Last Grave (9781101593172) Read Free Page B

her.
    â€œIt’s like she’s been petrified.”
    â€œCome again?”
    â€œLike a tree. She’s warm to the touch, but everything is hard as wood. There’s no give in her skin at all,” she said.
    Lance put on gloves and touched the woman’s cheek. “She feels like stone,” he marveled.
    Samantha stood slowly and backed a few feet away from the body. Something wasn’t right. She walked a few more feet away, leaving Lance with the officers who had discovered the body.
    She swept the ground with her eyes, looking for something, anything that could tell her what had happened to the woman.
    You won’t find anything,
a voice inside her head mocked her.
Nothing natural, nothing rational.
    She hissed to herself, trying to silence the voice. She walked in the direction away from the African Hall. If the kids and their leaders hadn’t seen anything, then there probably wasn’t anything to find over there, and it was best to leave them alone anyway.
    She stepped lightly, straining her senses to hear and see whatever she could.
    Whoever had killed Winona must have left just as Zack and his partner arrived.
    Unless they’re still here.
    She came to a standstill and struggled with herself. It would be so easy to reach out with her senses, see if she could feel anyone nearby.
    But that wasn’t going to help her fight the desire to use magic. And if she found something, she’d have to find a way that didn’t sound supernatural to explain it to her new partner.
    Her last partner hadn’t been able to handle the truth.
    She forced herself to keep walking and she reached the rain forest biosphere. She let herself in and then stood for a moment, letting her eyes adjust. It would be the perfect place to hide, and it would be easy to slip out in the morning after the Academy had opened.
    She took a step into the darkness and felt a growing apprehension. Another step, and the birds that lived in the rain forest exhibit fell silent.
    And suddenly she wanted nothing more than to be out of there and to be
anywhere
else.
    It felt as though the trees were actually whispering her name.
    The trees.
    She had seen a petrified tree once when she was younger. People thought it had been hit by lightning, but she’d been able to tell that lightning hadn’t killed it; magic had.
    What killed Winona?
    She began to sweat, and her heart sped up.
    She didn’t want to know the answer.
    She tried to force herself to take another step forward when a large bird screamed and flew at her head, wings beating her face. She threw up her arm to block the bird and felt energy surging through her. It would be so easy to push the bird away with magic.
    Too easy.
    The bird flew away and she took a deep breath.
    Something didn’t want her there and she couldn’t agree more. She backed out slowly. As soon as she exited the biosphere, her heart began to slow again and the feelings of dread slowly ebbed. She made her way back to the Swamp, feeling like there were eyes watching her the whole way.
    When she got there, Lance was talking to a short, balding man who looked like he was shy several hours’ sleep and a gallon of coffee. He had the look of shock people wore when they were woken in the middle of the night with bad news. He was wearing a name badge on his shirt.
    He must be one of the people in charge of the Academy,
she thought.
    â€œI have no idea who could have done this,” he said.
    â€œNo enemies that you know of? How about angry exes?” Lance questioned.
    â€œNothing like that.”
    â€œWhat about her family?”
    â€œShe has a teenage daughter. That’s all that I know of. This is going to be terrible for her. Imagine losing your mother that young.”
    Samantha didn’t have to imagine. But the loss of her mother had been her salvation instead of the nightmare most would assume.
    What kind of mother were you, Winona?
    â€œSo, there was no