Linda Welch - A conspiracy of Demons Read Online Free PDF

go. I’ll be fine. I have to be. ”
     
    Clarion to Seaside via Bel-Athaer took a total forty-two minutes. I didn’t have Lynn’s address, but I remembered the location. When Royal got us to Seaside, I gave him a description of the house and pointed him in the right direction.
    I tried to calculate the time required to reach Lynn’s house using conventional travel. We would have gone to Salt Lake Internation al Airport - a one hour fifteen— minute drive - and got a two-hour flight to the Monterey Peninsula Airport . Then rented a car for the drive to Seaside, probably another fifteen minutes . All this based on the assumption an airline out of Salt Lake provided a direct service to Monterey and we were lucky enough to get an early flight today . I supposed I could let Royal demon me to Salt Lake, and from Monterey to Seaside.
    It would still take too long. The local cops would be at Lynn’ s place before we arrived, b esides which Provo would discover Royal and I flew to California if t hey decided to keep an eye on us .
    A jarring halt snapped me out of my mathematical musing. At least it had kept my mind diverted. “Not so bad,” I declared as Royal steadied me.
    My stomach flipped the instant the words left my mouth. Gulping down what surged up my throat, I dashed behind a rhododendron and let it all out .
    Embarrassed, I didn’t look at Royal as I stalked past him. “You will not get near my mouth till I’ve brushed my teeth and gargled a pint of mouthwash. ”
    Lynn owned a small, older white clapboard home surrounded by lawn and wind-beaten trees , fifty feet from the cliff’s edge on the Monterey coast not far from Seaside.
    T he tide crash ed over huge jumbled rocks and boom shush ed as it pounded in shoreline caves then receded . A stiff wind heavy with the smell of salt water and seaweed whipped Royal’s long copper and gold hair as he squatted at Lynn’s door. “ Is there a security system?”
    I pushed my braid back over my shoulder. “ Not when I came here, but it was years ago .”
    “If she does and I cannot silence it, we will have perhaps three to four minutes until the agency notifies the police .” He removed lock picks and thin neoprene gloves from his pocket. After snapping on the gloves, he inserted his lock picks in the keyhole. “What are we looking for?”
    “No idea.”
    The lock clunked . Royal passed a nother pair of gloves to me. I pulled them on as we stepped inside a hall with white paneled walls and polished pine floor. A large display of dried yellow flowers fanned over one wall and a small table opposite held a few pieces of mail. Mail also lay in a pile on the floor.
    An odd scrabbling noise came from a door on our left. Jowls flapping , spittle flying, an ominous rum ble in its throat, an enormous R ottweiler erupted out and almost filled the narrow hall as it charged .
    I scuttled behind Royal . “Yep, she has a security system! ”
    A blur of motion, a surprised yelp , and Royal stood at the far end of the hall as he closed a door beneath the stairs .
    “ A closet ?”
    “ The basement .”
    Barking, snarling and the sound of splintering wood deafened me.
    “ Let’s hope we don’t have to go down there.” I looked in the doorway from which the dog had emerged , which led to a small living room. “ She wouldn’t leave it here alone when she left town . Someone has to come in and see to it. We’d better make this fast. ”
    A large bay window provided a spectacular view of the slope down to the cliff and churning sea beyond . Lynn didn’t have many pieces of furniture , a mo ck-Victorian couch and chair, two occasional t ables and a bow-fron ted bureau. P lants in a variety of containers on the floor took up most of the room . I rifled through the bureau as Royal checked the dining room on the opposite side of the hall .
    “Look for calendars or an appointment book,” I called.
    He already stood in the doorway with hands braced on the frame. “ I do not