Bad Penny by Sharon Sala Read Free Book Online Page B

first moment of contact, he kept searching until he realized that she wasn’t inside. Scared out of his mind that she was somewhere on the muddy bottom but also hoping against hope that she might have made it out under her own power, he was forced to surface once again.
     
    He came up gasping for air, then drew a breath and let it out in a roar of pain so pure that tears came to Carter’s eyes. Believing that Wilson must have found her body, he started toward his son, wading as quickly as he could through the muddy pond.
     
    But Wilson wasn’t waiting for comfort. He dragged himself out and onto the bank, then pulled himself upright before looking back into the pond.
     
    Except for the ripples his exit had caused, the surface of the water was almost placid, unlike his thoughts.
     
    Carter came out of the water and ran to him. “Son?”
     
    “She wasn’t inside.”
     
    They both stared at the muddy water, imagining her lifeless body lying somewhere beneath.
     
    “I’ll call the sheriff,” Carter offered.
     
    Wilson covered his face and then dropped his hands to his sides. The sound that came up from his throat was physical heartbreak.
     
    Carter flinched; then his vision blurred. There was only one thing worse than being hurt himself, and that was watching someone he loved suffer.
     
    Wilson grabbed his boots, dumped the cell phone out onto the ground, and then put them on as his father was making the call.
     
    He pocketed his phone, then began talking to himself. “This isn’t happening. I don’t believe this is the way Catherine Dupree is supposed to die. She survived death three times at the hand of man. I do not buy the premise that nature takes her out.”
     
    Carter slid a hand on Wilson’s shoulder.
     
    “The sheriff is already out surveying damage. They relayed the message to him.”
     
    Wilson turned, his anger obvious.
     
    “Relayed? As in…he’ll get to it when he gets time?” Then he hit the sides of his legs with his fists.
     
    Carter was sick at heart. The pain on his son’s face was terrifying. “Wilson…son. We have no control over—”
     
    Wilson turned on his dad, his rage evident. “No! Not like this. Never like this.”
     
    Before Carter could stop him, Wilson started walking. “Wilson, wait! Where the hell are you going?”
     
    But Wilson wasn’t listening. He started circling the pond, looking for anything to give himself hope. With the windshield missing, she could have climbed out of the truck on her own. All he needed were some tracks coming out of the mud at the edge. He was halfway around the pond when he paused to survey the backside of the dam at the far end. Suddenly his heart skipped a beat. A boot! There was a boot down the slope lying next to a rock.
     
    Without caution, he headed down, running and slipping in the wet muddy grass as he went.
     
    Four
     
    Wilson’s stomach knotted. Even before he picked up the boot, he knew it was Cat’s. He’d watched her put her boots on—and take them off—far too many times to be mistaken.
     
    The cold leather and the water inside it gave him a sick, empty feeling. He dumped out the water, then began scanning the land, searching for any sign of the woman who held his heart.
     
    In the distance, he saw something yellow fluttering from the branches of a piece of scrub brush and started toward it, still clutching the boot. The
     
    closer he got, the more certain he was that it was a piece of the shirt she’d been wearing. He took a slow, shaky breath and kept moving, using the small bit of color as his anchor to sanity.
     
    As he trudged through the pasture, it became evident that he wasn’t as fully recovered from his gunshot wounds and surgery as he’d believed. After three dunks in the pond, and now this, the muscles in his legs were beginning to ache. His heart was pounding as he moved closer to the bush. It wasn’t until he picked up the fabric caught on the thorns that the horror of what he was