The Bones of You Read Online Free PDF

distressed jeans and a tight black wool sweater with a frayed hem, and somehow she managed to make the ensemble look chic. She had a smidgen of that thing the best fashion models possess: the ability to inhabit clothing, to make any garment look good at any time of day or night. Hell, she’d probably make a potato sack look like haute couture.
    Not for the first time, I wondered what the hell she was doing working here, in some off-the-grid warehouse in a shabby little industrial zone at the blunt edge of nowhere. Then I realized that she might have wondered the same thing about me.
    We ran across the car park to my car, trying to stay as dry as we could. Carole pulled the collar of her raincoat up over her head. I just tucked my head down as far as I could and hoped for the best. Once we were in the car, I switched on the heating system to clear the condensation, that thin skin of our commingled breath, which appeared immediately on the inside of the windows.
    “It won’t take long,” I said, meaning the time it would take to clear the windows, but feeling like the sentence had a host of other, more complex meanings that might fall apart if I examined them too closely.
    Carole said nothing; she just stared out at the rain, through the patches that appeared as the hot air did its job. She was toying with her hair. The rain had messed it up.
    Once I could see clearly through the windshield, I slipped the car into gear and reversed out of the parking spot, then headed for the exit to the warehouse compound. The industrial estate was empty at this time of night. I watched the empty prefabs and steel frame buildings as we passed them on the service road, unnerved by the stillness.
    When we’d left the compound, she spoke again. “So, where is this new place of yours? You never did say.”
    I realized I hadn’t told her, that, in fact, I’d hardly seen her since I’d decided to move in. I glanced sideways, but she was still staring straight ahead. I couldn’t read her expression. She was a ghost, sitting there beside me, a pale enigma in a too-large raincoat, whose intentions were painfully unclear.
    I told her the address.
    “Really?” At last she turned toward me. Stray light from a streetlamp was caught, and held, in her eyes. “Wow, that’s…isn’t it a bit creepy?” The expression on her face was unreadable, but that wasn’t unusual: I often found women unreadable. Maybe that’s why my marriage had gone down the pan.
    “What do you mean?” I tried to keep my eyes on the road, but it was difficult not to keep looking at her, to see what she was saying with those light-filled eyes.
    “Come on, you know what I mean. Little Miss Moffat?”
    I shook my head. “What are you talking about?”
    She sighed. “Don’t tell me you don’t know—even you can’t be that out of touch. Little Miss Moffat and the Radiant Children. You know; the murders .” The emphasis she placed on the last word was almost comical.
    What murders?
    “Those poor kids.”
    Which poor kids?
    “Honestly, I have no idea what you’re prattling on about. This means nothing to me…Little Miss Muffet? The chick in the nursery rhyme with the tuffet, whatever the hell that is?”
    She laughed, but it seemed forced, unnatural. “No, not Muffet: Moffat . Little Miss Moffat.”
    “And what’s this about radiation kids?”
    “ Radiant kids. The Radiant Children, actually, to give them their proper name—at least the one she gave them.”
    “I’m none the wiser.” And in that moment, I really didn’t want to be. I wanted to stay dumb, to remain uninformed. Ignorance could be bliss, that’s what they said, and here was one example where that particular homily might ring true.
    “Katherine Moffat. She lived on that street. Killed a bunch of kids over a period of about a decade, one every Halloween. Or so they say.”
    My hands tightened on the steering wheel. I struggled to keep my eyes open, to keep the world steady and in my sights.