Eerie Read Online Free PDF Page A

chain.
    Two deadbolts turning.
    Hinges creaking.
    A blade of light cut across the stone at Grant’s feet as the heavy wood door swung open.
    Top-shelf perfume swept over him.
    The light was poor.
    She wore a purple silk kimono with a pattern of black vines and flowers that curled down the sleeves. Plunging neckline. Her blond hair had been lifted off her neck and shoulders with a pair of black chopsticks. She stood barefoot in the doorframe, her hand still clutching the knob. Behind her, the darkened room shifted in the firelight.
    Grant looked into her face, into her eyes, hoping for some unfamiliar detail, but they all belonged unquestionably to her.
    Waves of horror and relief raged through his head.
    She tried to shut the door, but he’d anticipated this, the toe of his boot already across the threshold.
    “Leave,” she said. “Right now.”
    “I just want to talk to you.”
    “How dare you.”
    “Can I come in?”
    “You here to arrest me?”
    “No.”
    “How’d you find me?”
    “Doesn’t matter.”
    “I want you to leave right now.”
    “That’s not gonna happen.”
    “What do you want?”
    “Just to see you.”
    “Congratulations. You’ve seen me. Toodaloo.”
    “Why do you hate me?”
    “I don’t hate you.” She was still trying to force the door closed.
    Grant put his hand up and braced himself against it.
    He said, “I didn’t know if you were alive or dead. That’s the truth. Then I find out you’re back in Seattle. You could’ve reached out to me. You could’ve made contact.”
    “And why on earth would I do that?”
    “Oh, I don’t know. Because I’m your brother?”
    “So what?”
    “How could you say that?”
    “I don’t need you sweeping back into my life for a night. Leveling your judgment. Telling me how I’m destroying my life. How I should fix it. How you’ll help me—”
    “I miss you, Paige. I just want to see you. That’s all.”
    “You’re melting my heart.”
    “Please.”
    She looked him up and down.
    For a moment, there was nothing but the hush of rainfall on the street. The quiet hum of the globe light above their heads. The thunder of Grant’s heart slamming inside his chest.
    She said finally, “All right, but you leave when I say.”
    “Yes.”
    “And you’re not here to fix me. You understand that?”
    “Yes.”
    Paige sighed and moved back from the door.

Chapter 6
    As Grant stepped inside and pushed the door closed after him, Paige turned and headed up the staircase that launched out of the foyer.
    “Where you going?” Grant called after her as the steps creaked under her footfalls.
    “To get decent for my brother.”
    A live jazz album that sounded like Miles Davis played softly from a Bose system in the living room. He caught the scent of essential oils and candles. The air was further laced with incense and the good, spicy smell of cedar burning in the fireplace.
    Straight on, a hallway ran parallel to the staircase before feeding into a kitchen. An archway on the left opened into a formal dining room whose rough-hewn table—covered in envelopes and paperwork—appeared to serve the purpose of a desk rather than a place where people actually sat down to eat.
    Grant hung his coat on the rack and walked through the archway on his right into the living room. There were candles everywhere. A leather couch against the far wall facing the hearth. A bookcase. Bottles and glassware glimmered in the back corner in the light of the flames—a wet bar. Along the mantle, sprigs of garland peppered with white Christmas lights made for the only decorations in an otherwise seasonally indifferent room.
    As orphans, they had gone without, but even in the leanest of times, Paige could always bring a touch of class to whatever miserable living situation they found themselves in. Wild flowers poking out of a glass Coke bottle, the walls of a motel room draped with birthday streamers cut from newspaper; it amazed him what she could do with nothing. Now,