Canyons of Night Read Online Free PDF

But everyone who was connected to the Society recognized him at once. Sort of an inside marketing joke.” Satisfied that the action figure was unharmed, Charlotte set it on top of the dressing table. “Luckily Sylvester seems to have survived.”
    “Sure. This is Sylvester Jones, we’re talking about.”
    Charlotte smiled. “True. Legend has it he was a hard man to kill.”
    “Tell me about the break-in,” Slade said.
    “Right.” She dusted off her hands. “As I explained to Myrna when I called the station this morning, I think I had a break-in. The problem is that I don’t know if anything was stolen.”
    “I can understand why it would be hard to tell if something was missing. This place is crammed with junk.”
    Charlotte glared. “That’s antiques and collectibles to you.”
    “Right. Antiques and collectibles. Tell me about the break-in you think you had,” he said.
    “He came through the back door. I’m positive I locked it last night when I closed up.”
    “No one locks their doors here in Shadow Bay.”
    “I do. I’m from the city, remember? At any rate, the door was unlocked this morning when I arrived. And there are what look like muddy prints on the floor.”
    “Oh, good,” Slade said. “Actual clues. That should be interesting.”
    “You’re not taking this seriously, are you?”
    “In the five days that I have been chief of police here the most serious crime I’ve had to deal with involved the supposed theft of Hoyt Wilkins’s bicycle. It turned up the following day. Astonishingly, it was still leaning against the tree where Hoyt had left it when he realized he was too drunk to ride it home from the Driftwood Tavern.”
    “I heard that two nights ago you also had to break up a fight at the Driftwood.”
    “Breaking up a bar fight is not the same thing as conducting an investigation. Mostly it involves trying not to get slugged while you separate the drunken idiots involved.”
    “But wait, there’s more,” she announced triumphantly. “Yesterday you arrested those two hot-weed runners who anchored their boat in the marina in order to hide from the Coast Guard.”
    “Both of those guys were too stoned on their own product to notice that they’d been arrested. All I did was throw them in jail until the authorities from Frequency could get here to collect them and the weed,” Slade said.
    “Still, it sounds like a busy first week on the job. Why am I getting the feeling that you’re already bored?”
    “Is it that obvious?” Slade asked.
    “If you didn’t want to be a small-town police chief, why on earth did you take the job here on Rainshadow?”
    “I told you, I needed something to tide me over until I can get my project up and running.”
    “Things didn’t work out in the FBPI?”
    “Let’s just say I’m ready for a change. Now, about your break-in.”
    “Follow me.”
    She led the way through the crowded, shadowed space and into the back room of the shop. She was very aware of Slade following close behind her. Face it, she thought, he’s the sexiest man you’ve ever met in your entire life and you are alone with him on an island.
    Okay, not alone, exactly. She and Slade shared Rainshadow with the other residents, but an island was an island, and given that a ferry that operated twice a day was the only regular link to the outside world, there was a very real sense of remoteness and isolation.
    The back room of Looking Glass was even more crowded than the front sales room. It was jammed almost to the ceiling with packing crates and shipping boxes full of antiques and collectibles that her aunt had never bothered to unpack. The containers formed a narrow canyon that led to the rear door. There were also several new crates stacked around the room. They contained the objects that she had elected to bring with her when she closed down her Frequency shop.
    “I don’t envy you trying to take an inventory,” Slade said. “Some of these crates look as if they’ve