Rise the Dark Read Online Free PDF Page B

saying?”
    “I’m not a shark,” Mark had said, and then he’d smiled, because he had no children and so he didn’t understand what the water here was like. Lauren’s father hadn’t returned the smile. He’d searched Mark’s eyes for a long time before he nodded. They drank their beers and talked football, boats, and movies, everything lighthearted and casual, but Mark was uneasy the rest of the night, because what he’d seen in the other man’s eyes was something he’d never known himself. It had been many years since he’d last wondered who his own father was, but that night he did. He wondered whether that man had ever thought of the sharks. Even once.
    More thunder. A stillness to the western edge of town, as if the trees were lying low, trying not to attract the attention of the oncoming bullying clouds.
    Though Mark hadn’t been in the town before, he knew exactly how to find Dixie Witte’s home. He’d spent plenty of time looking at it on maps. The second story of the house leaned away from the foundation like a drunk trying to balance on one leg; the front-porch windows were cracked or had plastic where glass belonged; the ferns in the yard had grown so high they were nearly to the roof of a rusted-out Ford Taurus. The undergrowth was thick, so Mark couldn’t tell for sure, but he would have laid a high-dollar bet that the car no longer had wheels. Might not even have an engine. A shed beside the house had a caved-in roof, and the blue plastic tarp that had been pulled across the hole was bowed with trapped rainwater. It was the sort of place that made you think you might catch a viral disease if you stood downwind of it.
    Mark had lived in a lot of shitholes in his childhood, and in a truck for a time, but even his mother wouldn’t have considered moving into this house.
    This was where Garland Webb had lived for a two-month period before he moved on to Daytona Beach and was finally arrested for sexual assault.
    There was a truck in the drive. A red Dodge lifted high on an aftermarket suspension with knobby terrain tires that were probably worth as much as the house. The truck was freshly washed and the red paint shone even in the gloom. Mark had met a few people who cared more about their trucks than their homes. It usually didn’t suggest good things. He walked around the main house, and a guesthouse at the rear of the property came into view. A small but well-kept little home painted blue with clean white trim. It was an incongruous pairing—the large home gone to hell, the small one lovingly maintained. The flowering bushes that bordered it were neatly clipped, and a stepladder stood beside an orange tree just in front of the house. A barefoot blond boy in overalls, no shirt underneath, was picking oranges. He couldn’t have been much more than seven years old, and he wobbled precariously as he reached for one.
    “Careful,” Mark said, stepping to brace the ladder.
    The boy plucked the orange free, set it in a basket that was balanced on the top step of the ladder, and turned to Mark. He was incredibly pale for Florida, with bright blue eyes.
    “Hiya.”
    “Hiya. Don’t lose your balance up there.”
    “Don’t lose your balance down there.”
    Mark grinned. “Fair enough. Is Dixie around?”
    The boy shrugged. “She hasn’t paid me yet. When I’m done she’ll pay me. Fifty cents if I do the whole tree.”
    “You need to adjust for inflation, kid. You’re getting taken.”
    Another shrug.
    Mark said, “You know most people in this town?”
    “I know everybody.”
    “You had the look of a connected man. Ever hear of a guy named Garland?”
    “Nope.”
    “What about a Mr. Webb? That mean anything to you?”
    The boy shook his head. “They come and they go, though.”
    “Who does?”
    “People in the big house.” The boy pointed at the decrepit structure behind Mark. “They don’t stay long, and they don’t talk much.”
    “What kind of people are they, would you