Free Whispers by Erin Quinn Page B

them out, but it was like the wind was against me and lightning was hitting all around. I thought I was going to be laid out next to your grandma in a minute. I could see the kids, though. They just screamed and screamed and then the truck went over.” He whistled and made another gesture. “It all happened so fast.”
    “ Oh my God,” Gracie breathed. It was almost too horrible to believe. Her grandmother wasn’t the first Beck woman to lose her life at the old springs. Gracie’s mother had died there when Gracie was just an infant. And now it had nearly taken Analise.
    “ I jumped on the horn and called for help,” Eddie was saying, “and then I got my winch and fed it out into the hole.”
    Eddie stood and paced a few steps. “It was damn quiet down there. Can’t explain that right either. It was like being inside a vacuum. I couldn’t hear the storm. Couldn’t hear the kids. Couldn’t hear nothing. Like being in a tomb. I ain’t ashamed to tell you I was spooked, ‘cuz I sure as shit was.”
    “ How did you get them out?” Reilly asked.
    “ The truck caught not far from the edge. Don’t know how or on what yet, but it was just dangling. I was scared to death I was going to tap it and it would just go. I got to your daughter’s side first, Gracie. The boy was unconscious, but she had enough wits left to help me get her out. About that time, backup came and we pulled Brendan up too. That’s what happened, I guess. It was just an accident, really. But with your grandma out there struck dead and the kids screaming…. I guess it kicked my imagination into overdrive. Because it didn’t feel like any other accident I’ve been to, and I’ve been to a lot, small town or no.”
    The seriousness of his last words left both Gracie and Reilly silent. She wanted to ask, what did it feel like, but the look on Eddie’s face was answer enough. He’d been shaken by it, and Eddie Rodriguez was not the kind of man who was easily shaken.

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter Nine
     
    AFTER Eddie left, Reilly and Gracie stood in the entry-way, silent, each absorbing his strange tale. Reilly didn’t know what the hell to make of it. Eddie had been freaked out—delusional in Reilly’s opinion—scaring himself in the dark like a little girl. For once, though, he’d kept his opinion to himself. He didn’t think he’d win any gold stars for his effort, but he didn’t get kicked out of the room, either. Small, but a victory all the same.
    He took a step forward and the horse-dog pricked its ears, watching him with a predatory look. Now there was something to be scared of.
    He wanted to talk to Gracie. He wanted to ask about her life, about the years since she’d left Diablo Springs, but he knew this wasn’t the time. Still, the questions and the deep desire for the answers gummed up his reactions and made it difficult to know what to say to her right now.
    “ So,” he said after a moment of silence. “What do you think about Eddie’s story?”
    Gracie shook her head. She looked numb, her eyes glazed, like she’d chased a couple of downers with a beer. “I think I’m too tired to think. This has been the longest day in history.”
    He nodded. “You look tired. I mean, you look good. But tired.”
    “ You had it right the first time.”
    “ No, really. You look good.”
    Tired, stressed-out, and road worn, she looked better than most women did fresh and ready to paint the town. Her eyes darkened, as if she’d read his mind, and something flashed in them that hit him down low and hard. But before he could put a name to what he’d seen, it vanished and in its place he saw cold anger. He couldn’t blame her. A hundred years couldn’t erase what he’d done ... what he hadn’t done. He might apologize for it, if he thought it would make a difference. He didn’t.
    “ Your daughter really resembles you,” he said.
    “ I don’t think she’d appreciate that, but thank you.”
    “ So where is your