REAPING INNOCENCE ◦ STILINSKI [3]

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xx. THE MURDER OF ONE

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IT WAS DARK, and very cold.

Her eyelids fluttered and opened and that took care of the darkness. As for the cold...she was bone-cold, freezing, chilled to the marrow. And no wonder; one of the windows beside her was open.

    Somewhere, deep down, she knew it was more than that.

    What had happened? She'd been at home, asleep—no, she'd been at someone's house, or, had she'd been at someone else's? She tried to place names to face but she couldn't remember them. Who were they? One had thick dark hair; which the wind would churn into a tumbled sea of waves. He was slightly taller than the other and had darker skin. The other had a shock of dark hair as well, but his was fine and straight, almost like the pelt of an animal. He was leaner and paler than the first.

    It was too much to cope with; she couldn't think. Disembodied faces floated before her eyes, fragments of sentences sounded in her ears. She was very confused. She began assembling information about where she was, piece by piece. Somebody's attic from the looks of it. What was she doing here? Who had brought her here? Where was here? Who was she?

    Rats or mice were scuffling somewhere among the piles of oilcloth-draped objects, but the sound didn't bother her. The faintest trace of pale light showed around the edges of the shuttered window—adjacent to the open one. She pushed her makeshift blanket off and got up to investigate.

    It was definitely someone's attic, and not that of anyone she knew. She felt as if she had been sick for a long time and had just woken up from her illness. What day is it? she wondered. She could hear voices below her. Downstairs. Something told her to be careful and quiet. She felt afraid of making any kind of disturbance. She eased the attic door open without a sound and cautiously descended to the landing. Looking down, she could see a living room. She didn't recognize it.

    And a man was down there; she could see the top of his sandy head. His voice puzzled her. "The man might be anywhere, even right under out noses. More likely outside town, though. Maybe in the woods."

    "Why would he cause the accident just to pull her out of the car?" asked the other man. Is that Sheriff Stilinski? she thought. Who was he? What's he doing here? What am I doing here?

    "No, I think it's more than that," the man was saying. Stilinski was listening to him with respect, even with deference. "Whoever pulled her out did it for their own purposes, but they certainly hadn't called the police after they did so, either. Maybe they're the one that caused the accident, or maybe not—we need to find out who pulled Carter out of the water and why they fled."

    Is that who I am? she thought. Carter?

    "Parrish, are you sure their intentions were more than just pulling her body from the wreckage?" Sheriff Stilinski said.

    Jordan, a voice in her mind whispered and, for some unknown reason, she wanted to scream out to him—tell him that she was all right, but something kept telling her to stay hidden and quiet. She didn't want to be seen...she couldn't be seen.

    "I'm sure," Jordan said briefly. "That water was below 60 degrees that night, whoever dove in to pull her out would've suffered from hypothermia."

    Stilinski arched a brow at the young deputy, fingering through his theory with a fine-tooth comb. "Are you saying that you believe it was someone not entirely human?"