Requiem for a Whistleblower

Where was she?

Something wasn’t right. Some deep instinct told him something about this was off. He hurried across the park, needing to know what had happened to her.

Approaching the woods, he called her name.

‘Gayle? Are you here, Gayle?’

Entering the woods now, he heard a noise ahead. He stopped but it was nothing, perhaps just a dormouse or something under the leaves. Why did the night feel that much colder all of a sudden?

He crept forward, his every sense on full alert.

His phone pinged causing Colin to jump and shriek with fright. It was then he heard it – a whimpering of some sort, someone groaning. He spun around trying to find the source of this noise. ‘Hello? Who’s there?’ He heard it again, a definite groan, somewhere nearby.

And then he saw her. His mouth dropped open; he heard nothing but the hammering of his heart.

Gayle was lying on her back in the grass at the base of a tree, something shiny sticking out of her chest…