Grave Situation Read Online Free PDF Page B

deep breath, he paused a
moment to stare at her. He set the duffel bag on the pavement. He
lifted out the hooker and awkwardly threw her dead weight over one
shoulder. Her body was lighter than he had imagined. Under the
stockings, her legs were cool.
    He picked up the bag. As he carried
it and the hooker toward the tugboat wharf, his gaze combed the
area for other people. There were none.
    He reached the end of the wharf and
set the bag down first and then the hooker. The air was crisp and
smelled of salt. The water around him was as black as ink. He could
hear it lapping at the pile supports beneath the wharf. To his
right shone the bright beacon from the lighthouse on George’s
Island. Straight across the harbor was the city of Dartmouth. Its
lights refracted along the edge of the water.
    He knelt beside her and pulled out
the Mason jar from the bag. After unscrewing the lid, he removed
the teaspoon then he got to work.
    With his fingers, he held the
hooker’s eyelids open and carefully slid the scoop of the teaspoon
under and behind the right eye. He could feel, rather than hear,
the slight tearing of muscle and ligament as he worked the eyeball
free. A plop was followed by the eyeball rolling to the woman’s
ear, suspended by the optic nerve. Blood welled up inside the empty
socket.
    He swallowed.
    From the duffel bag, he took out
the cuticle scissors and snipped the optic nerve, releasing the
eyeball. This he dropped into the Mason jar. Sweating heavily now,
he repeated the same procedure with the other eye.
    When he finished, he wiped off the
spoon and scissors with a rag. He screwed the lid back on the jar
and then held it up to the moonlight. The two eyeballs bobbed on
top of the watery preservative, the unseeing pupils staring back at
him.
    A groaning.
    He snapped around to look at the
hooker. Her body twitched with the first sign of consciousness.
Shaken, he took a step back, then another. The hooker’s hands moved
instinctively to her eye sockets. Her head turned slowly from side
to side. Drool oozed from one corner of her mouth.
    Mind reeling, he tried to weigh his
options. He knew once the hooker regained her wits, she would begin
screaming. In a panicky state, he stuffed the jar into the duffel
bag and then paused at the sight of his hunting knife. He had
brought it with plans of using it. Yet couldn’t bring himself to do
so. Instead, he put his hands under the woman’s arms and lifted her
up. His own arms shook as he held her over the edge of the
wharf.
    Head lolling, the hooker continued
to groan in front of him.
    For a moment, he didn’t want to let
her go. Somehow he felt peculiarly united with this woman. She,
like himself, had been a victim of life’s misfortunes.
    He shut his eyes
tightly.
    I’m sorry.
    Then with a rush of power, he
hurled her into the water. The splash kicked up spray onto his
hands. Below him, the hooker was an indistinct mass floating face
down, head submerged, shoulder blades above the surface. Ripples
spread out from her body. Suddenly, as if jolted back to life, her
arms and legs began thrashing. Her head came out of the water,
coughing, gasping.
    “Help …”
    The hooker’s anguished voice came
to him, so soft that perhaps he had imagined it. A natural instinct
urged him to leap in and save her, but he couldn’t move.
    It has to be done.
    Helpless, he watched the water
close over her head and she was gone.
    Moments later, farther out, she
broke the surface, spitting out the brine, sucking in the air in
huge gulps. Her arms beat frantically now; she clawed and blindly
grabbed for anything to keep her afloat.
    “Somebody.”
Coughing. “Pleeaasssse !”
    She went under again.
    He scanned the murky harbor,
short-lived breaths of frost exhaling from his mouth. Over the
rolling water, he could hear the rush of his blood, the thump of
his heart. Seconds passed, then a minute.
    The hooker never came back
up.
    All at once, he felt sick, weak. He
just made it to the side of