Blood Moon: A Rowan Gant Investigation Read Online Free PDF Page A

appreciate
that. You’ll give Constance our love, then?”
    “Yeah, will do.” He gave her a squeeze in
return while saying. “You gonna be okay?”
    “Aye,” she said. “Eventually.”
    “Ya’know she was doin’ ‘er job, right?
Constance doesn’t blame you for what happened.”
    “You can’t know that, Ben.”
    “Yeah, I can. Trust me, it’s a cop
thing.”
    “Maybe so,” my wife replied as she pulled
away, tears starting to well in her eyes again. “But that
doesn’t…”
    “I’m tellin’ ya’ don’t go there…” he
returned, cutting her off as he reached out and gave her shoulder a
squeeze. “She may be a Feeb, but she’s still a badge. She was doin’
‘er job. B’sides, she’s gonna be fine.” He let out a nervous
chuckle that sounded as if he was trying to reassure himself as
much as her, then added, “Ya’ don’t really think she’s gonna let me
off the hook that easy, do ya’?”
    I caught a glimpse of a forced smile pulling
at the corner of her mouth as she tried to respond to his attempt
at cheering her up and then watched as her lips quickly turned back
into a frown. She shot a glance toward me, and I could see in her
expression that she was wrestling with a different guilt entirely.
I had a feeling I knew the source of the anguish all too well
because I was feeling it too. And I suspected the two of us weren’t
the only ones fending off the pain it brought. Ben probably was as
well but when it came right down to it, none of us wanted to be the
first to confess the sin.
    She looked back at him and said, “Thank you,”
before turning fully to face me and adding, “Don’t be long?”
    Her voice was soft, yet held the benign note
of insistence that was so often exchanged between husbands and
wives, telling me she wanted to be on the way soon. When I looked
into her eyes, however, a “demand” wasn’t what I saw.
    If anything, she wore an expression that was
no less than a pleading question mark.
     
     
     
     

CHAPTER 3:
     
    Ben and I both watched after Felicity as she
walked down the path and started along the edge of the access road
rather than chance crossing the soft ground in heels. The hard
sound of her shoe soles against the asphalt dulled with each step
she took, but I continued to gaze in her direction until she
disappeared behind the end of a small hedgerow.
    Certain she was out of earshot, my friend
turned to me and asked, “Whaddaya think? She really gonna be
okay?”
    “Yeah, she’ll be fine. Like she said, it’s
just going to take some time,” I replied, nodding my head. “She
hasn’t really had the opportunity to decompress yet, obviously.
Neither of us has. There are just things we both still have to come
to terms with.”
    I left it at that. I wasn’t about to get into
a deep explanation. Not here, and not now. There was something
sacrosanct about the moment and location that made me feel like
doing so would be blasphemous, even in a secular sense. Besides, in
my mind at least I had something more important that needed to be
addressed. Unfortunately, right now my friend was intent on being
just that, a friend, so he continued to probe out of concern.
    “So what about you, Row? You holdin’ on?”
    “I have to—for now anyway. We can’t have both
of us turning into basket cases simultaneously.”
    “Why not? If ya ask me ya’ both deserve it
after what you’ve been through.”
    “I won’t argue with you there.” I shrugged.
“But, my time will come later. Right now she needs it more.”
    “Yeah, I know what ya’ mean… So have ya’ been
talkin’ ta’ Helen at least?” he asked, referring to his sister, who
was not only a friend but a therapist who had helped all of us cope
with some of the horrors we had faced over the years.
    “Not yet, but we will.”
    “Good. Make it soon, ‘kay?”
    “Yeah,” I nodded. “Soon.”
    He huffed out a sigh and looked back toward
the dispersing traffic once again. “So, listen, I hate