Obsession Falls Read Online Free PDF

were on a day trip? What would she do if she was sitting at their table eating soup and they walked in?
    Then she’d tell them the truth, beg them to give her a ride to Ketchum … and hope to hell none of them was the guy named Jimmy who had commissioned Dash to murder that child.
    What if they had a burglar alarm? The police would come, sooner or later.
    Driven by hunger and wretchedness, she stumbled as she climbed the steps. She almost kissed the stairway with her face; she caught herself.
    She had to slow down. She was starving. Her coordination was shot. She needed to get into her own home and eat. She could almost smell soup simmering on the stove. She tried the front door. It was locked. She frowned—and remembered.
    This wasn’t her house anymore.
    She made her way around the porch, trying all the windows. Locked.
    The back door. Locked.
    She looked out at the yard. Branches from that last thunderstorm were scattered across the grass.
    These people, whoever they were, should take better care of their trees, because one of those branches had probably broken one of their windows.
    She went into the yard, grabbed the longest one, and tried to lift it.
    Pain shot through her wrist.
    She dropped it.
    She tried to drag it.
    She couldn’t. She was too weak, and it hurt too much.
    But the smaller branches, the ones she could drag, would never break the window. She put down the big branch and tried to think. Think .
    Going to the woodpile beside the fire pit, she picked up a short, slender log. She climbed onto the porch, eyed the tree, then the windows, picked a likely one, and used the log like a battering ram.
    The window shattered.
    She froze. She waited. But no screech of an alarm pierced the air.
    It was the only house around. Why would they have an alarm?
    But maybe a silent alarm at the police station in Ketchum?
    Yet Ketchum was fifty miles away on a winding gravel road. It would take the cops hours to get here.
    She inserted her arm through the hole in the glass—double-paned, how her skinny, always-cold dad would have loved that!—and unlatched the lock. Using her shirttail, she pushed up with both hands.
    The window opened easily.
    Now she did cry, a hard sob of disbelief that one thing, one thing had finally gone right. She brushed glass off the inside of the frame and climbed in.
    She was in the kitchen. It wasn’t as large as she had imagined it would be. In fact, the appliances were rather shabby, as if the family had built this place twenty years ago and never remodeled. But it was tidy, decorative plates hung on a metal plate rack, and rustic—and trendy—metal canisters lined the counter.
    So a woman had done the decorating.
    Taylor started opening cupboards. She found dishes, mixing bowls, spices, coffee, small appliances … “Come on, come on, ” she said. “Where’s the soup?” She opened the closet door.
    Not a closet. A pantry. Of course. Filled with so many cans. So many kinds.
    She wanted them all.
    But lingering good sense made her reach for the chicken broth. She took it to the counter and with trembling fingers popped the easy-open lid. She didn’t even peel it off. She just lifted it to her lips and swallowed.
    It tasted so good she whimpered.
    She put it down, got a glass, ran the water from the faucet, filled the glass and drank. It tasted vaguely of pipes, but she didn’t care. She wouldn’t get giardia from this water. She went back to the chicken broth and had another slurp.
    She got a can of chicken noodle soup, popped the top, put it in a pot, and placed it on a burner. She turned it on full flame, went back to the pantry and found a bottled tea. She opened it and took a drink. Sugar and caffeine took a fast track into her bloodstream. They opened her mind and eased the headache she didn’t even realize she had.
    Outside, the sun was descending. Temperatures were falling.
    The house was warm. Newer than her childhood home, but not so fancy as she had expected. For the