Black Water Read Online Free PDF Page B

and two chairs, some potted plants, a lap pool, a little section of bright green lawn, then a slope of late-season wildflowers leading down to a white post-and-rail fence. A path made of railway ties led through the flowers and Merci followed it. There was gravel between the ties, and the flowers grew right up to the edges of the wood and the stones. Bees hummed from bloom to bloom and for two seconds Merci felt like she'd entered scene from one of Tim Jr.'s Winnie-the-Pooh stories. She thought of her boy and wished she could walk with him into one of those scene and stay there for a year or two.
She went all the way down to the fence, then back to the patio without finding a rock you could throw through a window. She wondered if it had come from Wildcraft's collection of viewing stones What a view that one had, she thought.
Zamorra was sitting at the cafe table, legs crossed, staring at the hole in the glass.
"Let's walk it tomorrow," he said.
"All right."
"We'll know by then if Archie fired the gun or not."
"Yeah."
He studied her with his unsettling calm. "Stay open, Merci. He might have done it."
"I know. I will. I'm trying."
Merci thought how easy it was to be wrong. She knew how wrong she'd been about a deputy named Mike McNally, and the terrible price they had both paid. Mike was part of what had happened a year age the heart of it. So she said nothing more. Because even if she was wrong now—even if she was being fooled by her heart, as she'd bee so spectacularly fooled before—at least it was speaking to her again
Plus, and more to the point, she thought, Wildcraft was one of us Us. We protect and serve. We do what's required. We kick ass and take names.
We don't kill our mates, then ourselves.
"I know you are, Merci. I know."
At nine that night, Merci returned to the Wildcraft home. She had had dinner with her son and her father, played with Tim Jr., read him three of his favorite books, then tucked him in.
She was tired by then but she had to find out one thing. She wouldn't be able to sleep until she knew. She parked shy of the driveway and walked in, flashlight in hand just in case. When she got up near the garage the lights went on, big floods—one angled right and one left. It was nine-twelve and eight seconds, by her watch. She turned toward the house, following the walkway that would lead to the front porch and door, then around to the back, where Archie's blood marked the concrete.
But she stopped about halfway to the door, turned around to see if the driveway lights were still on. They were. So she backed off into the bushes and stood in the darkness under a big sycamore.
She listened to the crickets, and a far-off barking dog. From here, she couldn't see any other houses. Out in front of her, over the roof of the garage, there was a section of darkness and a few stars. It had irked Merci for almost ten years that she could only identify one star: the north. She'd promised herself to take a junior college class in basic astronomy someday, one of many such promises not yet kept. Rayborn put herself far down on the list of people for whom she'd do something pleasing.
At exactly nine-seventeen the lights went off. She stepped from the darkness and walked back to the driveway, forcing them on again. The motion zone was wide—from the middle of the drive all the way to the start of the walkway.
She tried the garage door, got resistance, didn't want to force it. Around the side was a convenience door but it was locked. She shined her light through the small window. Hard to see with the light bouncing off the glass, but there were two cars. One was an SUV of some kind, the other was small and low and hidden beneath a fabric cover.
She went back to her car, ran the beam of her flashlight along the back seats before getting in. Just a habit by now. She listened to the police radio turned down low, thought about Tim Hess and Tim Jr., dangled her arm into the darkness behind her seat.
    The lights stayed on for