their turn to come to him. The State Trooper, the deputy, the detective and then the CSI's. All scattering around below him like little piggies being led to the slaughter. His fingers itched to tickle one to see how it squealed.
Through the binoculars, he saw Will Grissom arrive, or should it be Gil Graham? It didn't matter because Will no longer mattered. The CSI was no longer interesting, having been castrated a long time ago by not only his hand but by the hand of Dolarhyde and that insufferable cockatoo that he'd been married to. He considered it a bird because that was what it'd been as it followed Graham's movements, demanding his attention, and letting him man-handle it before flying away. Abandoning him, while destining him to be alone in his misery.
Even the Sheriff thought Will was no longer valuable as he drove him away from the crime scene, leaving behind that rouge. That Willows woman was nothing more than powder under strawberry blond hair; an aesthetic that was used to try to make the tired skin under it more appealing. Grotesque.
He lowered the binoculars and waited. In his mind a dream of rolling hills, a river, stone walkway, and on the breeze the scent of trees: linden, hornbeam and copper beech. On his lips, the mouthwatering smokey taste of spices from a bottle of Château Font-Merlet along with the savory taste of sweet lavender in his mouth. The days filled with the joys of his youth: reading, tending to the flowers, dreaming the clouds, while the nights spent in the joys of his later years: the passionate screams of his companion and the blissful slumber that followed.
Opening his eyes, the sun had completely set, the moon was high in the sky, and under him, where they all were, he saw her. Was anybody paying any attention to him? If they were, then they would know that he didn't want Kevin Collins. The FBI agent was just a distraction. A wild goose chase to kill two birdies by the use of one temperamental curiosity.
He could imagine in his mind the same way Graham could imagine in the conversation they could have had that brought them together. A conversation filled with distrust but cloaked in love.
Gil and Sara at Sara's apartment. He'd been drinking, working on the case. Inside angry with her but more with himself for having trusted her. Loved her. Fucked her. Her words, though considerate, worrisome, tainted by a heart tramped on before. No matter the world, she'd always feel poisoned from the lies.
"Are you really upset with me for having your back?"
"I'm not upset with you for having my back," Will would have said, though a lie he would have made it sound like the truth. "Compromising yourself—" he would have tried to reason. His logic always getting in the way of his heart.
Shaking her head, she said something like, "I wasn't compromising anything. Even if I were, I'd gladly risk it all if it means helping you. That's what people do in relationships—"
"I understand that Sara, I do. I just don't want to bring you down when it can be avoided. One of us has to stay on the case. I'm already off it due to a conflict of interest. Lecter has my son. When I tell you to back off, I need you to back off."
Sara, questioning him and herself, would have expressed her concerns by saying, "What you said was that you couldn't risk it, meaning your career, for me. What I heard was that…I wasn't worth it. I'm not worth the risk. I'm worried that one day you will realize that you're right. Who am I? What gives me the right to think that I'm so important to you that you should risk everything, including your career, to be with me when you can go be with someone who doesn't jeopardize—"
"Sara, stop right there…Is this because I went to see Heather in the hospital?" Of course, it was, dear Will. Were you not still holding an unlit torch for the lady? It may not have been burning, it you still have it in your hand. Why do you entrust yourself with Lady Heather, and not with the bloom of your own dreams and desire?
"This is more than that, Gil. You don't exactly instill confidence when you shut me down only to go and open yourself up to someone else."
"I'm not going to open myself up to Heather. She was a victim of Lecter's, and she has information that we need." Oh, blind man, you are. Sara was doubting them because he was doubting them. Will would blame him of course. It was his fault, wasn't it? The evil monster got into his head again, making him fear things that were already beating in his heart and darkening his mind long before Miss Sidle light up his dream world. Sara already had self-worth issues, and the distance Will put between only made it worse.
Shut her out, Will, run away. That's what you're good at, he thought as the stared up at the moon high in the night sky over the cold desert. It would drive her anger, her jealousy, and make her run right into his arms. Oh, he was certain Will would have said all the things he never did if he could have saved her. turn back time, if only in his mind, to that place where he drove her away, just as he told him that he would do. He could see it now.
