Soundkeeper Read Online Free PDF

disappointed to find that it was a plain, white register tape that simply noted the price of each item and the total. She put it in the pocket of her shorts. Evidence, she hoped, for an upcoming kidnapping trial.
    The bags were full of groceries, mostly canned soups and meats. She brightened when she realized that Arnold wasn’t going to kill her anytime soon, but was too scared to think about why he was keeping her alive. Maybe he would let her go eventually.
    She opened a can of Spam and used the sharp edge of the lid to cut it into slices. She wondered if it was sharp enough to cut a man’s throat and then wondered if she was strong enough to go through with something like that. She wasn’t sure, but hid the lid in the bottom of the grocery sack.
    It was the first food she had eaten since two slices of bacon before dawn and she didn’t stop eating until both the Spam and a pack of crackers were gone. She forced herself to drink a full liter of bottled water, knowing she had to stay strong to stay sharp. She was puzzled by some feminine items in the bottom of the sack but thought it was better not to ask.
    When Arnold turned off the television as soon as she finished her water she realized he had been watching her all along. He walked toward her, and she felt strong enough to fight him if that was what she had to do.
    “I’d let you have the lounge chair, but I’ve got a slipped disk in my lower back,” Arnold said. He handed her some scratchy wool blankets and went back to his side of the warehouse.
    Gale arranged the blankets and tried to understand the apparent benevolence of her kidnapper. For some reason it seemed he was putting himself in danger in order to help her. He scared her, but his partner terrified her. Like every other woman and girl on the planet she had felt unwanted stares and uncomfortable glances before, but Blondie was different. The way he looked at her, leering at her and enjoying her discomfort, chilled her soul.
    Soon Arnold was snoring heavily and Gale heard mice and rats scampering across the floor. She clutched the sharp lid in her hand and rolled herself into a tight cocoon with the blankets. She did not want to be bothered by mice or any other vermin while she tried to sleep.

Chapter Seven
    The small creek that Hall’s GPS led him to had no name and was not much different than the hundreds of others that fed and drained Port Royal Sound. From here he could see the tops of some of the fine old houses on The Bluff and the hospital beyond. The mouth of the creek was only about forty yards wide, but the oyster beds and tide lines indicated that it was nearly twice that width at high tide. Hall slowed and began to monitor his depth finder more closely. The display showed that the water was eight feet deep right now, but he knew a sandbar or oyster rake could jump up from the bottom and snag his propeller with little warning.
    Jimmy Barnwell impressed Hall the first day they were on the water together by never even turning the depth finder on. He told Hall it had taken him years to learn the waters that well and every once in a while a storm would come through and force him to learn everything all over again, occasionally at the expense of a new prop.
    Even though he was worried about running aground, Hall couldn’t help but notice the beauty of his surroundings. To his left, (port, Jimmy would have corrected) the marsh was uninterrupted for miles. It stretched from the creek to the firm soil of St. Helena Island, one of the few Sea Islands that had not completely fallen prey to developers’ ambitions. Many of the island’s residents were African Americans who were descended from freed slaves. People still farmed here. Tomatoes, corn, decorative flowers. The only surviving institution of the Port Royal Experiment, the Penn School, was less than five miles away from where he now floated.
    The creek halved in size as he rounded a bend, and he saw an older woman and a young girl in a boat