A Plunder by Pilgrims Read Online Free PDF Page B

turn this place into a circus."
    "Who doesn't like the circus?" Gage said.
    "Can't you be serious?  Even stupid reporters can type your name into Google.  Then they'll be swarming this place, getting the wrong idea, wondering how you're all mixed up in the girl's death when we both know you got nothing to do with it.  I'm just asking you to lie low, that's all.  I don't mind you living here — "
    "That's very generous of you."
    " — but if you could just, well, stay retired, I'd appreciate it.  And we'll keep you out of it."
    Finally, Gage looked up.  "Do you know who she is?"
    "What?"
    "The girl.  Who is she?"
    Quinn's brow furrowed, his enormous eyebrows like mirrored checkmarks.  "Why?"
    "Just curious."
    "Well, we don't know yet.  No ID on her, obviously.  And nothing came up in the databases on her fingerprints.  They're doing an autopsy on her now, so maybe we can find out more."
    "They know the cause of death?" Gage said.  "Was it drowning, or did she die beforehand?"
    Quinn hesitated.  "I'm getting a bit uncomfortable with these questions, Mister."
    "I'm a bit uncomfortable when a girl washes up on a beach below my house—especially one like that with marks on her wrists and ankles."
    Quinn offered up a tight-lipped smile.  "If I didn't know better, I'd think you were opening up an investigation."
    "Well, it's good that you know better."
    "Gage, I wish you wouldn't make this hard.  We got this thing covered, all right?  Right now she's a Jane Doe.  Maybe she was a runaway.  Maybe she was abducted.  Maybe she's even a local, but nobody's come forward.  It'll come out in time, trust me.  We have a deal?"
    Gage looked at his crossword.  He'd stopped trusting cops a long time ago.  He'd stopped trusting pretty much everyone—not that he ever really did.  There was a faint flicker of curiosity in the back of his mind, but he wasn't going to let it turn into anything.  Not now.  Not after so much time.  How long had it been?  Five years?  He wouldn't even know where to begin.
    "I don't see any reason to get involved," he said.  "I'm not a private investigator any more.  I'm just a guy who does crosswords.  That's my whole purpose in life—doing crosswords.  I've probably done thousands of them.  I'll probably do thousands more."
    Quinn laughed.  Gage, not smiling, looked at him.
    "I wasn't joking," he said.

 
    Chapter 3
     
    THAT NIGHT, GAGE DREAMED he was lost at sea.  It was a wild and churning sea, a bubbling gray broth with no land in sight.  It was not cold at all, but hot—scalding, as if he'd been dumped into a boiling cauldron.  Clouds as wild as the sea streaked the sky like the hurried brushstrokes of a mad painter.  Thunder rumbled, and hot rain pelted his face.  He struggled to keep his head above the surface, thrashing about, taking in great mouthfuls of warm, salty water.  Something was wrong with his arms—they weren't working the way they should. 
    When he got them up in front of his face, he saw that he had no hands.  There were only stumps.
    Then something floated into view—a buoy of some kind, two adjoining logs jutting out of the waves.  Kelp tangled around the logs, fastening them together.  He paddled toward them and wrapped his stump-arms around them.  The logs were cold, but strangely soft.  It was only then that he realized what it was.
    It was the girl from the beach. 
    She was upside down, her bare, lacerated legs sticking out of the water—and that's what he was holding.
    Gage finally woke, heart pounding, face drenched in sweat, the sheets tangled around his legs like the sea kelp tangled around that girl.
    "Christ," he said to the darkness.
     
    * * * * *
     
    A couple days passed.  It rained one of the days, a brief shower, but otherwise remained cool and bright.  Except for checking on Mattie once, his ailing housekeeper who lived in a cottage down the hill that Gage owned, he spent the time reading or doing crosswords at his kitchen