Find Her (Detective D.D. Warren #8)(64)

I feel weird, my cheeks flaming in the dark, as I come to the waistband of her jeans. Low-riders, frayed to the touch. I can’t help myself. I’m not trying to stroke a sliver of bare skin at her waist, but of course I do. She shivers, flinches in response, and I blush even harder in the dark. I have to force myself to continue. I need to determine if she has a belt. Leather belt, corded belt, anything with a buckle . . .

No such luck.

Okay, this is it. The stab wound. I have to be close. And I’m no longer embarrassed. I’m petrified. I can’t see. Not an inch, not a bit. What if I hit a piece of wood and drive it deeper? What if I hurt her worse?

I’m not cut out for this. I didn’t train for this. I’m supposed to be alone. I’m all right alone.

Because now I’m uncomfortable. And uncomfortable is not the same as okay.

My hands are shaking uncontrollably. I hold them right above her, but I just can’t do it. I will hurt her. I will make things worse. I’ll learn, once and for all, just how much damage I’ve done.

Fingers. Suddenly closing around mine in the dark. She doesn’t speak. Just the sound of her breathing, not calm and even but fluttery and frightened, as she takes my bound hands. And lowers them to the pool of blood at her side.

I’ve made a mess of things. I don’t need light to know that. I recognize the streaks of moisture, distinct in sticky feel and rusty scent. Blood combined with shards of wood. Slivers really. Pine is too soft to make a great weapon. As I’d hoped—feared—I’d missed her belly, gouging against her ribs instead. Unfortunately, upon contact with hard bone, the pine had given up the fight, shattering into countless slivers. The girl’s injury feels less like a stab wound and more like an encounter with a porcupine.

She is crying again, hiccupping in the shaky, shuddering pattern of someone in great pain.

I feel myself freeze up. I can’t do this. The Kimberly agent never had to do this.

All that blood. So much blood five years ago. My hands, my face, my clothes. But none of it was mine.

I’m rocking back and forth. No, now is not that time. There are tears on my cheek. No, there will be no crying.

I’m a survivor, I’m a survivor, I’m a survivor, and Samuel himself said survivors must never doubt what they had to do.

“I’m going to pull them out,” I hear myself say.

She has released my hand. Her body is quivering, definitely distressed. I try to move as gently as possible, but given that I have to find each wooden shard by feel, there’s no way not to jar the wound. She hisses and moans, but remains passive beneath my clumsy touch.

To the best of my knowledge, I’m not making any sound, but I can taste salt, so apparently there are tears on my cheeks as I gingerly pinch and pull each piece. Some of them are very small, definitely more like slivers. Two pieces are thick and bulky. Shards. Do they hurt worse? Does it matter at this point?

I stabbed up with two pieces of pine clutched together. The end result is a bloody, pulpy mess, somewhere between road rash and a pin cushion.

It’s not going to work, I think again and again. In the dark, I’ll never get them all, only the obvious ones. And as anyone who’s ever gotten a sliver knows, even the tiniest piece of foreign object embedded under the skin will eventually fester and inflame.

But I don’t know what else to do. So I keep at it, arms shaking from the strain of moving so carefully, salt coating my cheeks. Five minutes, ten, twenty. But eventually I reach a point that when I wave my hand right above the wound, I can’t feel any obvious protrusions. Surely she has wood still stuck in her side. How can she not? But under these conditions, with not even a flashlight to work by, there’s nothing else I can do.

We need light. And bandages. And hydrogen peroxide and, oh yes, a real doctor, not just me.

I press my fingers gently against the wound. It feels about two inches wide, four or five inches tall. But maybe shallow? Or is that just wishful thinking.

She hisses again. Shudders.

“Does . . . does anything else hurt?” I don’t know what else to look for. What else to do. My fingers are sticky. Covered in blood. Her blood.

She doesn’t answer. I continue speaking out loud, making the decisions for both of us: “I think . . . I think we should leave it unbandaged for now.” Versus shredding more of my satin nightie for the cause. “I don’t think it’s deep, but it’s . . . messy. It needs to dry out. Scab over.” Plus I’m worried that trying to bind the wound will drive remaining splinters deeper beneath her skin.

She still isn’t talking.

“I have some water. I’m, um, going to pour some over the area. Rinse it out.”

Waste of a resource? I don’t know. I launched an attack. Sure, I hit the girl, not my abductor, but my show of defiance most likely caught him off guard, maybe even pissed him off. He could pull resources. No more dinner deliveries or other presents wrapped in cheap pine coffins.

Which brings me to another question. The girl’s hands. Is she bound, like me? And why was she sent into the room?

I finish what I started. Uncapping the water bottle and releasing a slow trickle over the girl’s side. I am sparing. I can’t help myself. Some lessons cost too much to learn.

I rub a little on my hands, then wipe my hands as best I can against the thin carpet. I replace the cap on the water, then sit back on my heels.