Chapter 33
Thirty-Three
Jill
Jill shivered and regretted leaving her gloves in her handbag.
It was so lazy not going to get them but Buddy had been desperate to pee.
One look at Buddy’s pretty collie face while he ran around the park with his tongue lolling out, enjoying being the only dog around, was priceless.
Her heart swelled with love for her fur baby.
Silence cut through the air. The skaters had mostly gone home.
Phew, the rumbling of a skater going up and down the slopes started again.
She hated being totally alone in the park.
The water that had started seeping through her summer trainers sent her toes numb.
It was time to head back into the warm where she’d left the log burner crackling.
‘Buddy.’ The dog ran away from her, determined he wasn’t yet ready for a cosy sleep on the rug.
She picked up Buddy’s favourite squeaky bone and threw it as far as she could.
It was selfish to want to cut his walk short because she was cold and damp.
The toy landed with a thud near the bushes.
Buddy started sniffing and wagging his tail.
It had to be a fox and the last thing she wanted was for him to start scrapping with the creature.
Last time he did that, it cost her a fortune at the vets when he caught an eye infection, not to mention having to treat her whole house for fleas.
She shivered again, not because of the cold but because of the ugly insects that had lived in her carpet and on Buddy after several treatments failed.
‘Buddy, get back here now.’ No, she wasn’t risking flea infestation again.
Buddy ignored her. So much for collies being super intelligent and doing exactly as they were told. She trudged through the grass, sighing with each squelch of her trainers.
His tail vanished into the bushes.
‘Buddy, why are you doing this to me?’
The hairs on the back of her neck prickled the closer she got to the bushes. She didn’t mind walking around the path and staying on the field but the bushes, seriously. What was up with that dog?
He barked and snarled. She had to get him and go home. ‘Mummy’s not happy with you, Buddy.’ She stopped, her feet telling her not to take another step. A mad axeman could be waiting for her to take one more step. Shut up, she told her melodramatic brain. There was no axeman.
Buddy was merely barking at a fox by a tree.
His wagging tail flapped against a bush.
She pulled her phone out of her pocket and turned the torch on.
Her heart almost stopped as her gaze fell upon what looked like a drunk woman, clothes half hanging off.
‘Hi.’ Jill couldn’t leave her. It was too cold. Maybe she was hurt.
Buddy began licking the woman’s arm as she sat resting against the tree stump, her face covered by her straggly dark hair. ‘Hello,’ Jill said, hoping that the woman would wake up and move. ‘Is there anyone I can call for you?’
Jill took a few more steps and caught Buddy, putting him back on his lead and pulling him away. The last thing the poor, drunk woman needed was Buddy’s tongue all over her.
She reached across, giving the woman a nudge.
Jill flinched as the woman dropped with a thud to the side, her hair swishing off her face in one soggy clump, exposing her features.
Jill gasped as she saw the bright red lips, drawn on and twice the size of any lips she had ever seen, and they were upturned.
Her breath, she couldn’t catch it. She wasn’t sure if she was going to be sick or faint. This was no drunk woman.
A dead woman was smiling at her.