Page 54 of Haunted

He stops.

“I thought it was him coming back for me.”

There’s a protocol for this. I’ve run it more times than I can count.

“Sit up,” I tell him. “Slowly. Back against that tree. Don’t talk for a minute.”

“I have to meet the paramedics.”

“And what will that change?” I ask. “You’re alive, and I intend to make sure it stays that way. Breathe out longer than you breathe in.”

He does that too. While he’s doing it I put myself between him and the treeline and I look, because looking is the only thing I’m good for out here. Fog. Birches. The lake going grey behind them. Nothing moving anywhere at all. I see someone with flashlights coming down the trail. “Over here!” I call.

The paramedic has a buzzcut and takes one look at Jonny and kneels. “Hey. I’m Wes. What’s happened here?”

“It’s not my blood,” he repeats. “Not my blood. Not my blood.” He looks at me, like he’s run out of other things to say.

“Boathouse,” I say. “He was going to fetch you when I ran into him. I’ll watch him.”

Wes nods at me and signals to the other paramedic. “He’s fine. Boathouse.”

“The police are going to want to talk to you,” I say, when his color starts coming back into his cheeks. “I’ll stay. You won’t be on your own with any part of it.” I put my hand out.

“I need to—Oh, God. Alice.” He blinks at me and swallows hard. I can see the shock like it were printed across his face. I help him get up and walk him toward the boathouse.

They’ve got the boardwalk taped off before we reach it. A man in a waxed jacket is sitting on the grass with a yellow Lab across his knees, an officer crouched in front of him. There’s a tent going up over the far end of the boards. The two paramedics stand beside it with nothing left to do.

A short, dark-haired woman detaches from the group and comes toward us with her hand already out.

“Detective Van Hoek. Which one of you is Bishop?”

“I am,” he says.

She takes him off to sit in her car with the door open and a blanket he doesn’t want. I stand where I’m put. That’s the other half of the protocol.

After a while an officer mentions a kiosk at the top of the park that opens early for the joggers, and suggests it would be a kindness. So I walk up and buy two coffees I don’t want.

I’m turning back with them when I see a man at the far end of the loop trail. Three hundred yards off, through fog, moving away at an easy jog. Dark clothes. Dark cap.

And a gait I watched cross a parade ground, a mess hall, and a bedroom, every day for two years.

I stand there with a cup in each hand until he goes behind the trees. Then I keep standing there.

It’s fog. It’s three hundred yards. I’ve had forty-five minutes of sleep and a man at my door telling me I’d regret it. I’m seeing him everywhere. That is exactly what he wants, and exactly what men in my situation get warned about.

That’s what I tell myself the whole way back to the scene. I hand out the coffees and quietly refuse payment.

“Is that everything?” Detective Van Hoek says.

“It is, Detective.” Jonny’s voice sounds more clipped than usual, as if the stress has pushed him back toward that strange, half-Indian accent he’s picked up over the years. But he’s holding himself together. His back is straight. His answers are clear. “I heard a scream and a thud. I ran back around the boathouse and found her on the deck. I tried to make her comfortable, but she stopped breathing before the paramedics arrived. Tom and I were together on the trail when we heard it. I didn’t see the attacker. I heard footsteps moving away through the trees, but I couldn’t see who it was.”

“Did she say anything to you?”

“No. She was moaning.”

“Did she moan anything in particular? What did it sound like?”

“A moan. She was in pain. Like, enn.” He shrugs, and it looks like it costs him. “Sorry.”