Dark Places Read Online Free PDF

back home in the Georgia woods as big as saucers. And they run real fast and jump at you. I’ve seen ’em.”
    â€œWell, if that happens, pull your weapon and shoot it. I’m not going to worry much until I see one the size of a cat. Now that’d be scary.”
    Bud shuddered at that image.
    I said, “You already checked under there, I take it.”
    This time he appeared slightly ashamed. “Not yet. I was gonna look for some Raid first.”
    â€œFor God’s sake, Bud.”
    I knelt and shined my flashlight into the dark corners. “Well, well, it looks like Mr. Classon forgot to clean his house. There are spiderwebs everywhere under here.”
    â€œYeah? Told ya.”
    I angled the beam and held it steady on a foil-wrapped package wedged up into the pipes. “Whoa, now, lookee here what I found.”
    I knocked away some webs with the flashlight and pulled out the stash. “I bet this’ll weigh out at half a kilo of cocaine, all parceled out in little plastic Ziploc bags, too. Looks like Classon’s not so angelic, after all.”
    â€œThink he’s dealing?”
    â€œOh, yeah. Or he’s saving up for a rainy day.”
    â€œPennington should’ve found this.”
    â€œMaybe he’s scared of spiders, too.”
    I stood up, and Bud slammed the cabinet door with his toe. “Everything clean upstairs?”
    â€œYeah. I think he might’ve been reading when somebody knocked at the front door. Looks like he went downstairs to see who it was, and they jumped him in the foyer. Maybe one of his baser clients.”
    Bud said, “Yeah. Maybe somebody thought his prices were too high. I’ll run his name and see if we get any hits.”
    â€œRight. I’ll see if I can find an address book with names of his friends and relatives. We need to apprise next of kin that he might be missing, then we’ll have to get a statement from the neighbor lady before we leave here. My gut’s telling me it’s drug related, and wherever Classon is, he’s in big trouble.”
    â€œYeah, likewise. Unless he fell, gashed his head on the doorstop, and drove himself to the hospital. I guess that could’ve happened. Or maybe his angel friends flew him there.”
    â€œCall the hospitals while you’re at it so we can rule that out.”
    â€œRight. I’m on it.”

THREE
    When the emergency rooms came up blank for Simon Classon, we branded the case a bona fide missing person/assault, secured and documented our evidence bag to take downtown, then called for our nutty but expert criminalist, Johnny Becker, a.k.a. Shaggy, to sweep the Classon crime scene. By the time we skidded down the ice-slick road, trudged up onto the neighbor’s front porch, and I stomped the snow off my stilettos, it was getting close to ten o’clock.
    Bud said, “Better not let this lady see what you’ve got on underneath that coat, or she might brand you a hussy and bar the doors.”
    â€œIf you’d grabbed the duffel bag with my sweats and Nikes and thermal socks like you were supposed to, I could’ve changed a long time ago and wouldn’t be freezing my toes off in these stupid shoes.”
    â€œSo I got in a hurry and forgot. Sorry. You want my coat?”
    â€œKeep it. It doesn’t go with my fishnets.”
    The house was an old forties-style bungalow with yellow stucco walls and an open-air balcony just above the front porch. A gaily patterned swing set at one end, dusted with snow and longing for July nights and lightning bugs. There was no storm door, only an old wooden one that looked original to the house. It had a rectangular window with frosted glass, and after a few minutes, the door opened a crack that was, just maybe, wide enough to squeeze a piece of typing paper through.
    â€œYes?” A teeny-weeny grandma voice, not at all sure she wanted to let anybody in her house without a signed