Behind the Walls Read Online Free PDF

road leading to the professor’s long rocky driveway that she gave a thought to Zina and the relics, the reason she was there, racing along a darkly overgrown path in the middle of nowhere.
    She hoped that Zina would be waiting outside, that she wouldn’t have gone into the house alone after her panic the night before. On the other hand, maybe Zina felt better, wasn’t as shaken now that it was daylight. Looking up the curved narrow road through the trees, Harper tried to spot the house up ahead, wondering about its history. The missing actress, the murdered family. The dead research assistant. Zina’s fear.
    Engrossed in her thoughts, Harper sped ahead. She almost didn’t notice a mass of electric blue just off the narrow road, half hidden by trees. Almost didn’t bother to glance back to see what it was, a color that didn’t belong. Almost didn’t turn and go back to investigate.
    But when she did, she barely recognized the heap of mangled metal as the little blue Smart Car that had been Zina’s, smashed against a thick old oak.
    Harper jumped off the bike and raced to the wreck, shouting, calling Zina’s name. She tore through trees, around shrubs and over undergrowth. Twigs snapped underfoot like sniper fire, but Harper ignored them, kept moving until she could peer through tangles of foliage, broken glass and twisted metal. Only when she saw what was left of Zina, her blood-drenched body slumped beside the car, her eyes fixed on nothing  . . . only then did she stop and stay still.
    The air smelled of oil and blood. Harper stared; sweat poured down her torso. And somewhere, guns began firing. Men cried out. No, she insisted. Not now. But, even as she told herself that the fighting around her wasn’t real, that it was a flashback, she ducked low to the ground, dodging bullets, feeling them whizz past her ears. Guns popped. Smoke clouded her vision. Someone screamed. She reached for her weapon, couldn’t find it. Realized that, damn, it must be back with her gear. So half crawling, half scooting, she made it back to her Ninja, pulled out her leather bag, reached inside for a pistol, found a phone. Dug some more. And pulled out a lemon.
    A lemon? She blinked at it, forcing herself to remember what it was doing in her gear. A voice deep in her head commanded: Bite it . Bite it? The lemon? But wait – a woman was crossing the street, her hand reaching inside her burqa, and a green car was speeding toward the checkpoint. She knew the explosion was coming, needed to warn the patrol  . . . Bite it!
    Harper jammed the lemon into her mouth and chomped; sour acidic juice spilled on to her tongue, startling her. Overpowering her mind. Making her focus on taste. On the moment. And suddenly, the checkpoint, the car, the woman suicide bomber – the war faded away, leaving Harper alone on the wooded path to Professor Langston’s, a phone in her hand, a lemon in her mouth. And, a few feet away, Zina, dead, huddled beside her car.
    Lights and sirens. Sirens and lights. Harper sat on a large rock, watching as police and firemen and medical technicians scurried around. The coroner’s van pulled up. A tow truck. A television crew. She didn’t know what to do, where to be, so she stayed off to the side, huddling. Trying to understand what had happened. Zina had to have been speeding, must have lost control of her car and hit the tree. Must have crawled out, injured, and died. But why had she been speeding? What was her hurry? Was she being chased, maybe? Here? On this unpaved back road? Something nagged at her about Zina’s body. She was almost sitting up. And there was so much blood. Not much, if any, inside the car. None visible on the seat. What had caused her to bleed so much?
    A man wandered over, balding, maybe in his forties. Tall, lanky. Prominent cheekbones. Wearing jeans, a tweed blazer. He nodded in her direction, stood watching the commotion. Hands in his pockets.
    ‘Hell of a thing.’ He didn’t look at