Kiss of Midnight_ A Midnight Breed Novel - Lara Adrian [809]
“Oh, Jesus,” she hissed under her breath. “This is bad, Jenna. Something awful has happened here. There’s more than one person out there. They’ve been … hurt somehow.”
“Hurt as in wounded?”
“Dead,” Alex murmured, her mouth gone suddenly dry with the certainty of what she was seeing. “Oh, God, Jenna … there’s blood. A lot of blood.”
“Shit,” Jenna whispered. “Okay, listen to me, Alex, I want you to stay on the phone with me now. Turn around and come back into town. I’m going to call Zach on the radio while I have you on the phone with me, all right? Whatever’s happened, I think we should let Zach handle it. Don’t you go near—”
“I can’t leave them alone,” Alex blurted. “People have been hurt down there. They might need help. I can’t just turn away and leave them now. Oh, God. I have to go down and see if I can do something.”
“Alex, dammit, don’t you—”
“I have to go,” she said. “I’m about to land.”
Ignoring Jenna’s continued orders to leave the situation to Zach Tucker, Jenna’s brother and the sole police officer in a hundred-mile radius, Alex cut off the call and eased the plane down onto its skis on the short landing strip. She brought the Beaver to an abrupt stop in the fresh powder, not the most graceful landing but good enough, considering that every nerve ending in her body was screaming in rising panic. She killed the engine and no sooner had she opened the cockpit door did Luna leap over her lap to bolt from the plane and run toward the center of the cluster of homes.
“Luna!”
Alex’s voice echoed in the eerie quiet of the place. The wolf dog was out of sight now. Alex climbed out of the plane and called for Luna once more, but only silence answered. No one came out of the nearby houses to greet her. No sign of Pop Toms at the log-cabin store just a hundred feet away. No sign of Teddy, who, despite his teenage front of indifference, adored Luna as much as the dog loved him. There was no sign of Pop’s sister, Ruthanne, either, nor her husband and grown sons, who were usually up well before the late daybreak of November and taking care of things around the settlement. The entire place was still and soundless, utterly lifeless.
“Shit,” Alex whispered, her heart jackhammering in her breast.
What the hell had happened here? What kind of dangerous situation might she be walking into when she got out of her plane?
As she reached back into the cargo hold to grab her loaded rifle, Alex’s mind latched onto the grimmest possibility. Middle of winter in the interior, it wasn’t unheard of for someone to go stir-crazy and attack his neighbor or do serious harm to himself, maybe both in short order. She didn’t want to think it—couldn’t picture anyone in this close-knit group of people snapping like that, not even sullen Teddy, whom Pop was worried had recently fallen in with a bad crowd.
Rifle at the ready, Alex climbed out of the plane and headed in the direction Luna had run. Last night’s fresh snow cover was powdery soft under her boots, muffling the sound of her footsteps as she cautiously approached Pop’s store. The back door was unlatched, wedged open half a foot by snow that had blown over the threshold and begun to accumulate. No one had been out here to check on the place for a minimum of several hours.
Alex swallowed the lump of dread that was steadily growing in her throat. She didn’t dare call out to anyone now. She hardly dared to breathe as she continued past the store to the cluster of cabins beyond. Luna’s bark made her jump. The wolf dog was sitting several yards out. At her feet was one of the lifeless forms Alex had spotted from the air. Luna barked once more, then nosed the body as if she were trying to make it move.
“Oh, Jesus … how can this be?” Alex whispered, taking another look around the silent settlement as she managed a firmer grip