Closing the distance between them, Will pulled her into a hug a passionate kiss, before he told, "I never meant to put that doubt inside you. Sara…" Quote something, he thought, tell her what she means to you. He would have told her…"I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where, I love you directly without problems or pride: I love you like this because I don't know any other way to love—…I never thought you weren't worth it, I was just always too afraid to hand my heart over to someone else. I've been burned once before—"
"I know. We both have. I'm sorry."
"Don't apologize. I was wrong."
Sentimental gibberish that meant nothing in the end because the object of Will's affection was right in front of him. No, Hannibal Lecter never wanted the son. He wanted Sara Sidle.
Getting into the hospital, Gil turned his phone off as he didn't want any distractions. He came there for several reasons, one of which was to check up on his friend. Though he wasn't sure how Heather would view their current relationship, for him she was and would always be his friend. There weren't too many people who knew him, or who he let know him, and she was one of them. In fact, she'd told that knowing him was the one sin that she had committed.
He felt those words twist up inside him as he got off the elevator onto the fifth floor where not too long-ago Hannibal Lecter had been, taunting him with that very thing. His fear of people knowing him. It wasn't just them knowing who he was before, as Will Graham, but in general. Someone getting to know him meant that he trusted them enough to get inside. Inside was where he was left vulnerable, it was where he entrapped his heart, and they could easily put a knife through it if he let them.
Heather hadn't been the one to stab him. It was the opposite of what he'd feared. He had stabbed hers. Without evidence, he accused her of murder and then held it so firmly that he shut himself off to her completely. Then he was proven wrong. She was innocent, his accusation unjust and his dismissal of her completely uncalled for.
She told him that an apology was just words, and she was right. They were just words and meant nothing if not backed by proof, much like a theory. She hadn't forgiven him, and he never demanded it from her. He simply let her go. Now she was a victim, lying in a hospital bed, because of him.
As he sat down beside her, he felt like taking her hand just to reassure her that he was there. She had a friend by her side. The only friend by her side as the room was empty with no flowers or get-well cards. He wondered if no one sent flowers or words of sympathy because they knew she wouldn't want them or if no one cared too much to consider it. That realization hurt him just as much as seeing her lying there with blood tainted bandages over her body.
Did Heather have anyone, aside from him, who cared? Who would miss her if she was gone? He had no idea.
She hadn't moved yet, and he wondered if she was put back under, as he sat there and waited. In his mind, he remembered a conversation they had right before he decided to see what would happen if he let her know him.
"So, this is work?" she asked.
"Yes. But I value your insight."
Lady Heather smiled. "I'm flattered. But you already seem to know the answers to your questions. You keep me in proximity when I walk away and when I'm close…you watch my lips. Are you losing your hearing?"
Her perception, her mind, kept impressing him. He wondered about her heart as he said, "I'm losing my balance."
"Your sense of self?"
"No. I know who I am."
"Do you?" she questioned him as he reached out to her.
"Yes, I do."
But did he? Not knowing if she was awake or not, due to the bandages over her eyes, he started talking anyway. "During our second meeting you questioned me about my sense of self. I told you that I knew who I was. Then you said—"
"Do you?" her soft voice asked into the room.
He nearly smiled. She was awake. "It wasn't a flirtatious question. You meant it. You saw something that made you question my answer."
She was silent for a moment; he could tell she was thinking about her answer. "I could tell that you were used to hiding. I told you that you fear being known. It's why I scared you. The moment you turned your heart off to me, you stopped being afraid of me. Does she scare you?"
He was surprised by the question, because he hadn't told her that he and Sara were together. He also wondered how she knew that he'd been surprised without seeing his face.
"Don't be too surprised," she said. "Before Hannibal Lecter sliced off my eyelids, I used to see people very well. Better than you."
"I have no doubt." He wasn't going to answer, but then decided to tell the truth. The truth that he'd also told Hannibal when he'd also been deflecting. "She terrifies me."
"You love her."
He gave a nod, and despite not speaking the words, Heather knew his answer already. "I'm not here to talk about my relationship. I'm here to talk about what happened to you."
"Then how does understanding yourself have to do with what happened to me? You didn't do this."
"No, but I'm responsible. I ran away from something I could have dealt with years ago. It caught up with me here."
"I'm sure you had a good reason not to," she said, trying to make him feel better. It didn't work. "You've never struck me as a man who runs from a fight. True, you avoid confrontation, but not because you're a coward. It's because you know you can seriously hurt someone; including yourself."
