The Highway Girls
Page 16
“Thank you so much for coming.”
“I'm just glad I could make it.”
“She will be too.”
They wait for one of the attending nurses to come back from her rotation, and she ushers them inside the small enclosed room where Belinda lays hooked to countless tubes, her breathing helped by a ventilator. Even in her fragile state, she beams when she sees Nate enter.
“You found her,” she says, her voice barely registering above a whisper. She reaches with her hand and Nate clasps his in hers.
“I did,” he says.
“And those men who did it?”
“I found them too.”
“And you did what was right?”
He knows what she means, and he nods.
“Good.” A tear forms at the corner of her eye. “It's all I wanted.”
“I know.”
She squeezes his hand, and he could tell it was the kind of squeeze that drains her of what little energy she had left. A squeeze and a touch you make when you recognize it's probably your last.
She'd hung on for this moment. She fought with every cell in her body to hang on until Nate could come through.
“You got justice for my baby,” her voice falls and grows softer. “My sweet baby girl. My Raina.”
And all at once, a flood of emotion rushes forth in Nate as he thinks of his own baby girl. Gracie.
The people we lose.
The prices we pay.
Life, existence, pain.
At least I found justice for Raina, out there, deep in the forest.
All around the mulberry bush.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Matt Lockhart also publishes under the pseudonym Raylan Kane. He resides in the Rocky Mountains with his partner and their dogs.