Burned: Black Cipher Files #3 (Black Cipher Files series) Read Online Free PDF Page B

himself.
    He was going to look for a certain midnight-haired sea nymph who had enchanted him. And who he should stay far, far away from.
    Even if she was a puzzle. And he loved to solve puzzles.
    Patterns existed everywhere, you just needed to find the repeat and suddenly everything would make sense.
    He’d lain in bed long after he’d gotten back to the hotel thinking about the mystery of Sunshine Smith. Who goes walking on a beach in the dead of night when they’re clearly scared of the water?
    Yeah, she’d definitely been afraid. Terrified really.
    Details he’d overlooked in the heat of wanting to kiss her clarified when he’d reviewed the night’s events. Her skirt had been soaked, her sweater too.
    Who went into the surf to rescue a boneheaded idiot when they weren’t just afraid, but flat out petrified, of the water?
    Yeah, he’d thanked her last night.
    But the more he’d gone over every detail of their encounter, the more the reality of what she had done for him sunk in. And the more he wanted, no needed, to seek her out and thank her again.
    Zeke tied his old-fashioned room key to his shoelace and headed out. Fog, thick and soupy, shrouded the street, but the reflection was bright and white, not gray. The air was crisp, clean. When the fog burned off, it was going to be an ideal day.
    Zeke took off for the only drag in town. Main Street.
    He knew Sunshine Smith lived in the town proper above a store. Running up and down the main thoroughfare looking for a certain woman was about as stupid as searching New York City for one, but it had worked for his friend Jordan, and Cambria was a lot smaller than NYC. So...what the hell.
    His hotel was one block off the central road, tucked behind a grove of eucalyptus and adjacent to a total dive bar. He wasn’t much of a drinker but something about the place reminded him of his grandfather and he thought maybe later he’d go in and raise a pint in his honor.
    His grandfather. Yesterday had been the anniversary of his death. His grandfather’s murder, he now knew.
    As Zeke took off down the street, it occurred to him that today was the anniversary of Sunshine’s grandparents’ deaths.
    Her situation was a little different. Her grandparents had died in a car accident. Their tire had blown out and their car had rolled into a raging creek and they’d drowned. Based on the fact that it had been labeled an accident and she’d only been a little girl, she probably didn’t even remember or register this day in her mind. But she had a right to know that their deaths were not an accident. A right to closure.
    Knowing now that his grandfather’s death was, in fact, murder helped some, but the man he’d loved was still gone. The man who’d taught him so much was still missing from his life. The loss left an empty ache in his heart.
    For years, Zeke had been pissed at his grandfather because he’d thought that he hadn’t followed his own basic safety rules for climbing, the meticulous habits that he’d ingrained in Zeke from his first climb. Those OCD tendencies that were obsessive but truly meant to be cautious. When he believed his grandfather had ignored his own rules it had changed how Zeke thought of his Grandpop and he’d been mad at him for dying.
    Now that he knew his grandfather’s death was not an accident as initially reported, that his Grandpop hadn’t been negligent, he mourned all over again for the man who’d taught him how to be a man. And he grieved for the fact that for the past thirteen years he’d been pissed at him as if that were somehow a betrayal of his Grandpop’s teachings. He was also pissed at himself for not recognizing that there was no way that his grandfather would have ever gone climbing with unchecked, faulty equipment. Zeke should have realized sooner that something had been wrong.
    Thirteen years ago, someone in the NSA had chosen to activate sleepers and eliminate a group of people. The decision may have been analytical but