Page 82 of Forever Dark
“I’ll get a cab or something.”
“In the middle of nowhere?”
“There’s got to be somebody running one.”
A humorless look crossed his face.“That’s optimistic even for you.”
Selena slipped her hands into her coat pockets.“You go back and see if you can get my car fixed.I’ll need it tomorrow.”
Connor did not move.
“I think I should stay with you,” he said.
“I don’t need protecting.”
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Turn this into a pride contest.”
Annoyance flared.Selena pulled her coat back just enough for the holster at her hip to show beneath it.“I’ll be fine.”
Connor’s eyes dropped to the gun and back to her face.“You always think you don’t need protecting.”
“I usually don’t.”
“Everyone does.”
For a moment the fairground noise seemed farther away.
Selena let the coat fall closed.“I’ll call if I need anything.”
“You won’t.”
“I will,” she said.“I’m not that stupid.”
He looked like he wanted to argue longer.Instead, he dragged a hand over his mouth and glanced toward the tent, then back to her.Irritation sat plain on him now.“Just hang here for an hour,” he said, seemingly resigned to Selena’s stubbornness.“I don’t want you out here any longer than that.”
Selena rolled her eyes.“I’m not your wife anymore, Connor.I’m an FBI agent; I think I can handle a small-town religious revival.”
Connor made a disgusted sound under his breath.“You’re impossible.”
A small smile almost rose and didn’t.“Drive safe.See you tomorrow.”
Selena watched him huff away toward his SUV, get in, and drive away.
She waited until the taillights disappeared past the line of parked trucks.
Then she moved.
The fairground’s edge was darker beyond the parked vehicles and portable toilets, where a fringe of trees marked the drop toward a drainage creek.A narrow path of flattened grass led that way.Selena followed it until the tent lights dimmed behind branches and the bus came into partial view through the gaps.
A copse of trees gave her enough cover.
She stepped into it and stopped.
Underfoot, the ground was soft with old leaves.The trunks leaned at odd angles, bent by years of wind and bad light.Branches scraped against one another overhead with a dry, restless sound.Every so often they creaked as the night breeze moved through them, muttering above her in voices too low to make out.From here she could watch the side of the bus, the security men at their station, and the stream of worshipers beginning to spill from the tent in twos and threes.
