Killing Hour by Lisa Gardner

Author:Lisa Gardner [Gardner, Lisa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery & Detective, Crime, Fiction, Suspense, Women Sleuths, Thrillers, General
ISBN: 9780553802528
Publisher: Bantam
Published: 2003-07-01T18:46:53+00:00

CHAPTER 24

Virginia

3:13P .M.

Temperature: 98 degrees

TINA DREAMT OF FIRE.She was tied to a stake in the middle of a pile of kindling, feeling the flames wick up her legs while the gathered crowd cheered. "My baby," she screamed at them. "Don't hurt my baby!"

But no one cared. The people laughed. The fire lapped her flesh. Now it seared her fingers, starting at the tips and racing up to her elbows. Then her hair was ablaze, the flames licking her ears and singeing her eyelashes. The heat gathered and built, forcing its way into her mouth and searing her lungs. Her eyeballs melted. She felt them run down her face. Then the fire was inside her eye sockets, greedily devouring her flesh, while her brains began to boil and her face peeled back from her skull . . .

Tina awakened with a jolt. Her head flew up from the rock and she became aware of two things at once. Her eyes were swollen shut and her skin felt as if it were burning. The mosquitoes still swarmed her head. Yellow flies, too. She batted at them feebly. She had no blood left. They should leave her alone and seek fresher prey, not some exhausted girl on the verge of dehydration. The bugs didn't seem to care. She was bathed from head to toe in sweat, which apparently in the insect world made her a feast fit for kings.

Hot, so hot. The sun was directly overhead now. She could feel it beating down on her, burning her bite-sensitive skin and parching her lips. Her throat was swollen and dry. She could feel the skin on her arms and legs shrinking beneath the harsh glare and pulling uncomfortably at her joints. She was a piece of meat left too long in the sun. She was, quite literally, being cured into a piece of human jerky.

You have to move. You have to do something.

Tina had heard the voice before, in the back of her mind. In the beginning, it had given her hope. Now, it just filled her with despair. She couldn't move, she couldn't do anything. She was nothing but mosquito fodder and if she moved off this rock, then she'd be snake fodder, too. She was sure of it. Before her eyes had swollen shut from mosquito bites, she'd taken inventory as best she could. She was in some kind of open pit, with sides that stretched out ten to fifteen feet, while the broad mouth yawned twenty feet overhead at least. She had a rock. She had her purse. She had a onegallon jug of water the son of a bitch had probably thrown in just to toy with her. That was it. Pit, rock, water. Only other thing around was the foul-smelling muck that oozed out from under her rocky perch. And no way was she stepping off her boulder into that slime. She'd seen things move in the marsh around her. Dark, slimy things she was certain would love to feast on human flesh.

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