The Darkest Embrace Read Online Free PDF

his mouth, all ready to see Patty’s signature cloud of pale hair. The woman by the shed was blonde, all right, but golden. She looked too much like Freddy Romero to be anything but a relative, from the plaid shirt to her towering height. The top of her head was even with the shed door, and that was with her shoulders hunched. She had her back to the cabin, her attention focused on something in front of her.
    “You think she made us breakfast?” Jessie asked. “You think she was in here this morning...while we...”
    Frowning, Max opened the back door. “Hi!”
    The woman turned, and the shock was enough to make him step back. From behind, he’d guessed her to be in her late twenties by the length and style of her thick blond hair, and the curves of her body. Her face, on the other hand, belonged to a much-older woman. Fifty, at least, and that was being kind. Deep lines bracketed her mouth, which hung open to reveal yellowed teeth that were curved inward. Her hands, too, were ancient, gnarled and thick-knuckled, with long curved nails. Something moved and writhed in her hands, something black and white and gray, furry. It squealed, briefly.
    The woman calmly wrenched its neck, and the thing went still.
    “Coons,” she said with a smile that would have been charming on a wolverine. “Baby coons in the shed, got to get rid of ’em or else they make a mess of the garbage.”
    Behind him, Jessie let out a low cry. Max backed up a step to keep himself between her and this weirdo with the dead raccoons, but the woman didn’t try to run at them or anything. Instead, she casually tossed the tiny corpse into a burn barrel next to the shed. Wiping her hands on the hem of her shirt, she gestured at the house.
    “Made breakfast for ya.”
    “Thanks,” Jessie said from around his shoulder. She grabbed his hip.
    The woman nodded and gave them both an assessing look before showing the entire crooked picket fence of her smile. “I’m Carrie.”
    “Freddy’s...sister?” Max guessed.
    Carrie made a one-two pow-pow with her fingers, like guns. “You got it! Youse need anything else while I’m here?”
    Max glanced at Jessie, who shook her head. “No, thanks. We’re good.”
    Carrie grinned again, inching closer. “If you do, just let me know. I’ll be back later to check the traps.”
    “Traps?” Jessie squeezed his hip, then moved forward a little and rubbed her arms against the morning chill.
    Max had thrown on a flannel shirt, but she wore only a thin tank top. Now he shrugged out of the shirt and slung it over her shoulders. She gave him a grateful smile.
    “Oh, yeah.” Carrie nodded, and then gave a long, lingering and totally creepy look toward the woods beyond the small patch of grass surrounding the cabin. “Got ’em all baited up.”
    Max, his arm around Jessie’s shoulders, followed her gaze but could see only trees. Nothing even rustled there. “What are you trying to trap?”
    “Whatever I can get,” Carrie told them both without even a hint of a smile.
    * * *
    “I’m sorry,” Max said for about the fifth time as he swiped at numbers on his cell phone—the one without even one bar of service.
    Jessie took the phone from his hand and turned it off, then set it carefully on the kitchen table. She put her hands flat on his front and hooked her fingers into the front of his shirt to pull him closer for a kiss that she purposefully kept lingering long enough to border a little on ridiculous. Only when she felt him relax against her did she pull away just enough to nip at his lower lip, then brush another kiss over it.
    “Shut. Up,” she said. “I told you already, it’s fine.”
    Max wanted to call Freddy and tell him not to have his sister hanging around the place. Jessie didn’t disagree—she’d dumped the food, no matter how delicious it smelled, after watching Carrie strangle a raccoon and then wipe her hands on her shirt. But she also didn’t want to spend their day worrying about it.