She wondered if it was cooler by the water. June wasn’t the hottest month, but tonight was warmer than most. She opened the car door and immediately the stifling feeling abated. The water lapped against the shore, calling to her. Claire wandered down toward the water following a worn footpath.
This part of the park was always deserted. She had come here so often as a child she could navigate around the entire place with her eyes closed. Up ahead there were tall cattails that barely swayed in the breeze. How often had she and Dustin swum out from the point right in front of her?
She didn’t want to think about him but could focus upon nothing else. She walked toward the water, forcing herself to count the streaks of light reflecting off the gray-black surface. She looked upward and gazed at the moon rising over the horizon, taking a few more steps to see where it would reflect in the water.
Suddenly a biting pain gripped her ankle, tearing up her leg. She exhaled a frightened breath. Without touching the metal that wrapped around her leg, she knew she’d stepped into an animal trap.
No matter how she moved or didn’t move, the pain assaulted her, kept her attention, and she tried to think how she could extract her ankle. Claire knelt, difficult to do on one leg. Any pressure she put on her trapped ankle caused the tearing jaws to bear down further into her flesh, past her skin, down to the bone. She ended up nearly toppling over trying to use her arms to take her weight and not having enough strength to keep balanced.
She touched her swollen ankle and felt sticky liquid. She lifted her fingers into a ray of moonlight and confirmed it was blood, as if she needed to see what scented the air with iron. Why the hell had someone set up a trap here? Right beside the path? She gazed at the grassy ground littered with leaves and small twigs, pebbles and stones. She couldn’t spot a stick or rock or anything she could use to pry open the jaws of the trap.
No matter how she pressed and pulled, the steel jaws opened an inch, and she could only hold the pair off her ankle for minutes at a time. Each time she released the jaws, she bit back a scream of pain. She began to cry out of frustration and desperation. Once she’d loved this part of the park for being so unpopulated; tonight it was a place where she was alone and without help.
Bowing her head, Claire hugged her knees and remained perfectly still. As long as she didn’t move, she could maintain. She tried to count backward from a thousand and then did it again by even numbers. She grew fuzzy with the odds and drifted in and out of sleep. Her ankle swelled around the jaws.
Her mouth was so dry. Her lips were chapped, and she couldn’t imagine being here during the day. No, she mustn’t imagine being trapped in the hot summer sun. Soon she would be back home and drinking a large glass of ice water. No, a glass of orange juice where she’d sip and crunch the ice. She imagined the sweet taste and cold beading on the glass.
The imaginary beverage only made her thirstier.
She held back from imagining and thought of nothing for long moments. She drifted off again and then woke. Startled she looked around, her heart beating rapidly, her leg aching. Dew covered the grass. The metal biting into her ankle was cold against her skin.
Weary from pain and fear, she was too tired to keep a strong guard on her imagination and she returned to thinking of Dustin. She sought comfort in his embrace and wept thinking about what it was like to know love in his arms and in his bed. She knew she shouldn’t cry again, but she couldn’t stop herself weeping big wet tears.
Chapter Fifteen
Dustin paced in front of the window. Every few minutes he walked out onto his porch and stood staring at the road as if wishing would bring Claire back. He swore at his stupidity. He had been wrong, so fucking wrong. That stupid gate. He should have kept Claire with him and locked it. He should have gotten a guard dog and alarms for unwelcomed intruders.
Instead he let Fran do exactly what he knew she’d do. He could blame the gate but it was his own stupidity that had ruined everything. He’d lost Claire because he was so fucking lame.
When waiting and watching became unbearable he started calling. He texted her, called her phone, texted again, went inside and emailed her. He came outside and watched some more, hoping to see dust flying up into the air signaling someone was coming down the road. Not even the breeze conceded to lift the dirt.
It was hotter than hell. He sweated buckets pacing and praying. He vacillated between thinking she wasn’t coming back to thinking he was upset with her because she didn’t believe him.
He held onto the front porch railing and studied the sky. Where would she go? When they were children she’d take off on her horse. When they were older with cars…