Dark Justice Read Online Free PDF Page A

Other-Than-Human Neighbors if he allowed this act of barbaric cruelty and species snobbery to take place? More to the point, how could he face Giselle? He had argued and argued with Fred, but nothing he had said had changed the man’s mind. There was no other alternative. Ben normally wasn’t one to meddle in other people’s business, but some things were just wrong, and this was one of them. He had to do something.
    Didn’t he?
    Navigating the town had been easy, even for a stranger, even in the dead of night. Magic Valley was a small northwest Washington town nestled at the foot of Mount Crescent. It had fewer than ten thousand residents, and the cabdriver had given Ben a thorough tour on his way in. Downtown was laid out on five streets: Main Street, which coursed through the center of the town, and the four cross streets, Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, and Kennedy—one for each assassinated president. Most of the residences were to the north, between Main and the Magic Valley National Forest, site of the logging operation that supported most of the town.
    Ben tiptoed past a pawnshop, a drugstore, a dry goods store, and a grocery. Almost all the businesses had yellow ribbons tied to the door or a lamppost. What was that all about? he wondered. Well, that was something he could ask about tomorrow, after this Mission: Impossible escapade was behind him.
    He crept down the steps that led to the basement entrance of the bookstore. He had checked the lock on his way out; it wasn’t the worst he’d ever seen, but he didn’t think he’d have much trouble getting past it. Long ago his friend Mike Morelli, Tulsa homicide cop, had made him an expert on lockpicking. And there was no sign of a security system.
    He scanned the street above him in all directions. He saw two men standing on a streetcorner two blocks away. Even from this distance, he could see one of the men was huge, with muscles rippling out of his tank top and shoulder-length jet-black hair. The two were having an intense discussion about something. Ben couldn’t imagine what anyone could want to talk about at this hour of the morning. After a few more minutes, both men disappeared down a side street.
    Ben waited until everything was quiet. He whipped out the simple two-piece metal lockpick he had acquired at the pawnshop not far from his hotel. He pushed the thin metal brace up, holding the trigger piece out of the action. Then he probed the interior of the lock with the longer ridged piece, trying to trip the tumbler that would open the lock.
    He heard a distinct popping noise, then tried the doorknob. It moved.
    Ben drew in his breath. This was the critical moment. If he took the next step, he would be committed to this course of action. This absolutely positively illegal course of action.
    Slowly he pushed the door open. There was no alarm—or none that he could hear, anyway. That at least was a relief.
    He shuffled inside, feeling a sudden surge of adrenaline. He had taken the decisive step now; best to just get it over with.
    He pulled his flashlight out of his coat pocket and swept it across the bookstore. The card table at which he had sat before was gone, and the largely unsold stock of his book had already been loaded into a cardboard box, ready to be shipped back to the publisher for credit.
    He tiptoed down the nearest corridor, passing Agatha Christie’s entire life’s work, the Sue Grafton alphabet books, and the endless array of lawyer books, all of which appeared to have exactly the same cover.
    In the far corner, he found his prey.
    “Hello, Margery,” Ben whispered, crouching down to the cat’s level. “We’re going to do a road-show reenactment of The Great Escape . And I’m playing Steve McQueen.”
    To his relief, the cat did not struggle, hiss, fight, claw, or otherwise express her objections. Ben shoved the flashlight into his jacket, then scooped Margery into his arms. He was almost back up and running when he heard the rhythmic