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Page 37 of Lightning in a Mason Jar

First order of business? Preserve the crime scene. Protect evidence as best he could while ensuring the current didn’t reclaim the body. Or risk the body coming apart if he pulled it to the shore. Stretching, he grasped a fat stick. He maneuvered it through the neck of the T-shirt and into the mucky water, effectively staking the body in place.

One task at a time, he let training override all else. His brain felt like a warehouse full of boxes storing memories and emotions, with him choosing which to unseal and when. Compartmentalizing, some would call it. Not the healthiest of coping strategies, but the best he’d been able to manage to date in spite of all the sessions with a military shrink before he’d opted not to renew his army contract.

He sealed up the horror of securing the bloated body, tucking away the memory to be dealt with another time. On autopilot, he tugged out his cell phone to call the police department, then his boss, since the jobdescription included assisting law enforcement in a rural setting such as this. Backup should arrive within a half hour. Until then, he could only stay with the body.

Which meant he couldn’t drive Bailey Rae home yet.

How had he forgotten her? He glanced over his shoulder to search for her. She sat farther up the embankment, her head between her knees. Her shoulders shook, hard and fast. She must be either crying or hyperventilating. He stalked past the mattress pile, startling a foraging squirrel.

“Bailey Rae?” He knelt in front of her and started to reach for her, then remembered his hands were still covered in filth and death. He clenched his hands into fists to will away the feel of the soggy shirt.

“Is it Winnie?” Her voice trembled, and she didn’t look up. “The body. Is it Winnie?”

Winnie? His gut sank that it had never occurred to him she might think so.

“No. Oh my God, no,” he rushed to assure her. The face had been obscured, battered, but the body was obviously male. He should have guessed her mind would go there. His compartmentalizing had blinded him to her fears. “No. It’s a man. Not Winnie, I promise.”

“Thank God.” She folded into herself, hugging her legs and pressing her face to her knees. Weeping harder, she rocked back and forth. He wanted more than anything to haul her against his chest and hold her until she’d cried herself dry, but he couldn’t do a thing until he cleaned his hands and cleared his mind.

Martin climbed the slope past the picnic table to his truck and tugged his rucksack from the toolbox. He strode back to Bailey Rae and dropped it onto the ground beside her. He unzipped the canvas bag and gave his hands a once-over with an alcohol wipe even though they’d worn gloves. Wordlessly, he nudged her arm gently with the pack. She glanced at him with tearstained eyes and nodded.

Plucking three wipes, she scrubbed her hands and then her face. Mundane tasks could go a long way toward restoring equilibrium. Next, he smeared vapor rub under his nose before passing the small jar to her.

She drew the container to her nose and inhaled deeply before dabbing the menthol just over her top lip. “You must think I’m a wimp. Since Winnie passed without being found, I’ve lived in fear of the day I’d get word that she’s been discovered.”

“You were upset, and understandably so.” Even as a trained professional, he was struggling to keep his mental boxes from overflowing. “I should have realized you would assume it was Winnie. I’m sorry for not speaking up right away.”

“You had your hands full, and I wasn’t any help.” She wadded up the wipes.

“You helped in the most important way. You found him.”

She started to turn to look toward the river.

Dipping his head into her line of sight, Martin drew her attention back to him. “Can you imagine if one of the Boy Scouts had stumbled on him during their Eagle Scout cleanup?”

People drowned annually in this river, some found, others never recovered. A sad reality.

“That would have been so bad,” Bailey Rae whispered.

“Yes, ma’am, it would have.” He stuffed the wipes and menthol back into the backpack, restoring a little order to this place of chaos. “I’ve called the police, but it may take them a while to get out here. After they arrive, I’ll still need to stay even after you’ve given a statement. Is there someone you can ask to pick you up?”

“I’ll text June.” Nodding, she pulled her phone from her back pocket. Her fingers tapped across the keyboard, an answer swooping in seconds later. “All set. She’ll be here in about twenty minutes.”

That was a long time to sit vigil. “Do you want to wait in the truck?”

“I would rather stay here with you.” Her green eyes held a vulnerability he’d already learned she didn’t show often. “Is that all right?”

“Of course.” He draped an arm around her shoulders and tucked her against his side, a comfortable fit.

“I’m tougher than this. I always have been. Ask anyone who knew me as a kid.” She melted a little closer against him. “But this ... hit me. The violence and imagining what happened to my aunt ...” Her words trailed off, her eyes squeezing shut.

“Death is upsetting, no matter how accustomed a person may be.” Living with PTSD was its own special kind of hell, and he’d had a long time to experience the toll it took. “Doctors. Cops. Firefighters. Military members. We get shaken by the senseless loss of life.”

“But you held it together just now.”

“On the outside. Inside?” He thumped himself on the chest. “My run tonight will be twice as long.”

“Because of what you saw here?” She waved toward the gurgling river.


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