Last to Die Read Online Free PDF Page B

walking into this room on a winter’s day, when the snow was falling outside, and breathing in the scent of warm earth and green plants. This is what money buys you, she thought. Eternal springtime. While she kept her gaze fixed on the sunlight above, she was aware of the boy’s breathing beside her. It was slower, calmer than it had been moments ago. She heard leaves rustle as he settled against the vines, but she resisted the temptation to look at him. She thought about the earsplitting tantrums that her two-year-old daughter had thrown last week, when little Regina had screamed again and again,
Stop looking at me! Stop looking!
Jane and her husband, Gabriel, had laughed, which only enraged Regina more. Even two-year-olds did not like being stared at, and resented having their privacy invaded. So she tried not to invade Teddy Clock’s, but merely shared his leafy cave. Even when she heard him sigh, her attention stayed focused instead on the dappled sunshine shining through the branches above.
    “Who are you?” The words were barely a whisper. She forced herself to remain still, to let a pause settle between them.
    “I’m Jane,” she said, just as softly.
    “But who are you?”
    “I’m a friend.”
    “No you’re not. I don’t even know you.”
    She considered his words, and had to admit they were true. She was not his friend. She was a cop who needed something from him, and once she’d gotten it she would hand him over to a social worker.
    “You’re right, Teddy,” she admitted. “I’m not really a friend. I’m a detective. But I do want to help you.”
    “No one can help me.”
    “I can. I will.”
    “Then you’ll die, too.”
    That statement, said so flatly, sent a cold whisper up Jane’s back.
You’ll die, too
. She turned to stare at the boy. He wasn’t looking at her, just stared bleakly ahead as if seeing a hopeless future. His eyes were such a pale blue, they seemed unearthly. His light brown hair looked as wispy as corn silk, one drooping forelock curled over a pale, prominent forehead. His feet were bare, and as he rocked back and forth she glimpsed smudges of dried blood under his right toes; she remembered the footprints leading away from the landing, leading away from eight-year-old Kimmie’s body. Teddy had been forced to step in her blood to flee the house.
    “Will you really help me?” he said.
    “Yes. I promise.”
    “I can’t see anything. I lost them, and now I’m afraid to go back and find them.”
    “Find what, Teddy?”
    “My glasses. I think they’re in my room. I must have left them in my room, but I can’t remember …”
    “I’ll find them for you.”
    “That’s why I can’t tell you what he looked like. Because I couldn’t see him.”
    Jane went still, afraid to interrupt him. Afraid that anything she said, any move she made, would make him pull back into his shell. She waited, but heard only the sound of the splattering water in the fountain.
    “Who are you talking about?” she finally asked.
    He looked at her, and his eyes seemed lit like blue fire from within. “The man who killed them.” His voice broke, his throat choking down the words to a high keen. “I wish I could help you, but I can’t. I can’t, I can’t …”
    It was a mother’s instinct that made her suddenly open her arms, and he tumbled against her, face pressed to her shoulder. She held him as he quaked with shudders so powerful she felt his body might shatter apart, that she was the only force holding together this shaking basket of bones. He might not be her child but at that moment, as he clung to her, his tears soaking into her blouse, she felt every bit his mother, ready to defend him against all the world’s monsters.
    “He never stops.” The boy’s words were so muffled against her blouse that she almost missed them. “Next time, he’ll find me.”
    “No, he won’t.” She grasped him by the shoulders and gently pushed him away so she could look at his face. Long