With the wind whispering secrets to the trees and long shadows lying across brown leaves, was it any wonder that Darcy felt a cold finger of fear trace its way down her back? Something, just hidden from her sight, waited. She was sure of it. Some secret, long buried, lay beneath her feet–a secret that had been there for decades. She wanted to run away from this place, wanted to forget it was here, but she couldn’t move. The dead limb with one sharp end stuck into the ground seemed to be an arrow, pointing the way.
This is loosely taken one of the Darcy and Flora cozies. Do you remember? Have you read it yet? Why was this pivotal to the plot of Best Left Buried?
A dead bough, torn from a cottonwood, stuck out of the soft ground. The limb had been there for quite a while from the looks of it. It must have landed with some force because the end was deeply embedded in the earth. I grabbed it and tugged. It came out of the ground easily, causing me to stagger backward. Something clung to the sharp end, dirt, and something else–something that wasn’t leaf debris. Using this stick as a probe, I lifted earth and leaves away from the hole left by the limb. The ground under the leaves seemed to have sunk–it was lower, like the other ancient graves around me. Was this a lost grave, an unmarked resting place? I stood up, closed my eyes, and felt an arm slip gently around my shoulders. My heart in my mouth, I spun around, searching for that unseen person. The only living things were the trees and a hawk riding air currents in slow circles above me. No one was near, yet I could have sworn that for a brief instant, someone stood close.
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