Black Water Read Online Free PDF Page A

would have been uphill for him, sending his weight backward, which would land him as they'd found him. But for all she knew he could have been walking away from the house, fallen forward and facedown and rolled over. Or spun with the shot. Or staggered a one-eighty. Or went spastic and done something unexpected, as many gunshot victims do.
Maybe Archie will wake up in a few hours and tell us what happened, she thought. Scalps bleed a lot. Maybe the bullet took out a little meat and knocked him cold but left his brain in one piece. Maybe it bounced off.
She thought of a case she'd worked her first year on patrol, where a creep took a hit in the head with a nine millimeter and they found the slug in his thigh. It had bullied its way down there, bouncing off skull and bone, burning through muscles and cartilage, careening through solid matter like a monster out of control. Which, Rayborn thought, is basically what a bullet is once it gets inside you. The guy ended up fine as he ever was: they got him on a narco charge and he did time. Cortera, thought Rayborn—Reuben Cortera. That was ten years ago but Rayborn never forgot a creep's name. Never.
She stood and looked at the trees. Their trunks were a few yards back from the walk and the morning sun was still low enough to sneak in under the foliage. Still standing on the walk, she moved aside a branch and stared down at dark soil and the few violets and sparse alyssum that were scratching out a living in almost constant shade Someone had worked the area recently. There were rake marks, and a shiny new brass emitter on one of the risers.
Then she saw the two shoe prints less than a yard away. They startled her. They were side by side, facing her. Close. Clear. Big. Like someone had rested or waited there, or an invisible man was then right now, offering his hand to shake. Or pointing a gun at her head. To Archie's left, if Archie was coming up the walk that way she thought. Ten feet away she saw more prints. Many partial indentation: and apparent overlaps—signs of movement. But they were in harder soil and not as clear.
She nodded Zamorra over and he took the branch and looked in.
"Has anyone been in here?" he asked.
"No, sir," said Dobbs. "Can I see?"
Merci stood aside and let the young deputy look.
"So excellent," he said.
Crowder looked next and let out a low hmmm.
"Ike's going to love this," she said. Ike was one of the good CSI, someone who took her side in what had happened. He was terrific with imprint casts. "Please tell him I need him here, Deputy Dobbs."
"Yes, Sergeant," he said, and walked briskly back toward the house. She couldn't tell if he was mocking her or trying to be efficient, and she didn't really care. Her heart had sped up a notch when she saw the foot imprints and it was still thumping good and hard and she thought I'll use this cast to put your ass on the row, you big ugly bastard.
Rayborn and Crowder spent the next ten minutes looking for brass on the big footprint side of the walkway. They worked mostly from the cement—squatting and reaching out with ballpoint pens to lift the leaves of the violets and to part the downy blossoms of the alyssum. Occasionally they took a step into the foliage, keeping well away from the footprints. They looked like naturalists. Merci didn't care what they looked like as long as they got the job done. The bullet scar on her side hurt. It was eight months old now, flat and hard, like a thin piece of aluminum grown into her skin.
She glanced back once at Zamorra. He hadn't left his place on the sidewalk. He slouched, loose and still as a cat, with his back to the sun and his hands in the pockets of his black suit pants.
It was Zamorra who spotted the nine-millimeter cartridge case glinting next to a violet bloom. He pointed to it with a straight steady finger. It stood upright and poised, like a gymnast who has just finished her routine. It was ten feet from the sidewalk, opposite the footprints. Not where the big man had