Dark Waters (2013) Read Online Free PDF

“What do you mean
was
?” His mouth went dry because he suddenly knew where he’d seen her before. And he knew who her father
was
. He tried to swallow, but the muscles in his throat tightened like a noose.
    Her eyes shimmered in the night, so young, so beautiful. Anna Silver. Her father had been his cellmate for five long years and had read her letters out loud to him so often Brent felt like he knew her inside out. But he didn’t. She was a stranger.
    “He died.” Her voice cracked but he made no move to comfort her. A huge cavern of darkness opened up inside him, trying to consume him whole.
    “I think he was murdered.”
    His head jerked up. “What?”
    She nodded toward her purse, which he handed back to her. “Last night I received a voice mail from him. That’s what I was trying to show you when you slammed me against the door.”
    “I barely touched you,” he snarled.
    “You had no clothes on! And have a gun—”
    “You’re damn lucky I didn’t shoot you. Christ knows, I’m starting to regret it myself,” he muttered the last. He tried not to think about Davis. It hurt. Like losing Gina all over again. “Ex-cons aren’t the sort of people you drop in on, especially at”—he glanced at the clock on the stove—“two a.m. How the
hell
did you get here?” He dragged his hand through his hair. The water taxi closed hours ago.
    She looked away from him. “I flew into Vancouver late last night. Contacted a pilot I’ve used before who flew me into Victoria on his floatplane. I got a few hours’ sleep and then drove up here. When I got to Bamfield, I borrowed a rowboat to get across the inlet, and tied it to the public dock. I figured I’d return it before anyone noticed it was gone.” She kept rubbing her thumbs over one another, actions that belied her no-nonsense attitude. “Dad wrote to me once describing the house and exactly how to get here.”
    Brent was intimately acquainted with how much Davis liked to write to his kid. But she was talking about hours of driving on rough logging roads in the Canadian bush at night. Anything could have happened. His stomach churned just thinking about it.
    Moonlight flooded the room as clouds shifted across the sky; everything turned bright cold monochrome.
    “It wasn’t that hard. Now go and wake Brent Carver so I can figure out what to do next.” The edge to her voice was back as if she were clinging to her temper by the thinnest of margins.
    “I’m Brent.”
    Something flashed in her eyes. “Oh, please. I’m not stupid.”
    Brent figured there were all kinds of stupid, and went over to the kitchen drawer where he kept his wallet. He tossed it to her, not wanting to get too close in case he gave in to the desire to throttle her.
    “If you’re lucky,” he sneered, upper lip curling because he’d rather bait her than think about her father, “I’ll show you my etchings.” She was pissing him off and he wasn’t known for his charm or patience.
    She took out his driver’s license and squinted at him through the darkness. Damned if he was putting on a light so she could examine him more thoroughly. That thought brought a hot wave of sexual awareness bolting though his blood, and sweat broke out across his back.
Great
. Because twenty years of frustration wasn’t torture enough.
    She pursed her lips and stared him down. Not bad for a rookie.
    Then it hit him. Davis was dead. His best friend was gone. His throat stretched taut as emotion crushed him. He strode to the window to stare at the sea that glistened with silver ribbons, anything to avoid dealing with the tsunami of grief that wanted to demolish him.
    Davis had barely survived his first week in prison. Despite Brent being more than a decade younger than Anna’s father, he’d already been in jail for fourteen years when Davis had arrived,which made him vastly more experienced when it came to staying alive. He’d taken pity on the older guy, stood up for him, and taught him how to