A Blind Eye Read Online Free PDF Page A

No Trespassing sign tacked onto the door with roofing nails. Deserted. Front windows boarded over. He recalled Dougherty kicking in the door. Recalled her half dragging, half carrying him inside. And then lying there on the frozen floor and the candle in the darkness. The single flickering flame and the empty room. And then closing his eyes to make the hammering in his head go away. And then…
    The third time he opened his eyes, he sat straight up and winced as a brain-tumor headache nearly threw him back to the floor. The fallen snow reflected halogen-bright through the side windows, and then he remembered it all. How Dougherty saved his life. He looked around. She lay at the other end of the fireplace, huddled in a heap beneath her cape. He remembered how she’d used the lighter he’d found to make her way through the deserted house looking for something to burn. How she’d found long empty drawers in the kitchen still lined with fancy paper. How she’d leaned the drawers up against the hearth and stomped them to splinters with her boots. He could see the violent shaking of her hands as she lit the crumpled paper and waited for the splinters to catch fire. And then the larger pieces of the drawers and then the kitchen cabinet doors, and then it started to get warm. And how he’d tried to get up but couldn’t and her soothing voice telling him to stay on the floor. How they were going to be all right. After that, things got spotty.
    The fire was now reduced to a glowing bed of ash. One segment at a time, Corso levered himself from the floor, until he stood unsteadily on his feet. The air was warmer at the top of the room. His head reeled, and for a moment he thought he might pass out and crumple back onto the cold boards. Unsteady, he staggered over and put a hand on the brick fireplace. To the right of the fireplace opening, several thick brown boards lay stacked and ready, their ends splintered and spiked.
    Moving slowly, Corso pulled back the rusted screen and piled the remaining boards onto the glowing embers in a crisscross pattern. For a moment nothing happened, and Corso feared he had smothered the fire. The new material did nothing but smoke and hiss. Then the thick, dusty smoke began to swirl up the chimney and, after an anxious moment, a single yellow flame poked its head from among the boards. A couple of crackles and, with a whoosh, everything caught fire at once. Corso closed the screen.
    At his feet, Dougherty stirred but did not waken. Using the wall to steady himself, Corso made his way around the corner into the kitchen, where it was noticeably colder. His breath swirled about his head as he looked around. She’d burned everything that could be torn loose and fed to the fire. All that remained was the frame of what had once been a modest set of kitchen drawers and cabinets along the north wall.
    Sliding his hand along the countertop, he crossed the kitchen to the back door. His reflection in the wavy glass upper panel of the door stopped him in his tracks. He didn’t recognize the face that peered back at him. A seeping green bruise ran completely across his forehead like a bloody headband. His eyes were blackened and nearly swollen shut. Everything below his nose was a solid sheet of thick coagulated blood. He pawed at his nose and was rewarded with a jolt of pain. He rested his forearms on the countertop and bowed his head, breathing deeply, somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, until a voice from the other room startled him. “Corso,” it called.
    He had to clear his throat three times before he could rasp, “In here.”
    “You need to lie down.”
    “I’m okay,” he said.
    “You’re nowhere in the vicinity of okay,” she insisted.
    As if to prove her wrong, Corso pushed himself off the countertop and staggered back into the front room. She was kneeling on the floor with pain in her eyes, rocking slightly, as if the repetitive movement might somehow distract her from her suffering.