Cut Throat. Шарон Сала

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СКАЧАТЬ little girl…give me a minute. I don’t know what to do with this stuff,” she muttered, then brushed her finger against the side of the baby’s cheek. As she did, the baby moved toward the feeling with her tiny mouth wide open.

      “Okay, honey, I get the message,” Cat said, and got down to business.

      She popped the top on the can and poured until the bottle was about a third full.

      “Water, water, I need water.”

      Unaware that she was talking aloud, she ran around to the front seat and got her water bottle from the floorboard. There was no time to worry about measurements as she filled the bottle the rest of the way full. She gave it a quick shake, then gathered the baby up in her arms, crawled into the back of the car and pulled the door shut.

      The engine was still running.

      The heater was still on.

      The headlights were still burning.

      Cat’s heart was pounding as she cradled the baby up against her and pushed the nipple against the baby’s mouth.

      Again the tiny lips parted in that life-affirming motion, urgently seeking the sustenance that meant life.

      Cat watched in awe, seeing how the baby’s tongue curled around the nipple, watching the tiny nostrils flare in an effort to breathe and drink at the same time.

      At first it seemed that the baby was too weak to suck, and Cat didn’t know what to do. But the baby persisted and, when the first trickle of milk slid down her throat and she swallowed, Cat shuddered. It wasn’t until the baby settled into a steady, sucking motion, that Cat began to relax.

      She listened to the lip-smacking, sucking and swallowing sounds of a feeding baby and tried not to think of the dead mother only a few feet away. The weight of the tiny child was next to nothing in her arms, but the weight of responsibility was huge. For the first time in her life, Cat wasn’t focused on her own agenda.

      Ghost hunting had just taken a huge backseat to a little girl’s fate. She hadn’t been able to save the mother, but she would save this little girl’s life if it was the last damn thing she did.

      Cat sat in silent awe as the baby emptied the bottle and didn’t even know she was crying until tears dripped off her face down onto her hands.

      Five

      The bottle was empty, and the baby was asleep. Cat had put what was left of the opened can of milk in her small ice chest, along with the empty bottle. Well aware of the urgency of the situation, she knew she had to get help. Just because the baby was momentarily satisfied, that didn’t mean it hadn’t suffered something that could precipitate a health crisis.

      But for the first time in her life, she’d fallen in love, and for Cat, it was a whole new set of distracting emotions. For every breath the baby took, she took one, too, until their respiration was in sync. When a tiny milky bubble formed on the baby’s pursed lips, she didn’t know that she was pursing her own lips, as well. When the bubble popped, Cat watched, entranced by the perfection of the baby’s dark eyebrows knitting above a perfect little nose.

      Cat took a deep, shaky breath, knowing that, once upon a time. her own mother would have sat like this, watching her breathe and looking for herself in a baby’s tiny face.

      It wasn’t until she saw a pair of dark shadows moving past the rear end of the car that she remembered the mother’s body—and the coyotes.

      Damn scavengers. In a panic now that she’d delayed the inevitability of dealing with the body, she leaned over between the headrests and laid the baby down on the backseat. When she was satisfied that the child was comfortable and safe, she rolled back to her knees, popped the hatch and jumped out with her handgun drawn. She saw the tail of a coyote disappearing into the darkness and started to shoot, then remembered the baby. The sound would surely wake her, then she would cry, and if that happened, Cat would most likely cry with her.

      So she pulled the hatch shut, then circled the SUV, frowning as she realized the coyotes had already been at the mother’s body. The red and yellow blanket had been pulled off to the side, and there were bite marks on the flesh. However, with the blanket off, Cat was pretty sure she knew how the young mother had died.

      Snakebite.

      The skin was all red and swollen around a pair of puncture marks about six inches above her ankle.

      The sight made Cat a little nervous, and she began to look around more carefully to see where she was walking, not wanting to end up like this poor woman had.

      She looked down, trying to figure out what would be the best way to move the body. Ants were crawling in and out of the woman’s nose and mouth. She wanted to throw up. Instead, she gritted her teeth and went after the blanket the coyotes had pulled away.

      The woman was small, barely five-feet tall, so when Cat spread out the blanket and rolled the woman’s body onto it, the only part of her still hanging off the blanket were her feet. Using the blanket as a sled, Cat pulled the body all the way to the back of the SUV, lifted the hatch door, then looked down.

      Decomposition wasn’t pretty, but it came eventually to every living thing. Cat’s jaw jutted angrily as she bent down, brushed away most of the ants, then began rolling the body up in the blanket.

      “Sorry, lady. Life sucks. Death isn’t any better.”

      Gathering all her strength, Cat picked up the body and laid it into the back of the SUV. As she brushed sand and ants from the front of her clothes, she glanced out into the darkness. From where she was standing, she could see light reflecting on the eyeballs of the watching coyotes. Their silence was ominous. But for the safety of her vehicle and gun, she would have been at their mercy, just as the mother and baby had been.

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