Page 10 of Shadow of Death
“I’m fine, of course—” Amy began.
But even as she spoke, a nurse in Amy’s room came out to the hallway, shaking her head and looking a bit frantic.
“She’s trying to get up! She keeps saying no one is looking for Don! I can’t get her to calm down, she’s insisting she needs to speak with the police,” she said.
The doctor stared at Amy.
“May I? Perhaps I can calm her,” Amy said.
Dr. Firestone nodded. “Yes, please,” he said quietly.
Amy hurried into the hospital room.
Carey Allen was sitting up in bed. The monitors and IV attached to her were in precarious shape as she struggled against the attachments. Her skin was pale. Her light brown hair had been pulled back into a tail to keep it from her face. Her eyes were huge wet blue pools—she wasn’t sobbing loudly, she was just dripping tears.
“Miss Allen, Miss Allen, please! I’m Agent Amy Larson and we need you to be calm to help us find whoever it is you’re worried about. Please! We need you...your friend needs you...and you must take care of yourself first so you can help us.”
Carey Allen stared at her blankly for a minute.
“I’m alive!” she whispered.
“And the doctors say you’re going to be fine. But we need you to be calm, and to get well, and that way, you can help us.”
Carey blinked, winced, nodded, and started rambling.
“I’m... I’m grateful I’m alive. I think I’m so good—such an adventurer, an explorer. And competent—I am competent. I love hiking! Caves, waterfalls...and I was so stupid! I fell in and—oh, God! The bodies. I was in a sea of bodies, staring at me... They didn’t have eyes. They couldn’t have been staring. It looked as if they were staring, though. But... I’m here. And Don... They won’t tell me about Don. But I don’t think he was down there with me. I was awake... I screamed and screamed. I fought and I struggled and I tried to get out—and I couldn’t get any kind of a hold on the mud and I knew I was dying. I’m alive. I’m grateful. I’m terrified, but mostly, I’m afraid for Don. Don’t you see, if he’s hurt...if he’s...dead, it’s all my fault!”
“First, nothing to do with this is your fault. It’s the fault of whatever monstrous human being out there is doing this,” Amy said. “But I do need your help. Who is Don? I need his last name. Was he hiking with you? I need your help so we can hopefully help Don together.”
Tears streaked down the young woman’s face.
“I—I’ve had a crush on him. He’s—he’s just a great guy. He’s an advertising exec with my company. He’s...phenomenal.” She paused, wincing painfully again. “He likes adventure, but I should have never gone to the caves with him. But—”
“But no one out there would have expected what you found, Carey. You must quit beating yourself up.”
“But if he’s dead—”
“It is the fault of the person or persons murdering people. And Carey, please, we always have faith that someone might be alive. We search for them with that hope in mind. What is Don’s full name?”
“Blake. He’s Donald Blake. He’s tall and handsome...his hair is reddish like yours, and he’s thirty-three years old. I know that because Hailey Mumford in the Human Resources Department told me his age. I just... I mean, it’s tough, you know. It’s still hard for women to just walk up to a guy and say, hey, coffee, dinner, or drinks? Well, not all women, I guess. But I must be preprogrammed or something. I thought if he liked me, he’d ask me out, and he didn’t.”
“Well, what is the official word from your company? Are employees allowed to date?”
“Yeah. At least, there’s no rule against it. So long as work goes on at work, Mr. Barrington is fine with it. Oh. Malcolm Barrington is the CEO—I guess that makes sense, since the company is called Barrington Advertising. It was started by Malcolm’s grandfather—it’s an old and respected agency and still privately owned. And Malcolm’s okay—he’s never a jerk to employees. Honesty. That’s all he asks is honesty. He’ll try to help employees with kids when the schools are off. He even has a room with video games for older kids, and he has blocks and a little gym for little ones. I’m sure that as far as bosses go, he’s really cool. You just can’t lie. You can be sick, you can have a sick mom in Omaha or something, but you can’t lie.”
“Sounds like a good enough guy. What is your position there?”
“I’m office. I’m Accounts and Negotiations. We have a brilliant Art Department, and six people on the sales team.” She fell silent and her eyes started to water again. “You must find Don! Please, if something has happened to him...”
“It’s still not your fault,” Amy told her determinedly.
“But it is. He wouldn’t have been there. And...he wasn’t with me, you’re sure? I mean, he wasn’t...”
“Carey, he wasn’t there.”
“How can you be certain?”
“Because the people there, other than you, had been dead at least a week.”
