Hold of the Bone Read Online Free PDF Page A

pleasure.”
    â€œWell, thanks! Come on in. Let’s go sit out back.”
    They settle on the oak-shaded deck overlooking Mulholland Canyon. A jay screeches and lands on the top rail.
    Mary shoos, “Go on. You’ve been fed today.”
    To Frank, she says, “To what do I owe the honor? You never come by and see me no more.”
    â€œI know. I’m a terrible sponsee.”
    â€œAre you kidding? You’re my easy one. You always handle everything on your own, then call me when it’s all done and tell me how ya did it. I should have more like you.”
    â€œâ€™Fraid I’m not gonna be so easy today.”
    â€œWhy, what’s going on?”
    Frank hunches toward her sponsor. “I got it all, right? The job, girlfriend, a little sobriety. No bills. No debt. Can retire if I want. What’s not to like about all that?”
    Mary sucks at her frappé. “Nothing I can see.”
    â€œI know. And the god’s honest truth, Mary? I’m about to come out of my skin.”
    Her sponsor’s eyes narrow. “How many meetings you gettin’ to?”
    â€œIt’s not that. I don’t want to drink. I just . . .” Frank gets up and leans against the railing. The shade is deep and cool and she has the impossible memory of riding up a narrow, bowered canyon whereevergreen boughs block the heat of the day and a horse’s hooves fall soundlessly upon centuries of old, brown needles.
    â€œYou just what?”
    She spins to face Mary. “Remember that case I told you about? With the Santeria priestess?”
    â€œThe one where you almost died?”
    â€œYeah, that one. There was a woman that helped me through it. Darcy’s ex-wife. I ran into her today, and it was like she could see right through me. She says I’m ready to start the second half of my life, but I’m so damn dumb I don’t even know what that is.”
    â€œWhoa, she said that?”
    Frank offers a sheepish grin. “Not that last part. But that’s what it feels like. My past has absolutely no attraction for me, but meanwhile I’m stumbling around in the dark trying to find the doorknob into my future.”
    â€œThe doorknob? Have you even found the damn door yet?”
    â€œNo,” Frank admits.
    â€œThen quit looking for the knob! When you find the door, then you can start worrying about how to open it. ’Til then, relax.”
    Mary stands next to her at the railing. They lean on it, staring toward brown mountains thirsty for rain. She remembers scraps of a dream: a ghost-colored moon and black mountains rising to meet it; somewhere, running dark water and fish. Trout, she thinks, though filleted and fried is the closest she has ever come to a trout.
    â€œShe said I have talent.”
    â€œAmerica’s Got Talent. What kind you got?”
    â€œI don’t know. She didn’t either. Says I’ll know it when I see it.”
    â€œLike porn, huh?”
    Frank chuckles. “That’s what I said.”
    The jay scolds from a branch over the deck. It drops closer to Mary, dancing nervously for a handout.
    â€œWhen I was involved with the Santeria case, I kept having dreams so vivid they seemed real. And visions, like the dreams, just as real, like they were happening in present time.”
    â€œWhat kinda visions?”
    Frank takes a deep breath. She remembers Marguerite’s warningthat whatever’s coming will be easier if she doesn’t fight it. She tells her sponsor about the sandaled soldier on a battlefield littered with corpses, the scavenging women and children, the vultures and feeding dogs.
    â€œKept seeing it over and over.”
    â€œWhy? What did it mean?”
    Frank shrugs. “Marguerite said Mother Love and I had been adversaries through many lifetimes, that the latest battle was just one of many, and that the visions were carryover. Said being around The Mother’s power woke up my