Once Buried (A Riley Paige Mystery—Book 11)

PROLOGUE Courtney Wallace felt a familiar burning in her lungs and her thighs. She slowed her jog down to a walk, then stopped, bent over with her hands on her knees, and gasped as she regained her breath. It was a good, bracing feeling—a much better way to wake up than a cup of hot coffee, although in just a little while she’d have coffee with her breakfast. She still had plenty of time to shower and eat before she had to go to work. Courtney loved the glow of early morning sunlight low among the trees and the lingering dampness of morning dew still in the air. Soon it would be a hot May day, but now the temperature was perfect, especially here in the gorgeous Belle Terre Nature Preserve. She liked the solitude as well. She had seldom encountered another jogger along this trail—and never at this time of morning. In spite of her satisfaction with her surroundings, a feeling of disappointment began to creep over her while she got her breathing back under control. Her live-in boyfriend, Duncan, had promised yet again to come jogging with her—and yet again he had refused to wake up. He probably wouldn’t get up until long after she’d gone to work at her own office job, maybe not until afternoon. Is he ever going to snap out of this? she wondered. And when was he going to get another job? She broke into a gentle trot, hoping to shake off her negative thoughts. Soon she broke into a full run, and that invigorating burning in her lungs and legs seemed to sweep her worry and disappointment away. Then the ground gave out from under her. She was falling—a weird, suspended moment that somehow felt agonizingly slow. She crashed and crumpled with a brutal thump. The sunlight was gone, and her eyes had to adjust. Where am I? she wondered. She saw that she was at the bottom of a narrow pit. But how had she gotten here? She felt a terrible pain shooting up her right leg. She looked down and saw that her ankle was bent at an unnatural angle. She tried to move her leg. The pain sharpened and she cried out. She tried to stand up, but her leg collapsed beneath her. She could actually feel the broken bones rasping against one another. Nausea rose in her throat and she nearly blacked out. She knew she needed help and reached into her pocket for her cell phone. It wasn’t there! It must have fallen out. It had to be here somewhere. She groped about to find it. But she was partially entangled in a sort of rough, heavy, loosely woven blanket along with soil and leaves. She couldn’t find the phone. It began to dawn on her that she had fallen into a trap—a hole with the debris-strewn cloth stretched over to hide it. Was it somebody’s idea of a practical joke? If so, it wasn’t the least bit funny. And how was she going to get out of here? The walls of the hole were straight, with no footholds or handholds. Unable to even stand up, she would never be able to get out of here on her own. And no one else was likely to come along this trail soon, maybe not for hours. Then she heard a voice directly above her. “Hey! Did you have a bit of an accident?” She breathed a little easier at the sound. She looked up and saw that a man was standing above her. His figure was silhouetted against pale light, so she couldn’t make out his face. Still, she could barely believe her luck. After so many mornings of seeing no one on this trail, this morning someone just happened to come by when she desperately needed help. “I think my ankle is broken,” she called up to the man. “And I’ve lost my phone.” “That sounds bad,” the man said. “How did it happen?” What kind of question is that? she wondered. Although there seemed to be a smile in his voice, Courtney wished she could see his face. She said, “I was jogging, and … there was this hole, and …” “And what?” Courtney was feeling more than a little impatient now. She said, “Well, obviously, I fell in.” The man fell quiet for a moment. Then he said, “It’s a big hole. Didn’t you see it?” Courtney let out a groan of exasperation. “Look, I just need help getting out of here, OK?” The man shook his head. “You shouldn’t come jogging in strange places where you don’t know the path.” “I do know this path!” Courtney shouted. “Then how did you fall in this hole?” Courtney was dumbfounded. Either the man was an i***t or he was toying with her. “Are you the d**k that dug this hole?” she snapped. “If so, it’s not funny, damn it. Get me out of here!” She was shocked to realize that she was weeping. “How?” the man asked. Courtney reached up, stretching her arm as far as it would go. “Here,” she said. “Reach down and take my hand and pull me up.” “I’m not sure I can reach that far.” “Sure you can.” The man laughed. It was a pleasant, friendly laugh. Even so, Courtney still wished she could see his face. “I’ll take care of everything,” he said. He stepped away and out of sight. Then she heard a rattling of metal and squeaking, grinding sounds coming around from behind her. The next thing she knew, she felt a huge weight crashing down on her. She gasped and sputtered until she grasped that the man had just dumped a load of dirt on her. She felt her hands and legs getting cold—signs of panic, she realized. Don’t panic, she told herself. Whatever was going on, she had to stay calm. She saw that the man was standing with a wheelbarrow tilted over her. A few remaining clods of dirt tumbled out of the wheelbarrow onto her head. “What are you doing?” she yelled. “Relax,” the man said. “Like I said, I’ll take care of everything.” He rolled the wheelbarrow away. Then she heard a dull, drum-like pounding against metal again and again. It was the sound of the man shoveling more dirt into the wheelbarrow. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, opened her mouth, and let out a long, piercing shriek. “Help!” Then she felt a heavy clump of dirt hitting her directly in her face. Some of it got into her mouth, and she choked and gagged and spit it out. His voice still sounding friendly, the man said … “I’m afraid you’re going to have to yell a lot louder than that.” Then with a chuckle he added … “I can barely hear you myself.” She let out another shriek, shocked at the loudness of her own voice. Then the man dumped the new wheelbarrow full of dirt onto her. She couldn’t scream again now. Her throat was clogged with dirt. She was overcome by an eerie sense of déjà vu. She’d experienced this before—this inability to run from danger or even to scream. But those experiences had only been nightmares. And she’d always woken up from them. Surely this was just another nightmare. Wake up, she told herself again and again. Wake up, wake up, wake up … But she couldn’t wake up. This was not a dream. This was real.