One Hoof In The Grave [Carriage Driving 02] (19 page)

I picked up the Glock and shook it barrel down to clear it.

That’s when I heard the noise. I froze. Something was down here with me.

Where was Geoff
?

How would he even know where to find me? I wrapped my sweater around my wrist and used my fingertips to pull out my cell phone.

Down in this hole surrounded by stone and concrete, there was no reception.

I had to get out now, rather than wait to be found. I scrabbled at the wall, but the dirt kept sliding out from under my feet and I couldn’t catch hold of the lip of the cellar above me. I was crying and gulping, my heart racing—the opposite of what I needed, but I couldn’t seem to help myself. So much for being cool in a crisis.

Then from across the pasture, I heard Geoff’s voice. “Merry! Where are you, dammit! If you’ve let something happen to you, I swear I’ll kill you myself. Merry!”

With my good left hand I waved the flashlight over my head like a klieg light at a Hollywood opening.

I heard Geoff’s shout, then the squelch of his footsteps as he ran across the pasture. I could see his light bobbing with the movement of his body. “Where are you? You hurt? Merry!”

“Come through the gate,” I called. “Don’t forget to lock it behind you or the horses will get out.”

“Screw the horses.”

I heard the scrape of the chains and the squeal of the gate as he opened it.

Then, a second later, I heard the chains again. He’d fastened it. Good.

“Where are you?”

“Be careful. I’m in the old cellar. In front of the road grader.”

“The cellar?”

A second later his light hit me square in the face. I sank down onto the sand and let my arms fall beside me.

“You hurt?”

“Not really. Just get me out of here. We’ll talk up there.”

“Your gun secure?”

“It’s in my holster.” Then I switched off my lantern and stuck it back into my jeans.

“Give me your hands,” he said. “Plant your feet against the wall. I’ll pull, you walk up the wall. Can you do that?”

I took off my sweater and tied it around my neck. No doubt it was badly bloodstained, but they say stain removers do a great job these days, and it was an expensive sweater.

My wrist still hurt like poison, but I tried to ignore it as I reached up to him like a baby reaching for its mother.

He grasped my wrists. I gasped with pain.

“What the hell? You sprained your wrist in the fall?”

“Don’t worry about that. Get me out!”

It felt like a millennium before I lay face down beside the road grader.

“
Whoa
! You’re bleeding?” he asked.

“Big snake,” I gasped.

“Sweet Jesus.”

“Don’t worry. King snake. Non-poisonous.”

He aimed the light at my wrist. “You’re seeping like a stuck hog.” He took the light between his teeth, pulled out his handkerchief and wiped away the blood. “You sure it wasn’t poisonous? We should take it to the ER with us so they can identify it.”

“Neither of us is going back down into that cellar after a dead snake. I blew its head off, but I recognized it. Definitely not poisonous.”

He managed a chortle. “Good shooting.”

“I wasn’t holding a tight pattern.”

He hauled me to my feet. “Can you walk?”

“Away from here? I’ll crawl if I have to, but yeah, I can walk.”

“How’d you wind up down there? Trip and fall?”

I hesitated and then just said it. “Someone pushed me. On purpose.”

“You’re sure?”

I swung away from him. “I don’t think it was a loose horse. There was somebody here. I saw the light just before I landed in the cellar.”

He opened the gate. We slipped through, and he latched it behind us.

“Both latches, please,” I said.

“Yes, madame.”

The horses loomed up out of the darkness. “And here you are again,” I said.

They followed us step for step across the pasture, then huddled around the gate until Geoff bundled me into his car. “I’m going to bleed on your upholstery,” I said.

He undid my sweater and handed it back to me. “Bleed on that. We’re headed for the hospital in Bigelow.

“I told you . . .”

“The heck with what you told me.” He handed me a pristine pocket handkerchief. “I am not taking chances with that bite. Wipe your face. What were you doing out there anyway? I left you at home on your way to bed, and an hour later you’re half buried in a cellar with a snakebite and a clip of ammunition gone.”

“It wasn’t a full clip. I was worried about the horses.” My voice sounded weak. God, I was thirsty.

“Don’t you go into shock on me, Merry.” He smacked me on my thigh.

“I’m
not
going into shock,” I put my head back and closed my eyes. The next thing I remember was Geoff shaking my shoulder.

“Wake up, sleeping beauty, the doctor awaits.” He stood at the open door. “You need a gurney?”

“Don’t be silly.” I slid out and almost fell on my face. He wrapped his arm around my waist and I flopped my snakebit hand across his shoulder. “I didn’t mean to go to sleep.”

“You snore.”

“I do not.”

He shoved me into a chair in the waiting room and disappeared.

I expected to have to sit for at least an hour and answer forty thousand questions about my insurance. I guess, however, that being a GBI agent has its perks. I was whisked into an examining room.

“Wow! How many teeth did that sucker have?” The young resident wiped the blood of my wrist and agreed the snake was non-poisonous. “Big dude. No fangs. Course, it might be a coral snake.”

“It was black.”

“I’m kidding. You’re lucky. He chewed a small vein, but not an artery.”

Next he gave me a tetanus shot which I swore I did not need, then had me drop my jeans so he could shoot a big syringe of penicillin into my rear end.

When I lifted my turtleneck and unzipped my jeans, the doctor said, “Geez, what happened to your back?”

Until that moment, I hadn’t realized it hurt like hell.

“Somebody shoved me,” I said.

“Somebody cracked you with a two-by-four, more like,” he said. “We need to get you up to X-ray, make sure you didn’t fracture any vertebrae.”

“Oh, come on! All I want is to go home with a big prescription for pain meds and antibiotics.” I wriggled. “See. No broken vertebrae.”

From outside the room, I heard Geoff say, “Shut up, Merry.”

The X-ray seemed to take forever to read, and I was correct. No broken bones. Not even a cracked rib.

But I was hurting worse with every passing moment. “Please,” I asked the doctor, “Give me mega-legend drugs and send me home. I need a shower.”

I fell asleep in Geoff’s car again, but woke with a start when we pulled into my driveway.

Peggy’s house was lit up like a Christmas tree.

“You called her from the hospital, didn’t you?” I said.

The minute Geoff shut off the engine, the back door opened, Peggy flew down the steps and wrenched my door open. “Are you all right?”

I nodded.

“Then I’m going to kill you.”

“Please kill me tomorrow,” I said to Peggy as I unlocked my apartment door. “And grill
him
. He called you.” I waved my good hand at Geoff. “Damn, my truck’s still out at the farm.” I glanced down at my watch. “It’s four in the morning. I have to feed by six-thirty.”

“Shut up.” Both Geoff and Peggy said.

“I’ll do it,” Peggy said. “I’ll bring you some breakfast afterward.”

I opened my door. Both of them followed me inside before I could shut them out. “I’m supposed to check with a doctor. I don’t have one,” I said.

“I do. He’ll see you,” Peggy said.

“You said you wanted a shower,” Geoff said. “You do feel gritty. Can you get your clothes off?”

“Certainly.”

“Got a baggy?” He pointed. “To keep your bandage dry.” Without waiting for permission, he rummaged in my kitchen cabinet, pulled out a box of plastic bags and a roll of duct tape.

“Whoa! I can’t get my clothes off with a baggy on my arm. Go away, Agent Wheeler. I’ll manage.” I stumbled toward the bedroom, then looked back at him. “Somebody really did whack me across the back? I really didn’t imagine that?”

He nodded.

“And Geoff? Thanks again.” I shut my bedroom door on them both.