Page 4 of Hold Your Breath

“What the hell?” she mumbled, looking over her shoulder. She couldn’t see whatever it was through the murky water. It had felt fairly firm, although it had moved with her kick. She was tempted to thump it with her boot again, but reconsidered.

“What?” Phil had finally realized she was ignoring him. He quit his fake struggling, twisting his head around to follow her gaze.

“I kicked something.” She kept staring at the water, as if she’d suddenly develop X-ray vision. Her arms were still locked around Phil’s middle. No need to get yelled at for making the same mistake twice.

“The Mission Reservoir Monster?” he asked in his best spooky voice.

“What’s taking you so long?” Callum called from the ice. “For Christ’s sake, Sparks, your victim would be dead by now. Just complete the recovery, and let’s get his body out of the water so we can notify his next of kin.”

“You gave up on me so quick, Cal,” Phil whined. “Aren’t you even going to start CPR?”

“No way,” Derek yelled back. “He knows where those lips have been.”

“What’s the problem?” Callum didn’t sound amused. Hedidsound annoyed.

“There’s something under the water. I kicked it.”

“Shark?” Chad suggested.

“Seriously?” Derek scoffed. “In a freshwater reservoir?”

“Maybe,” Chad muttered with a shrug.

“Well, it didn’t bite me, so hopefully that rules out both the Reservoir Monster and all woman-eating fish.”

Moving a few feet closer, Derek peered at the water. “If it’s anything valuable, I call dibs.”

“No way!” Lou protested. “I’m the one who kicked it. Finders keepers!”

Callum expelled an impatient sigh loud enough for Lou to hear, even across the twenty feet that separated them. He moved to the edge of the ice and slid gracefully into the water. As he swam toward them, Lou turned back to scan for the unidentified object.

At first she thought she was imagining it, but she could definitely see something down there, and it was getting larger and more distinct with each second. She wondered if her kick had knocked whatever it was loose, allowing it to float to the top. As she stared, holding her breath, the faint shape got closer and closer, until a large, gray mass bobbed to the surface. Lou gave a muffled shout, her arms tightening around Phil. A part of her knew what it was as soon as it surfaced, but a larger portion refused to accept it.

No. No way.No way.

“Is that a body?” Derek yelled from the ice.

“Yep, that’s a dead guy,” Phil said, his voice as casual as if it were a beer can floating next to them and not the waxy gray back of a corpse.

“Huh.” Derek didn’t sound too freaked out about it, either. “Lou, I’m good with finders keepers, then. You can have it.”

She couldn’t respond. For once, no words would leave her mouth. All she could do was cling to Phil’s middle and try to breathe. It wasn’t working.

As he pulled up next to them, Callum looked at the peacefully bobbing mass of flesh. “Fuck.”

Lou’s lungs had locked up again, and she felt as if her face had been dunked back into the frigid water. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from the bloated body.

“Hey, Cal?” Phil still sounded much too calm. “Where’s the head?”

Chapter 2

Lou didn’t know why she’d thought for a single moment that calling her mother was a good idea. It had been an impulse, an in-shock drive for comfort that had made her momentarily forget the reality of what her mom was actually like.

“Mom?”

“Louise? Is that you?”

“Yeah. I…um, well, I…” She trailed off, not sure how to go about telling her estranged mother that she’d just come face-to…well, neck…with a waterlogged, headless corpse.