Fear the Darkness: A Thriller Read Online Free PDF Page A

pretentious in practically anyone but this woman, who brought off the gesture like she had been born to it.
    “How’s Owen?” I asked. Owen was her husband, as beloved to her as Carlo was to me, who had been paralyzed in an accident six months before I met them. That’s a whole other story for later.
    “So-so. Annette’s with him.” Never one for self-pity, she changed the subject back to the Pugs. “They’ve been totally abject, but you should have seen them when they heard the garage door go up. And who is this delightful child?”
    I introduced Gemma-Kate to Mallory and watched to see if she responded to Mallory’s flirtation the way everyone else did.
    “Hello, Gemma-Kate! I’m Mallory!” Mallory said, flinging her arms wide. She caught my glance. “Overdoing it?” she asked.
    Neither of us had had much experience with young people. “You could maybe pull back a little on the Auntie Mame shtick,” I said.
    She brought it down a notch and asked, “How was your flight?”
    “It was just amazing,” Gemma-Kate said, her eyes widening at the memory.
    “This was actually Gemma-Kate’s first plane ride,” I said.
    Even Mallory was momentarily struck dumb, understandable for someone who has taken a chopper ride so low over Mount Kilauea she could feel the heat. Then, “How wonderful to have a brand-new experience,” she said, making it sound envious rather than condescending.
    Gemma-Kate just then noticed the Pugs had turned from me to sniff her ankles. She watched them for a moment as if she wasn’t sure what you were supposed to do with pugs. Then, grinning, she dropped to the floor beside me and patted them one at a time, actually went pat pat pat on top of their heads. She had never had a pet.
    “They’re so cute ! What are their names?” she asked.
    “They don’t have names,” Mallory said, rolling her eyes. “Brigid just calls them the Pugs.”
    Gemma-Kate looked up at the three of us watching her and pursed her rosebud lips. It made me notice how rounded everything about her was; big eyes, button nose, even her earlobes were little pillows.
    “Maybe you’ll name them,” I said, to show that Mallory wasn’t teasing her.
    Gemma-Kate smiled.
    The Pugs didn’t care much for the pat pat pat technique, or maybe found it insincere. They abandoned Gemma-Kate, wandered to the door leading into the backyard, and sat there until Carlo opened it to let them out.
    “Now relax,” Mallory said, as Carlo took our bag into our room and Gemma-Kate’s to the guest room. “The wine has been breathing far longer than it deserves. Gemma-Kate, are you allowed to have a glass of wine?”
    Gemma-Kate and I got up off the floor and came into the kitchen area, she looking at me in case I objected, and when I did not, she nodded with a nice dash of shyness. Mallory opened the right cupboard to extract four wineglasses while I picked up the bottle.
    “Brunello di Montalcino,” I read. “This isn’t ours.” I gestured at a small rack over the refrigerator. “Did you see we had some here you could have opened?”
    Mallory pulled her lips back against her teeth like someone was trying to dose her with Castor oil and took the bottle from me. “Yes, I know.”
    “Go to hell, Hollinger. I know what’s good, I just can’t afford it.”
    She poured and handed Gemma-Kate and me a glass. Gemma-Kate took hers into the living room, where Carlo was, while I sniffed and sipped. “Oh my God,” I said. “I haven’t had anything this good since—” I stopped, knowing that I couldn’t tell her about the man who ran human traffic from Guatemala to Las Vegas.
    “Ever?” she said.
    “Ever,” I agreed. “Thanks for watching the dogs and coming over like this.”
    “It’s a nice place. You have good taste,” she smiled, meaning her own. Mallory had helped me when I went through a brief redecorating phase.
    We took our glasses into the living room area, where Carlo was pointing out to Gemma-Kate the mountains