Obsidian Butterfly - Laurell K. Hamilton [136]
Bradley had said to look. I looked. The ranch lay in a large round valley or maybe a plateau, since we’d had to drive up some hills to get here. Whichever, the land stretched flat and smooth for miles to the rim of distant hills. Of course, I’d been surprised by distances here, so maybe the hills were really mountains, and the land stretched for a very long way in every direction. There were no trees. There was almost no vegetation above thigh height to me. Whatever had taken that door out had been big, bigger than a man, though not by much. I turned in a slow circle, scanning the ground, and there was nowhere for something that large to hide. They’d walked this ground when they first arrived, full of confidence that the creature couldn’t have gotten far. They marched out, and out, and out, and found nothing. The helicopter buzzed overhead, high enough that it didn’t disturb the wind, but low enough that I was pretty sure it was looking at me. They were looking for anything unusual, and I was standing out here by myself, unusual enough.
The helicopter circled a few times, then buzzed off to search somewhere else. I looked out at the empty land. There was nowhere to hide. Where had it gone? Where could it have gone?
Underground, maybe, or it flew away. If it flew away, I couldn’t help them find it, but if it went underground . . . Caves, or an old well, maybe. I’d suggest it to Bradley, and probably be told that they’d checked it. But hey, I was here to offer suggestions, wasn’t I?
I heard someone behind me and whirled. I had the gun halfway up when I recognized Detective Ramirez. He had his hands up and to each side, away from his gun. I let out the breath I’d been holding and holstered the gun. “Sorry.”
“That’s okay,” he said. He was wearing another white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled back over dark, strong forearms. The tie was a different color, but it still hung loose like a necklace, and the top two buttons of his shirt were open so that you could see the smooth hollow of his throat.
“No it’s not. I’m not usually this jumpy.” I hugged myself, not because I was cold. Far from it. But because I badly wanted someone to hold me. I wanted to be comforted. Edward had many uses. Comfort was not one of them.
Ramirez came up beside me. He didn’t try and touch me, just stood very close and looked out over the land where I was looking. He spoke, still staring out in the distance. “The case getting to you?”
I nodded. “Yeah, I don’t know why.”
He gave a sharp laugh and turned to me, face halfway between astonishment and humor. “You don’t know why?”
I frowned at him. “No, I don’t.”
He shook his head, smiling, but his eyes were gentle. “Anita, this is an awful case. I’ve never seen anything this bad.”
“I’ve seen things as bad as the vivisected victims, the ones that died.”
His face sobered. “You’ve seen things that bad before?”
I nodded.
“What about the mutilations?” he asked. His face was very serious now. His smooth nearly black-brown eyes watched my face.
I shook my head. “I’ve never seen anything like the survivors.” I laughed, but it wasn’t a happy sound. “If survivor is the word for them. What kind of life are they going to have, if they live?” I hugged myself tighter, staring at the ground, trying not to think.
“I’ve been having nightmares,” Ramirez said.
I looked up at him. Police don’t admit things like that often, especially