She was right, and the fact she had been right startled him. Confrontation was a flaw of his. He either walked right into it unwittingly or he got angry enough to start it. Normally, when he started it, it was because he made it personal. There were times he knew exactly why, or times…he had no idea. But he always tried to end them before it went too far. Before he broke something, or got violent, or, in extreme cases, had to kill someone. Then the aftermath, depending on how far it had gone, left him just as broken. Fragmented on the inside and out.
He never wanted to get to that place again. Then Hannibal Lecter showed back up and he forgot who he was for a moment. Conrad Ecklie hadn't helped. He was Grissom, and Grissom wasn't supposed to get temperamental. He wasn't supposed to slap coffee pots out of people's hands or push them into walls. Grissom was supposed to think before he acted. Shut his anger down before it took over.
Quite frankly, he scared himself at times. He had to get himself back to being Grissom, get Graham out of his head, and the only way he could do that was to shut down. So, that had been what he'd done. Sara, unwittingly, took the blunt of it. He saw it on her face the moment it happened while they were in his office. Sara suddenly doubted them because he had doubted them. Lecter had gotten into his head, making him feel the fear of his love for her, and the distance he put between them only made it worse. In trying to block out the turbulent unpredictability of his emotions, his anger, he had blocked Sara off as well.
Apologies were just words. He was going to have to show her, like she'd demanded from him that last time, what he truly felt inside. Show her how sorry he was. But it was going to have to wait. Right then, he had a job to do.
Clearing his throat, he asked Heather, "Have you heard of the Bonnie and Clyde Syndrome?"
Heather almost smiled, despite the pain and personal hell she was in. "Hybristophilia."
"A paraphilia involving sexual attraction to someone who commits crimes, horrendous acts of violence, even murder."
Heather stiffened as she shifted in the bed, rolling onto her right side to face him. Her face was tense as she told him, "There was a woman there in the room with him."
"Her name's Clarice Starling."
"He called her Mischa."
He wasn't too surprised but that did confirm a theory he had developed about Lecter's perceived relation to her. Lecter was psychotic, after all, and delusional to think that he could make Starling into his sister. "Did you get the sense that she was there willingly, that she was attracted to him sexually for what he was doing?"
Heather was taking her time in giving him answers. He wasn't sure if it was due to her state of being right then, or her reliving the horrendous act of violence against herself, or if she wasn't sure. She had been under a lot of stress, pain, and torture.
"I'm fine, Grissom." How…? "You care about me…I'm a dominatrix, but also submissive. I can handle pain."
"That's not the same thing."
"It's not, but I was able to deal with it better than most. I think he enjoyed that. I wouldn't scream."
He flinched at her words as he tried not to think about what Lecter felt or thought in those moments. If anything, he wanted to feel Heather's pain and torment. He deserved it. It was his fault, no matter what she said. Lecter was there, did that to her, because of him. The same with Joy and her husband Daniel. And now Kevin.
In his mind, he couldn't help but imagine Heather on that table, strapped down, blindfolded and helpless. The fear welling up inside from just the touch of the sharp blade against her skin before the stinging sharp pain as the knife cut into her. They weren't deep slices, but once just under the skin, before the muscle. Over and over again, as she was being flayed alive.
There was no amount of empathy he could ever generate to spare Hannibal Lecter a death sentence. He wasn't something to love or to please or to understand. He was something to rid the world of.
Shaking his head of those thoughts, he felt the pain in his own chest as he said, "There are many rules of thought about women who fall for these men. Past abusive relationships, a need to regain their control back by controlling the abuser, normally that applies to women who forge a relationship with killers in prison. They don't realize that they are also being used and manipulated. Or they think they can change the killer. Their love can turn them around, make them good. Delusions of being a rescuer. They can save them. Some think that these women are submissive victims, while others believe that they are narcissist enablers who themselves are attracted to power. Biologically speaking, aggressive men who kill are considered the most masculine, therefore, the most powerful and the men that women should attach themselves to."
"We're far beyond caveman days."
"I agree, but genetically—"
"Genetics isn't everything. As for the woman in that room being a submissive victim, she's anything but a victim."
"And being submissive?"
She nearly smiled, "She had control."
