The Dead Room Read Online Free PDF Page A

ask them.’
    ‘I’ll be right there.’ Darby clicked on her flashlight and turned back to the gate. She could hear Pine grunting as he waddled away.
    She stepped into the woods and found two compost piles of dead grass clippings a few feet from the back fence. Mosquitoes whined against her ears and danced in the beam of her flashlight.
    Moving up the incline, she thought about how much she hated these woods. Five years ago she had discovered a buried set of female remains – another victim of Daniel Boyle and… the other one, Boyle’s mentor and killing partner, Traveler. A lot of their victims – the missing women, men and children, her childhood friend Melanie Cruz – had never been found, buried somewhere out here –
    Darby stopped walking, and listened to the sound of a mobile phone ringing somewhere in the darkness ahead.

6
    Darby ran up the incline, boots sinking deep into the wet ground, the beam of her flashlight zigzagging through the darkness. She reached the top quickly and without much effort.
    The ground levelled off to a bumpy, uneven area of half-buried boulders and downed tree limbs and branches. The phone rang again, a soft, pleasant sound that reminded her of wind chimes. It came from somewhere straight ahead. She moved quickly, ducking underneath limbs, dried branches crunching and snapping underneath her boots.
    A third ring, very close.
    There, a small square of light glowing in the darkness about thirty or so feet ahead. She moved her flashlight to it. A BlackBerry, judging by its size and shape. She reached into her back pocket for an evidence bag.
    Branches snapped in the darkness somewhere ahead of her. She swung her flashlight to the sound, the beam whisking past trees and another steep incline leading up, up.
    A man dressed head to toe in black tossed something into the air. Before he ducked behind a tree she caught sight of the night-vision goggles strapped across his shaved pale head, a gloved hand clutching a sub-machine gun against a tactical vest holding grenades.
    Darby dropped her flashlight and ran, knowing what was coming. Whatever you do, don’t turn around, don’t turn –
    An explosion followed by a blinding light that lit up the woods. Stun grenade , she thought, ducking behind a tree.
    The light died away. She stripped out of her bunny suit. She couldn’t hide wearing white, couldn’t run in the coveralls.
    Voices shouting from the backyard, footsteps cracking branches close by, bodies whisking past leaves and branches. How many people are in here?
    SIG in hand, Darby flicked the switch for the tactical light and swung around the tree. Through the gaps between the branches and tree limbs she caught sight of two men hauling a body up the incline. Two white males wearing suits. The body also wore a suit. White male, white shirt covered in blood, a blue latex-covered hand bumping across the ground as he was dragged away.
    ‘ Freeze. Boston –’
    Automatic gunfire muted by a silencer tore into the bark above her head.
    Darby dropped to her knees, hugging her body close to the tree trunk. Voices shouting Get down and Take cover . She thought she heard Pine’s voice in the mix. She swung around the other side of the tree and brought up her weapon.
    Flashlights crisscrossed through the darkness and she could see thick clouds of grey and white drifting through the trees near the first incline. The man who had thrown the stun grenade, the one with the shaved head and night-vision goggles, had moved out of his hiding spot. He stood near the spot where she’d found the phone.
    He threw another grenade into the air, in the direction of the backyard. Darby turned away from it and closed her eyes, waiting. Automatic gunfire erupted from somewhere above her.
    When she heard the explosion, she opened her eyes and, using the trees for cover, started moving to the bald man.
    He darted up what looked like a second incline and disappeared from her view.
    Darby gave chase. For the past