Red Sky In Mourning: A Helen Bradley Mystery (Helen Bradley Mysteries Book 3) by Rushford Patricia H

Author:Rushford, Patricia H. [Rushford, Patricia H.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2013-06-16T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

"Where ..." Helen moaned. Her head hurt, and not just from the baseball-sized lump on the back of her skull. She felt fuzzy and disoriented, as if she were waking up from surgery. She opened her eyes hoping the hard, damp floor, the drip-drip-dripping on her forehead, and the total darkness were only the lingering effects of a dream gone bad.

Opening her eyes made matters even worse and seemed to heighten her awareness of the cold floor and the smell, musty mold, decaying leaves. Helen rose to her knees and tried to ori­ent herself. Lights exploded behind her eyes as a wave of pain tore through her head. She wove her hands through her hair, wincing as she touched the lump.

"Oh, dear God." Her whimper echoed in the darkness. "Where am I?"

When the pain and accompanying nausea subsided, she crawled forward, feeling for a wall, something stable she could lean against when she tried to stand. The last thing she remem­bered was watching the sky turn rose from the top of a hill. She couldn't recall the name. She'd started back and... Flashlight. She'd had a flashlight and her backpack. along with and matches and drinking water. Where were they?

Her memory came back in snatches. She'd been exploring a bunker, part of the old army barracks. Had she fallen? She remembered pitching forward, but the hit had come from behind. Had something, a piece of concrete perhaps dropped from the ceiling? "Too much force for that," she murmured. Someone had hit her. But why? Had she come upon a vagrant?

Or had Chuck and Isabelle's killer struck again?

Her hand connected with an object and sent it skittering across the concrete floor. Her heart careened into overdrive. "It's okay," she gasped. "Probably a discarded aluminum can." She needed to calm down and be rational. She'd been in worse situations—like the prison in Mexico where she'd gone undercover for the DEA. There she'd shared her quarters with rats. Here at least there was a way out. An open doorway at both ends. She just had to find one of them and hope her attacker wasn't still there.

Helen moved ahead, crawling on all fours again. Her hand grazed a ledge and plunged elbow deep into a water-filled hole. "Ugh." She touched something slimy and jerked her hand back. She dried it on the front of her jacket. Panic surged through her like an electric shock. She sat back on her legs. "It's just water," she reminded herself.

She stopped and took several deep breaths. Complete darkness had always frightened her. She wasn't sure why. Perhaps something had happened to her as a child. As she often did when fear assailed her, Helen began to recite the Twenty-third Psalm. "The Lord is my shepherd...." When she finished she repeated her favorite line for emphasis. "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me." Believing that had brought her through more trials than she cared to remember.

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