Free The Girl in Blue by Barbara J. Hancock Page B

would further dispel the horror of the night before.
    Only that day when Trinity was only nine, she’d seen something far less cheerful when she focused the tarnished telescope.
    Her father’s small pickup with its bed full of gravel had rolled back while he worked behind it. She saw it begin to roll. She cried out, but was too far away to warn him. She saw her father fall. She saw the truck come to a stop on one of her father’s legs.
    He had waved feebly from the ground where he laid bleeding and crying out, too far for anyone at the house to hear. The noise of the river must have muted his cries from the town close beyond.
    She saw their friends and neighbors going about their Saturday business in the distance, unaware. She saw her father helpless and hurt, his lips moving as he called for help.
    She answered that call.
    Trinity flew down the stairs on panic-fueled legs. Using the adrenaline and not letting it confuse her, she yelled for her mother. She dialed 911. While her mother eavesdropped long enough to understand, she told the operator her emergency.
    Then she and her mother ran down to the bridge.
    She remembered the blood.
    She remembered her mother exclaiming about the emergency brake not being engaged and the truck’s gearshift being in Reverse.
    Her mother had stooped to comfort her father as the paramedics arrived so only Trinity had seen the gear shift slowly move back into park.
    Most of all, she remembered the hospital. The antiseptic bustle of men and women in white and green helping, healing and making things right.
    The night before she’d been helpless, held captive by the ghost of a dead girl. That afternoon she saw people holding back the darkness with action, with knowledge, with determination and heart.
    “I engaged the brake. I did. Of course, I did,” her father had protested.
    Trinity stood silently while her mother lamented her father’s “mistake.”
    There were people determined not to see in Scarlet Falls, people who gladly grew up to turn a blind eye on restless spirits and “accidents” and whispering shadows.
    That day, Trinity watched the people helping her father and she vowed she would never close her eyes.
    The helpless pause only lasted a few seconds. She sank down, down, but then shefought the invisible ropes. She couldn’t see them, but she knew they were there. She clawed against their scratchy tight hold as her lungs threatened to give in to the instinctive pressure to breath water instead of air. Finally, she broke free and kicked out with her legs. She reached up and desperately pushed the water out of her way. She strained every muscle to swim for her life. Then, her face broke the surface and she gasped for breath.
    Kicking, gasping, scrabbling for purchase on the slippery rocks of the bank, Trinity pulled herself up with handfuls of rocks and mud before she collapsed in a wet heap on thousands of pebbles shaped like tears.
    “Trinity!” Creed shouted.
    Through the fog he stepped, materializing from nowhere to stride right over the still smoldering match stick near the trees. He ignored it completely.
    “Where have you been?” she asked as he pulled her to her feet.
    “I was walking,” Creed said.
    Walking. Around the blood-scented lake where he’d almost died.

Chapter Eight
    A long hot shower and several shampoos with suds that left her hair perfumed with sandalwoodfinally dispelled the scent of blood. The town’s water supply was piped out to the few houses around the lake because even filtration systems and purifiers wouldn’t make the lake’s water potable.
    Trinity tried to ignore the faint smell of smoke that clung to the clothes she’d brought from Hillhaven in her backpack. She shrugged into a thick cable knit sweater and leggings before leaving the bathroom with damp hair and freshly scrubbed skin to face Creed.
    He stood at the bank of windows and looked out at fog that had grown thinner with the rising sun.
    “There’s a girl. I’ve seen