Hidden in the Shadows by T. L. Haddix Page B

warehouse’s overhead fluorescent lights, and a distant sound of water dripping.
    She had planned on being in and out of the warehouse within five minutes, but it hadn’t quite worked out that way. Though she’d quickly found the row of shelves where the cameras were located, the lighting wasn’t sufficient to highlight them beyond the first few inches. She’d had to dig around, moving boxes in order to see their labels.
    As the headache she’d been fighting all day increased, she took out her hair clip, letting her hair fall around her shoulders. When she finally located the camera boxes, she’d had to shove another box out of the way to move the one she wanted forward. Doing so had disturbed the web of a very large spider.
    With a terrified shriek, Maria had jumped back and crashed into the next row of shelves hard enough to rattle the metal structure, and probably hard enough to leave bruises, if the way her back stung was any indication. She had also become entangled in an old fishing net someone had left on the shelf.
    If it had just been the net, she would have been okay, but the contraption came complete with hooks, some of which had embedded themselves into her skin. The more she tried to untangle the net and the hooks, the more they pulled at the skin on her back and shoulders. Additionally, the net seemed to be hooked to the shelf, as well. She was afraid that if she pulled too hard, she’d pull the heavy, industrial shelf, and its contents, straight down on her head.
    All other avenues exhausted, she gave in with a defeated groan and not a few tears. She needed help. Very carefully, she eased her cell phone out of her pocket and called dispatch, a gasp of pain escaping as one of the hooks protested the movement. She couldn’t get the phone up to her ear, so she put the call on speaker. When one of the female dispatchers answered, she almost cried with relief.
    “Carrie, it’s Maria. Listen, I need a favor. Do we have any units near the storage warehouse right now?”
    “Let me check.” She heard the sound of radio traffic in the background, then Carrie came back on the line. “Sheriff Dixon is out that way. What do you need?”
    “Of course it would be him.”
    “Come again?”
    “Nothing. I’m at the warehouse, and I need an extra pair of hands. Would you mind sending him over?”
    Relaying the information, Carrie confirmed the dispatch to her. “He should be there in about three minutes. Are you okay? You sound funny.”
    Maria gave a half-laugh, half-sob. “I’ve… it’s just been a very long day. Thanks, Carrie.” Ending the call, she groaned loudly and managed to move her head enough to glare up at the fluorescent lights suspended from the ceiling. “Why? Why did it have to be Wyatt? It just couldn’t be Jason or Robbie or Wes. No, it had to be the one man I don’t want to see me like this.”
    The minutes ticked by slowly, and the silence in the warehouse was unnerving. The only sound was the buzzing of the lights. As she waited, she noticed a chill creeping in and shivered. Though the warehouse was climate-controlled, the inside was still cool, too cool for comfort. She cursed the decision to remove her coat. The thin blouse that hadn’t protected her from the hooks wasn’t doing much to keep her warm, either.
    When she heard a vehicle pull up and its door slam, she was surprised to find herself on the verge of tears once more. As the door to the warehouse squeaked open and Wyatt called out her name, she quickly sniffed them back.
    “I’m here,” she called.
    His footsteps hurried in her direction, and soon he was at the end of the row. “What are you doing?
    “Oh, nothing really. I just… well, it’s embarrassing. But I seem to have… um, gotten trapped in a fishing net.”
    Pulling his flashlight off his utility belt, he stepped in to get a closer look. “That’s the net we confiscated from Curtis Helton a few months back.” He reached for the net, but she stopped