Dark Crossings Read Online Free PDF Page B

the
forest. Dark now, with the wind up, the Wild Run Woods seemed a living,
breathing thing, shifting, whispering, watching.
    She stuck so close to Ben that she bumped into his back when he
stopped and knelt to look in the open window. She stooped beside him.
    “Mushrooms down there, too,” he whispered. His mouth was so
close to her ear that his breath heated her temple even in the chill breeze.
“Let’s go in, but you stick tight.”
    Holding his gun like a club, he led the way through the back
door. “Sheriff Freeman here!” he bellowed, so loudly she jumped. Despite the
fact it was a lie, it was somehow a good one. Maybe there were shades of gray in
what this man said and did.
    They stopped just inside the kitchen, barely breathing. Ben
locked the door behind them. No sound came from inside the six-room,
single-story place but the familiar creak of its old bones.
    “Light another lantern,” he whispered. Nervous, but feeling so
much safer with Ben here, she fumbled with the match, then blessed the gentle
hiss as soft lantern light enveloped them. His eyes gleamed as he looked over at
her, then nodded as if to give her courage. She’d slipped her arms into his
jacket now, and appreciated its warmth. It felt cold in the house, as if the
wind were trying to break in, too.
    After opening the pantry door to look inside, and then checking
under the sink while she held the lantern for him, Ben started into the living
room. With Abby close behind, he peered into each nook and corner, in closets,
behind doors, under beds in both bedrooms. Well, she had nothing to hide, though
it felt strange to have the man of her dreams in her bedroom. He seemed to dwarf
her bathroom as he pulled the shower curtain aside and checked the tub. She
wished she’d scrubbed it better. They bumped into each other as he turned around
to head out.
    Once he was sure no one was hiding anywhere, he checked the
front door, too. “Things look untouched,” he told her, not whispering now. “You
see anything amiss?”
    She shook her head. “I didn’t look in my money box, but I’ll
check that. And I have a few other things hidden.”
    “Thieves can be clever. Some are neat, too, and until you do an
inventory, you can’t tell what’s missing.”
    He looked as if he wanted to say more. A frown furrowed his
forehead again, and he seemed suddenly angry. But he only said, “Now the
cellar.” He hesitated at the top of the stairs that led down from the kitchen.
“Any cubbyholes or closets down there where someone could hide?”
    “ Ja, a root cellar that goes off
from the main part, but it’s pretty full of bags of compost.”
    “Point it out but stay back.”
    They tiptoed down into the cellar, where he immediately closed
and latched the open window and examined the footprints on the concrete floor.
“What’s all that?” he whispered, pointing to her buckets of slurry.
    “Virgin spawn to inoculate maple chips,” she whispered
back.
    “Virgin spawn? To impregnate male what?”
    “Maple chips! To inoculate them—to make more mushrooms.”
    “Oh,” he said, staring at her, his mouth half-open.
    Annoyed at herself for blushing over nothing, she pointed
toward the root cellar, lifting her lantern higher. Ben hefted his gun again
and, keeping her behind him, swung open the unlatched door—which shouldn’t have
been unlatched, she realized. When he said, “All clear,” Abby peeked around him
and gasped.
    “What?” he asked. “Whew! If an intruder hid in here, he paid
the price!” The dim, four-foot-square space with bags of mixed mulch and manure
smelled like the stalls of the dairy farm where she’d gotten the compost. He
dared to bite back a grin.
    “It’s not funny! Ben, someone was in here! He shoved those bags
aside and even sat on one. See that footprint in the mulch mix scattered there?
I keep the floor swept—and the bags closed tight—so he somehow spilled that,
then stepped in it. And maybe he was hiding while I was