The Girl in Blue (12 page)

Here
purred in its throat as it settled in to wait.

Inside the house, a phone’s musical ringtone chimed and footsteps sounded down a long hall. After several muffled sentences, an auburn-haired beauty hung up the phone and cried.

* * *

At the topmost branches of a blazing maple set back from High Lake by brambles and brush and a long gravel drive that ended in an abandoned foundation where a house had once burned to the ground, a shabby black crow stretched its wings. Its neck reached forward and its beak opened, and a rusty shriek of a caw sounded grittily to echo in the surrounding copse of woods.

Below its perch, more and more rescue vehicles arrived, silently, with no flashing lights or shrieking sirens.

The shallow grave that had finally been found warranted no rush.

With one more caw, this one stronger than the last, the crow leapt into the air to circle higher and higher on the autumn air currents, searching for an updraft that would take it home.

About the Author

Barbara Hancock lives in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains where her daily walk takes her to the edge of the wilderness and back again. When Barbara isn't writing modern gothic romance that embraces the shadows with a unique blend of heat and heart, she can be found wrangling twin boys and spoiling her pets.

Also by Barbara J. Hancock

Darkening Around Me

Silent Is the House

eISBN: 9781460336359

THE GIRL IN BLUE

Copyright © 2014 by Barbara J. Hancock

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