Autumn Blue Read Online Free PDF Page A

The September sky had deepened to soft
     violet. Across the street, Mr. Bradbury was spraying his garden with the hose. He reminded her of her dad a little. Not in
     looks so much; Mr. Bradbury was taller, with broader shoulders and long, gangly arms. But there he was, predictably doing
     what he did every night around this time—on the nights it didn’t rain, anyway—wearing that same dove-gray cardigan sweater,
     faithfully spraying his black-eyed Susans and orange mums. Just like her dad used to do. Mr. Bradbury’s entire life was packaged
     up as neatly, she was sure, as his immaculate yard. Checkbook always balanced, bills paid a week or two before they were due,
     that classic Lincoln lubed and oiled precisely on schedule. She missed her stable, dependable father, gone now for five years.
     She remembered how her mother had grieved for him, the man she had slept beside for forty years, and at the same instant Sidney
     had a twinge of revelation. Hadn’t she heard that Mr. Bradbury’s wife died just last year? He must be grieving, too. She should
     go over there, maybe bring him a pie or a loaf of orange oatmeal bread. Yes, he would love her bread; everyone did. And with
     the delay timer on her bread machine, she could deliver it to him after work tomorrow, still warm.
    A car cruised up to her driveway and surprised her by turning in. Sidney’s heart lurched. The sheriff. Hot tea splashed on
     her bare thigh and soaked into her khaki shorts.
    She stood, gripping her tea mug, straining her eyes to see the shape of Tyson in the backseat of the patrol car. From the
     front door she waited for what seemed like a day and a half before the uniformed deputy opened his car door and stepped out.
     Mr. Bradbury had been headed inside for the night, but froze halfway up his front steps, staring curiously from across the
     road. The deputy walked toward Sidney without so much as a glance back toward his car. “Mrs. Walker?”
    “Did you find my son?”
    He shook his head. Sidney’s blood was charged, racing through her veins. She didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed.
     If he had been in the car, Tyson would be on his way to jail. But if they hadn’t found him, then he was still lost, still
     running, out there in that terrible unknown that haunted her with alarming visions every waking hour. The deputy stopped at
     the base of her steps, a tall, thick-shouldered man with some kind of Latin blood. Probably Mexican. His dark eyes were cold
     and she knew instantly that he had not come as a friend. “I need to ask you some questions.”
    Should she invite him in? No, she didn’t want the girls to hear this. They knew their brother was on the run, but Sidney had
     tried to shelter them from the specific details. “Ask away,” she said.
    He stepped up to the porch. She read the name bar pinned to his starched khaki shirt just below the Winger County sheriff’s
     badge. Deputy A. Estrada. Sidney drew back, leaning against the doorjamb, putting a comfortable distance between her and the
     ominous visitor. She hugged herself, running her hands over the goose bumps on her bare arms.
    “When was the last time you saw your son, Tyson, Mrs. Walker?”
    “The morning he ran off from school.” He should know that. The school counselor had called the Sheriff’s Department immediately
     that Friday afternoon to report that he had broken his probation, and Sidney had been in touch with them regularly since then.
     “It was the ninth.”
    He cocked his head, his piercing eyes narrowing. “You’re telling me you haven’t seen him since then? He hasn’t come home at
     all?”
    She nodded. “That’s what I’m telling you.”
    He raised a dark eyebrow and inspected her face without speaking. He might as well have called her a liar. Sidney had a fleeting
     impulse, a vision of her leg shooting out karate-style, kicking the sour-faced deputy sheriff off her porch. Instead, she
     reminded herself that he was just