Hemlock Bay Read Online Free PDF

a real pain for a good two days.”
    “He’s the cutest little button, Dillon. I miss him.”
    A tear leaked out of her eye.
    Savich wiped the tear away. “I know, so do Sherlock and I and we’ve only been apart from him for less than a day. How do you feel, Lily?”
    “It’s dark again.”
    “Yes. Nearly seven o’clock Thursday evening. Now, sweetheart, talk to me. How do you feel?”
    “Like they’ve already lightened the morphine.”
    “Yeah, Dr. Larch said he was just beginning to ease up on it now. You’re gonna feel rotten for a while, a day or two, but then it’ll be less and less pain each day.”
    “When did you get here?”
    “Sherlock and I just got into town. The puddle jumper from San Francisco to Arcata-Eureka was late.” He saw her eyes go vague and added, “Sherlock bought Sean a Golden Gate oven mitt at the San Francisco airport.”
    “I’ll show it to you later, Lily,” Sherlock said. She was standing on the other side of Lily’s bed, smiling down at her, so scared for this lovely young woman who was her sister-in-law. She’d have bitten her fingernails if she hadn’t stopped some three years before. “It was between an oven mitt with Alcatraz on it and the Golden Gate. Since Sean gums everything, Dillon thought gumming the Golden Gate was healthier than gumming a Federal prison.”
    Lily laughed. She didn’t know where it had come from, but she even laughed again. Pain seared through her side and her ribs, and she gasped.
    “No more humor,” Sherlock said and lightly kissed her cheek. “We’re here and everything’s going to be all right now, I promise.”
    “Who called you?”
    “Your father-in-law, about two in the morning, last night.”
    “I wonder why he called,” she said slowly, thinking about the pain that was now coming through and how she would deal with it.
    “You wouldn’t expect him to?”
    “I see now,” Lily said, her eyes suddenly narrow and fierce. “He was afraid Mrs. Scruggins would call you and then you would wonder why the family hadn’t called. I think he’s afraid of you, Dillon. He’s always asking me how you’re doing and where you are. When you were here before, I think you scared him really good.”
    “Why would I scare him?”
    “Because you’re big and you’re smart and you’re a special agent with the FBI.”
    Sherlock laughed. “Lots of people don’t relax around FBI agents. But Mr. Elcott Frasier? I took one look at him and thought he probably chewed nails for breakfast.”
    “He could, you know. Everyone thinks that, particularly his son, my husband.”
    “Maybe he called because he knew we’d want to come here to see you,” Savich said. “Maybe he isn’t all that much of an iron fist.”
    “Yes, he is. Tennyson was here earlier.” She sighed, tightened a bit from a jab of pain in her bruised ribs, the pulling in her side. “Thank goodness he finally left.”
    Savich looked over at Sherlock. “What happened, Lily? Talk to us.”
    “Everyone thinks I tried to kill myself again.”
    “Fine, let them. It doesn’t matter. Talk, Lily.”
    “I don’t know, Dillon, I swear I don’t. I remember that I had to drive that gnarly road to Ferndale, you know, 211? And that’s all. Everything else is just lost.”
    Sherlock said, “All right, then. Everyone thinks you tried to kill yourself because of the pills you took right after Beth’s death?”
    “Yes, I guess so.”
    “But why?”
    “I suppose I haven’t been exactly honest with you guys, but I just didn’t want you to worry. Fact is, I have been depressed. I’ll feel lots better and then it’s back down again. It’s gotten progressively worse the past couple of weeks. Why? I don’t know, but it has. And then last night happened.”
    Savich pulled up a chair and sat down. He took her hand again. “You know, Lily, even when you were a little girl, you’d hit a problem, and I swear you’d worry and work and chew on that problem, never giving up until you