Cold River by Carla Neggers

wind.
    Hannah took a tentative step forward to investigate, but there was no sign of Bowie—or a deer, moose, wild turkeys or anything else that might have disturbed the pile of debris.
    Various scenarios ran through her head. Bowie could be under the fallen debris. He could have hit his head and be disoriented, wandering in the woods or among the headstones.
    He could be hiding from her. He could be deliberately trying to scare her.
    No .
    The tarp blew into her, and she batted it with the shovel, her heel slipping on a glistening patch of ice. As she regained her balance, more of the tarp came at her. She tried to get clear of it, but snow, ice, dirt and chunks of rock were crashing onto her.
    She leaped backward against the crypt’s door as something sharp—a bit of broken granite or ice—cut her left cheek, and a baseball-size rock struck her left wrist. She ignored the sudden pain, batting aside the tarp with her shovel, kicking past stones, dirt and chunks of ice.
    Still holding on to her shovel, she burst out from the rubble and ran into the middle of the lane. She was freezing now, her face and wrist stinging where she’d been hit, but she saw footprints in the snow on the edge of the woods and charged over to a trail that led straight downhill through the white pines.
    Had Bowie just knocked her over and run off?
    “Hannah!”
    This time it was a shout—a distinctly male voice coming from behind her in the cemetery. She pivoted, shovel raised.
    Sean leaped over the stone wall to the crypt, and in another two bounds was onto the lane, grabbing her around the middle before she could launch herself off down the trail.
    “Someone just…” She was aching, gasping for air.
    Sean tightened his hold on her. “Just what?”
    “I don’t know. I have to find Bowie. I can’t tell if these prints are new.” Most were boot prints, not ski or snowshoe tracks. “It’d be easy to lose someone in all these evergreens. I don’t even know if he’s out here.” She realized Poe was barking madly again. “Did you see him? Bowie?”
    “No.” Sean eased back from her, holding her by her upper arms as he assessed her. “You’re hurt.”
    “Not badly.” She pointed the shovel at the mess in front of the crypt. “That pile came down on me. I didn’t see anyone, but I heard someone calling my name. It was barely a whisper.”
    Sean peered more closely at her. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
    She nodded, realized with a jolt that she didn’t want him to release her and forced herself to stand back from him. Her breathing was calmer. “It’s creepy out here,” she said, giving an exaggerated shudder. “Damn. I do not like cemeteries.”
    “Hold on—”
    Before Sean could stop her, she picked her way over fallen blocks and grabbed an edge of the tarp, still flapping in the wind, and heaped it into a pile in the snow in front of the crypt.
    She caught a glimpse of torn orange fabric on the other side of the main pile of debris.
    Then it was gone, snatched away.
    “Bowie, is that you?” She scrambled over dislodged, frozen dirt and rock to get a better look. “What’s going on?”
    She heard a moan and started to move faster, but Sean leaped up behind her, got one arm around her middle again and lifted her off her feet. Before she could catch her breath, he set her back down on the ground, staying on the pile of rock, ice and dirt between her and whoever was on the other side of the crypt.
    “Relax, Cameron.” Bowie stood up and grunted in obvious pain. Blood dripped from gashes on his left hand and the left side of his face. He was ashen, his orange sweatshirt covered in dirt, his down vest unzipped, his breathing hard and fast. “I just got my butt kicked by a wall of granite. I’m in no condition to kick anyone else’s butt.”
    Sean’s expression was tight. “What the hell happened to you?”
    Bowie staggered out to the lane, blood dripping from his hand into the snow, dirt and rock dust in his