Page 55 of Forever Dark
“This is your wake-up call.”
Selena shut her eyes again.“I didn’t order one.”
“Yeah, I know.But this can’t wait.”
The sleep fell away at once.She pushed herself upright, hair falling across her face.“Why?”
A pause came over the line.Not long.Long enough.
“There’s been another murder.”
The room seemed to contract around her.
For a second she said nothing.Her hand tightened around the phone.The air unit in the wall hummed and clicked.Somewhere outside, a truck shifted gears on the road.
“Send me the details,” she said.
“Okay.I’ll meet you at the location.”
The call ended.
Selena lowered the phone and sat very still on the edge of the bed.
Darkness pressed against the motel curtains.The ceiling above her was barely visible, only a deeper rectangle suspended over the room.In that moment its blackness felt less like shadow and more like depth.Like earth over a coffin.Like a grave before the lid was sealed.
She forced herself up.
Fifteen miles north of the motel, the county gave way to thinner roads and older land.
Selena drove past empty fields silvered by dawn and fences leaning under years of weather.Low mist slid along the ground in places, pooling in dips and hollows.By the time she turned onto the narrow lane Connor had texted her, the sun had not yet cleared the horizon, but the sky had begun to pale at the edges.
The abandoned chapel stood on a rise above the road.
It was smaller than St.Bartholomew’s.Stone instead of painted wood.Narrow windows.A square tower above the entrance, its bell long gone.Behind it, a mountain shouldered up into the gray morning, the top half veiled in a light band of mist drifting off the slope.
Selena knew that mountain.
She had climbed it with Diane when they were girls, both of them sweating and squabbling on the switchbacks, then eating bruised apples at the summit while their father pretended not to be out of breath.Diane had always walked faster uphill, making it a competition.Selena had hated that.
The memory came and went as she pulled in beside the SUVs.
Red-and-blue flashes rolled over the chapel walls and died in the wet grass.Police tape had been tied along the front approach.A deputy stood near it with his hands hooked into his duty belt, posture too stiff to be comfortable.Tall.Sandy hair.Late twenties, maybe.His skin still held the faint angry marks of old acne across the cheeks, making him look younger.
He straightened further when he saw her step out.
“Agent Raven?”
“That’s me.”
He moved toward her and offered a hand almost too quickly.“Arnold Greeley.Sheriff’s deputy.”
Selena shook it.“Nice to meet you, Deputy.”
His face brightened.“It’s something else having the FBI around.”
No point smiling too much at that.Encouragement had to be rationed with young deputies or you ended up listening to academy questions beside a corpse.
“Show me the scene, please,” Selena said.
