Deadliest of Sins Read Online Free PDF

get from the DHS.
    â€œOkay,” she finally said, “what now? Where do you want me to take you?”
    He pointed straight ahead. “There’s a road down here that circles Gudger’s property. If you let me out there, I can walk home. I can sneak through the back yard and get inside before he gets back in the house.”
    â€œOkay, buddy.” She drove as he directed, knowing there was little she could do to help this boy. Until he made his own complaint or his mother got the courage to leave, Chase was stuck. The sister had apparently caught on early and took off the first chance she got. What a shame she hadn’t bothered to tell her little brother good-bye.
    â€œHere,” he said, as they neared a reedy little creek that went under the road. “I can follow the creek to Gudger’s back fence and crawl under it.” As Mary rolled to a stop, he grabbed his backpack. “Thanks for everything,” he said.
    â€œWait a minute.” Opening her purse, Mary dug out a couple of her business cards. She knew it was folly, but she couldn’t stand the idea of this little boy feeling so helpless. She handed him two cards. “Listen—I’ve got to go to a church service tonight, but tomorrow I’m going to be talking to some local cops. How about I ask them if they’ve got any new leads in your sister’s case?”
    â€œYou’d do that?” He looked like she’d given him a shiny new bike.
    â€œOnly if you promise that if it gets bad—if this Gudger starts hitting you or your mom—you’ll call me.”
    He shook his head. “I can’t. Gudger won’t let anybody but him use the phone.”
    â€œThen go call from a neighbor’s house, or from that convenience store. If you hitched all the way to Asheville in a peach truck, I know you can get to a telephone.”
    â€œYes ma’am.” The boy frowned but took the cards and stuffed them in his backpack. “How will I know if you hear anything about Sam?”
    Mary got a pen from her purse. “What’s your mother’s name? Where does she work?”
    â€œAmy Gudger. She works at the River Bend Rest Home.”
    Mary scribbled the name on the back of an old parking ticket. “If I find out anything about your sister, I’ll contact your mom. Gudger will never know we met.”
    For the first time, the boy truly smiled—a smile that mirrored his sister’s from the photos—open, bright, as if they had the whole world to look forward to, for the rest of their lives. “Thanks,” he said. He opened the door, hopped out of the car, then scampered off the bridge and down to the creek. Mary gazed after him as he slipped through a weedy growth of cane, his EVEDINSE folder in his backpack, gnats buzzing around his head like a filmy gray halo.
    â€œWatch out for snakes!” Mary called. She watched until he disappeared, then she turned around, thinking that she was a fool to get even remotely involved with another kid—a fool to buy into, for a single minute, another troubled child’s version of reality.

    Chase waited until the growl of Mary Crow’s little car grew faint in the distance, then he took off his shoes, rolled up his pants, and stepped into the creek that would, eventually, lead him to Gudger’s property. Though the water was icy cold and he hated the slimy feel of the rocks beneath his feet, Cousin Petey had told him it was always safer to walk in a creek rather than follow one.
    â€œCopperheads like to hide along the banks,” the old woman had told him one day as she poked her walking stick into the mint that grew along her own little back yard stream. “So do snapping turtles. Better to walk in the middle of the water; not much can ambush you there.”
    So he waded on toward Gudger’s house, his feet freezing, his brain on fire with the day’s activities. That Mary Crow had turned out