Cape Refuge Read Online Free PDF Page A

commitments.
    â€œWho did this?” he screamed. Chess Springer, the old fisherman who had taught him most of what he knew about making a living on the sea, crossed the boardwalk and put his arm around Jonathan’s shoulder.
    â€œCome in Crickets and sit down,” Chess said in his raspy, smoke-ravaged voice. “I’ll get you some water.”
    Jonathan shook free. “I don’t need water, Chess. I need answers!”
    The old man rubbed his wizened face. “I saw their car and came over to shoot the breeze,” he said. “Found them just like that. Nobody around here heard gunshots or nothing.”
    â€œSo they were shot? ” he asked.
    â€œSeems so, though I didn’t look too long. I ran to Crickets and called the police.”
    Jonathan turned back to the scene, his mouth open with the silent wail of gut-wrenching anguish. “My wife. How will I tell my wife?” He brought both hands to his head. “I fought with them this morning! I said things . . .”
    Horror too deep to voice muted him. Who could have murdered the two kindest people on the island of Cape Refuge? Was it someone they had taken in, a soul so twisted that he would kill the very people who gave him a place to sleep and food to eat, helped him find work, and offered him a reason to live? How many people had they helped over the years? How many lives had they changed? How many hearts had been saved? How much hope had they offered?
    And now someone had come in here and murdered them? Cruelly, brutally, cold-bloodedly . . . murdered them? It didn’t make sense.
    He stood on the pier, gaping through that door, wondering when they would stop taking pictures and get Thelma and Wayne off the floor. He couldn’t let Morgan know until they did. He couldn’t let her see them like this.
    He heard a new siren coming and the squad car’s wheels on the gravel parking lot. He wished they’d turn the noise off before a crowd formed, before Morgan heard it from City Hall.
    He wanted to be the one to tell his wife. Just as soon as he could breathe. . . .
    But it was too late.
    Through the door, he saw Morgan burst through the front entrance of the warehouse. It was clear from her face that she’d already been told. Two cops tried to hold her back, but she was determined to get to Thelma and Wayne.
    â€œNo!” she screamed as she saw the policemen clustered near the front of the makeshift sanctuary. “Aw, no!”
    Jonathan bolted back into the warehouse, pulled her into his arms, and tried to hold her.
    â€œThey can’t be dead!” The torment ripped from her chest, shook her body, emptied her. She fell against him, weak and unsteady, just as he’d been moments before. But her need gave him back his strength, and he concentrated that strength on trying to hold her together.

 
C H A P T E R
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    B lair didn’t have enough information to accept the deaths as fact. She sat in the front seat of Cade’s squad car, staring at a chip on his windshield. He was saying something about the time of death, the murder weapon, the lack of witnesses.
    They would know more, he said, when they finished doing the perimeter search for evidence and could examine the bodies.
    The thought of her parents lying murdered on the floor of that warehouse short-circuited her mind, and she found herself looking out at the schooners docked at slips nearby, with their masts tall and bare, and scant activity on board some of them. The smell of salt water fish drifted on the warm breeze.
    She didn’t move, but inside her, emotional troops lined up for battle.
    â€œYou okay?” he asked.
    The words came soft and unhurried, and she thought of telling Cade that he didn’t have to baby-sit her. She just needed to sit here for a minute. Just needed to get her brain working again.
    â€œYou’re shaking,” he said, and took her hand. “You can’t go in the warehouse . . . but I