Chapter 4
Annie followed the afternoon shift through the double doors and into the back parking lot. Thunder clouds laced with horizontal streaks of lightning rolled overhead. Humid, claustrophobic air pressure and heavy scents of forest and lake pressed down on her like weights. Drizzle fell in beautiful Northern Nowhere, where it seemed to rain at five sharp every day. The sky looked ready to let loose again.
Well, she hoped it would provide relief. She rubbed the sweat from the back of her neck and imagined soaking off this rotten day in a scented lily-of-the-valley bubble bath. Two shadows had already formed on her newly found happiness. The chauvinist detective and that ridiculous and frightening phone call.
“Dr. O’Brien.”
Annie jumped out of her thoughts as Chief Paul Reinert fel
