The Edge of Nowhere Read Online Free PDF Page A

off along Bob Galbreath Road.

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    THREE
    B ecca discovered quickly enough that Bob Galbreath Road was worse than the highway she’d ridden to get to it. It began with a descent that allowed her to coast, but within fifty yards it started to climb
    Soon enough there were trees everywhere. On the right, the edge of the lane ended abruptly. It gave way to a hillside that fell steeply, with thin-trunk alders bursting out of it. This same kind of tree grew in profusion on the other side of the road as well, and in the fog the leaves on the branches above Becca made a tunnel from which drops of water plopped onto the glasses she wore.
    Becca shook her head to get the water from the lenses, but she knew better than to remove the glasses altogether. For they were now part of who she was, along with the dismal brown that Laurel had chosen in order to change her hair from strawberry blonde to completely ugly.
    The important thing was neither her glasses nor her hair, though. Getting to Carol Quinn was paramount. Yet Blue Lady Lane seemed as far away as the moon, and with every revolution of the pedals it became more difficult for Becca to breathe.
    The fifth time she came out of the forest to climb yet another hill, a sob leaped out of her chest. She couldn’t tell if she was sobbing for breath or simply sobbing, but what she did know was that she had to rest. She made it to a point where the road wasn’t so narrow, and she got off her bike.
    She leaned over the handlebars to catch her breath. That was when she heard the siren approaching, followed in short order by flashing lights.
    She thought the worst at once. As the vehicle came closer, she could tell it was a police car. She steeled herself and waited for something to happen, but the car screamed by her as if she were invisible to its occupants.
    Becca saw them, though. In the brief instant it took for the car to shoot by, she saw the boy from the ferry again. Their eyes met. She felt the hollowness within him. And then it was gone. What had he done , she wondered, that his insides were so empty? Where was he being taken?
    The silence was profound once the police car’s siren faded away. Becca had no idea how much farther she had to go, but she assumed she had little enough hope of reaching Blue Lady Lane before the gloom of the evening became utter darkness. She set off again.
    She’d gotten only a quarter mile when she heard a vehicle coming up behind her. She moved as far to the edge as she could, but the engine noise didn’t get any louder. She realized that whoever was coming along in her wake had no intention of actually passing her, and she turned to see a pickup truck, a group of dogs moving restlessly in its bed.
    Hallelujah, Becca thought. Carol Quinn at last .
    The truck pulled to the side of the road. Someone got out. Becca could see a baseball cap, work boots, and a heavy jacket. A woman’s voice spoke pleasantly. “Looks like you’re struggling. Do you need a ride?” Obviously, Becca thought bleakly, this was not Carol Quinn at all.
    She listened for whispers. On the side of the road there was a woman. On the side of the road there was Becca. What there wasn’t was a single whisper.
    Becca wasn’t sure what this meant. The lack of whispers from this woman said she was completely different from anyone Becca had ever come into contact with. Although Laurel would have declared that this was the precise reason Becca should avoid her like poison oak, Becca’s grandmother would have taken her aside and said, “Special defines itself by absence as well as presence, hon.”
    So Becca said, “The chain keeps slipping,” in reference to her bike. This was a lie, but a small one since the chain had been feeling like a chain with the clear intention of slipping every time she had shifted the bicycle’s gears. “I’m going to Blue Lady Lane,” she added.
    The woman said, “This is your lucky day. I’m going to Clyde,” as if Becca would know exactly what