Burn- pigeon 16 Read Online Free PDF Page B

the basin of brick, the fountain stilled, lay at its foot, and the wind, its coquetry hinting at a storm to come, stiffened the bleeding heart and voracious wisteria until they moved and snapped audibly.
    The only jarring note in this romantic decrepitude was the gutter punk. Smoking a cigarette, his gaunt frame hunched into a wary question mark, he sat on the low fountain wall with his dog at his feet, as if they waited for Anna.

FIVE
    A freakish hail of burning wood and glass fell from the sky. Pieces striking the street burst like comets hitting earth, fire breeding fire. By Seattle's dripping grace, nothing else was ignited.
    This horrible glory unfolded in near silence for Clare. The blast that knocked her down had momentarily deafened her.
    Silence, and the peculiar stop-frame way the explosion cracked through seconds of the night, ended simultaneously.
    Tracy's baby cried. People ran toward the flaming house. A crowd appeared, born of the conflagration as maggots are born of dead meat. Neighbors. More police. Cars. Gawkers drawn by the noise, the light. A news van. The sound of sirens. The petty star pecks of camera flashes fighting the sun of the burning house.
    Clare got to her feet. By the effortlessness of her rise she guessed she was unhurt. The information was of no interest to her. Like others, she was pulled toward the fire till a sensation, so different from those that had been racking body and brain it startled her, brought her to a standstill. Relief. She was suddenly desperately grateful her children had been taken.
    Otherwise they would have been inside the house.
    "Hallelujah," she whispered.
    "What the hell . . ."
    The officer with the bad knee--Dunn--was standing a few feet away, his fleshy face dyed demonic red by the flames. His eyes, black cuts enlivened by reflected sparks, slewed toward her.
    "Jesus Christ!" he muttered as if he'd just had a revelation from the Man himself. Then a voice cut through the murmur of the growing crowd and the fierce chewing sound the flames made as they devoured the house. The radio clipped to Dunn's belt said, "Jim. Behind the house. Call the medics."
    No preamble. No formal radio protocol.
    Clare's thoughts, centered on her children, widened slightly to encompass others' lives, others' pain. The handsome young officer who'd gone theatrically in the front door; he was dead now. Had to be.
    The voice on the radio was male, and Clare guessed Shopert, the woman cop she'd liked, was the one hurt. Dunn's eyes left her. Thumbing the mike clipped to his epaulet, he made calls as he ran, his gate lopsided and slow.
    Bad knee.
    More sirens. Or the same ones closer. Fire trucks arrived.
    Feeling detached and outside of time, Clare drifted across the street.
    Fire painted the world garish red, much as Clare imagined dawn would on Mars. Each bush, tree, each burnt-black shadow, stood out in high relief. The crippling numbness of shock broke, releasing her. Time was exploding in a rain of fire, and no one was looking for Dana, for Vee. Ignoring the shouts of newly arriving authority figures to stay back, she ran toward the darkness behind the house crying out her children's names.
    Shoes slipping on the wet grass, she rounded the corner to the unfenced backyard. Officer Shopert lay on the pebbled walk. Dunn knelt over her. There must have been a good deal of blood--there was a shard of glass the size of Clare's palm protruding from the policewoman's neck and another embedded in her cheek, but in the saturated light color deceived.
    Clare didn't slow down. There was no garage, but David had built a carport for one car--his, a Lexus SUV. The bloated station wagon was in its customary place. David had come back. Or had never really left. The SUV's doors were unlocked. No kids. Her 1997 Honda was unlocked. Four or five times she checked the backseats of both vehicles, under the chassis and around back of the carport, certain, if she looked one more time, Dana and Vee would be