All around Nadine Stuart, thick, black smoke pressed in. The scent of charred wood and plastic mingled in the air, making her choke. She could hear voices, too, and even if she couldn’t work out what they were saying, she knew they were urging her to run. But her feet were leaden, her mind sluggish. And the longer she stood still, the less motivated she felt to move.
It’s the lack of oxygen.
The thought made sense, but its cool logic seemed out of place in the chaos.
She drew in a breath and willed herself to go. To move. Before it was too late. But the only thing that sped up was her heart in her chest. It thundered so hard that it hurt. Above her head, a dangerous crack resounded, and she knew if she looked up, the ceiling would be crashing down.
She squeezed her lids shut.
A scream built up in her throat.
Her mouth dropped wide.
She threw back her head.
And with the exception of her pulse, everything around her went still. Ever so slowly, Nadine dragged her eyes open. Then she blinked, and reality came flooding in. There was no smoke, no scream and no paralyzing terror. Instead, there was disinfectant-scented air, soft white light and the steady hum of medical machinery.
The hospital, she thought.
Though to be more accurate, it was the Whispering Woods Acute Care Facility. The mountainside tourist town was too small to have a real hospital, but the influx of outsiders twice a year—summer and winter—necessitated something more formal than a simple clinic. Nadine wished she could be thankful for it, but she’d been stuck in the same bed for seven days. Being under lock and key for that long was more than enough. And the unpleasant icing on the unpleasant cake was that the nightmares—an off-and-on staple for nearly the last decade—seemed more frequent here in the yellow-walled room.
She sighed. If she’d been back home in Freemont City, she would’ve simply discharged herself.
Except Freemont’s not really home anymore, is it?
Nadine swallowed, wishing she could simply shove off the reminder. It wasn’t like she’d left anything behind. Her things were boxed up or sold. Her old job belonged to someone else. And her ex was probably in bed, his arms wrapped up around his current fling.
And you washed your hands of that life on purpose.
That much was true. For six months after her breakup with Grant, she’d walked around in a daze. She’d done her best to be there for her cherubic students with their sweet questions, but, really, she hadn’t been able to get into a proper teaching groove. So when a lawyer had shown up on her doorstep and informed her that she’d inherited her childhood home in Whispering Woods—a shock because she’d assumed that everything her mom owned had been spoken for a year prior when she passed—she hadn’t even hesitated. Kismet, she’d called it. Especially when the teaching position at Whispering Woods Elementary had fallen into her lap, too.
Except in the month or so since she’d arrived in town, she hadn’t accomplished much in the way of teaching. And she’d accomplished even less in regard to cleaning out her inherited apartment. Instead, she’d watched her half brother get shot. She’d been caught up in some decade-and-a-half-old crime that somehow also tied to the decade-old accident that she couldn’t remember. And, according to the few people who knew what was really going on, the police weren’t even aware of her brother’s murder. It was as chilling as it was concerning. Thankfully,