"Really?" he asked as he thought about that. He knew that Lecter wanted to control Starling, but never considered that Starling had any control over Lecter. But hadn't he said it to Hannibal, about how very alike they were and that was why he feared her. The same way he'd feared Sara.
"She had no delusions about who Lecter was, what he did…" Heather trailed off as if she remembered something.
"What?"
"She's not delusional, but she is pretending."
"How can you be so sure if you didn't see anything?"
"Grissom, you and I both know that perception is more than what we see but also in what we hear and how we hear it. Tone of voice, what's being said but also what's not being said."
"Does she think she can change him?" he asked.
"No. She knows she can't."
"What about Lecter, do you think he wants her to be Mischa?"
"Of course, he does, but…that's not the driving force," Heather said as she reached out her hand. Without thinking, he grabbed her hand and gave it a squeeze in reassurance. She smiled. "That is."
He stared at their intertwined hands and felt a sense of dread clench his heart. "A reassuring hand?"
She smiled. He amused her. He smiled back. "A connection to a possibility that will never happen, but the connection that they have made, it binds them together…forever. Neither can let go. They either don't know how, or…"
"They don't want to," he finished for her. Her words cut through him like the knife Lecter had used to scar them both.
Heather was the first to let go of his hand before saying, "She wants to. She's fighting back, while he's trying to hold on. There's a strain there, Grissom, and it will break."
He wondered what Lecter will do once he realizes that Clarice Starling could never be his Mischa. The amount of bloodshed that filled his mind made him sick to his stomach.
Breaking him from his thoughts, she told him, "You don't have to sit with me."
Lifting his head up from where he'd been staring at the floor, thinking, he told her, "Yes, I do."
"Why?" she asked in confusion as if she didn't know the answer. It pained him that she even had to ask.
"I'm your friend. You shouldn't have to go through this alone."
Heather was quiet for a very long time. She probably hadn't considered them friends before now, or she didn't know what it meant because she'd been just as surprised by his answer as he'd been that she could hear him without him ever saying a word.
She should have heard his friendship, but maybe he hadn't been speaking it loud enough. He'd have to change that. Going forward, she was going to need all the friendship in the world to get through this. It wasn't only going to be her body that would be left scarred, but her mind as well.
He'd been there, and as Heather drifted off to sleep, he couldn't help but think about how long it had taken for his mind to finally heal from the damage Hannibal Lecter had done to it. The more he thought about it, the more he found himself thinking about Sara.
Seeing the good in her, seeing how she could love him, has helped him to see the good in himself. She made him think he could love her back. Open his heart to her, trust her, and not have to worry about knives because, where they made their home within one another, knives didn't exist.
Getting up out of the chair, he walked out into the hallway and turned his cell phone back on to call her. It went to voicemail. Taking a breath, he closed her eyes as he listened to her voice, the one that settled him, and said, "Hey, uh…I'm sorry I left the way I did. I…uh—" Shaking his head, he told himself again that sorry was just a word. "When you're done, I'll be at your place, dinner will be ready, as well as your favorite bottle of wine, a hot bath, and we can talk."
He wanted to say more but had no time as the phone beeped, sounding the end to the allotted time to leave a message. Ending the call, he pocketed the phone, leaving it on, and went back to sit with Heather for a while longer.
Rounding the side of the hill, Sara approached the intersection as her flashlight bounced up and down over the dirt road. She was expecting to see the lights that had been put up to illuminate the crime scene but saw only darkness. Shining the light around, she saw that the lights were still standing but they were shut off. The crime scene tape was missing, but the deputy's car was still there with the headlights on.
The rock and sand crunching under her boots was all she heard as she he headed towards the car and called out, "Deputy Grant?" while reaching for the radio on her belt.
There was noise behind her. Startled, she turned around as her light swept over something human. Bringing it back around, she saw the deputy. His body was tied up with the crime scene tape, hanging from the back of the box truck. Blood poured from his neck where he's throat had been slit and his intestines dangled out of his abdomen where he'd been gutted.
Gasping at the sight, her numb fingers felt over the radio buttons as she raised it to her trembling mouth. A shadow appeared behind her, in the headlights of the deputy's car. Dropping the flashlight, she reached for her gun, but it was too late.
She fought against the arms that grabbed her, the pain she felt in the side of her neck, before the night settled all around her, and she drifted into darkness.
TBC…
