The Lost: Book Two, The Eddie McCloskey Series (The Unearthed 2) Read Online Free PDF Page B

the little compartment on the front of the bag.”
    Eddie removed the phone and stared at it.
    “You’re completely helpless, aren’t you?” She winked at him. “If you’re calling Victor, just hit SEND twice. It’ll redial.”
    Eddie did so and parked the phone on his ear. She wondered what he’d say this time.
    “Hey, Vic, it’s Eddie … Change of plans here. I’m sticking it out … I’ll see you in the morning.”
    Eddie put the phone away. “Your friend Tony, he ever been in trouble with the law before?”
    She wondered why he was so fixated on Tony. “I think so but nothing major. Typical adolescent crap.”
    Eddie didn’t respond and kept looking out the window.
    She snuck a sidelong glance at him. He was in a brood mood which she found irresistibly cute. Strange to think of someone in their thirties as cute. Thirty sounded so old to her and yet here was this guy with his mischievous eyes and world-weary grin that made him seem a bad boy. The book hinted at his womanizing but she didn’t see that in him. He looked … wounded somehow and vulnerable and tough and she was thinking too much about him when she should be focusing on the happenings. She wanted to impress him for reasons she couldn’t quite fathom. She wasn’t just a small-town bimbo, she was smart and ambitious and if the phenomena turned out to be something extraordinary, well, they’d see where the chips ...
    “Let’s do this in reverse,” he said, breaking her train of thought. “How did Tessa die?”
    “She drowned,” Ana said. “You know how they say hypothermia keeps drowning victims alive? It’s bullshit. It rarely works.”
    Ana steered them around the long curve in the road. Ahead, George’s bar was dark, the solo floodlight on in the parking lot. They zipped by. Eddie’s car was still there.
    “She was eighteen, right?” Eddie asked.
    “Yeah. It happened December 8th.”
    The eighth was three days away, but Eddie said nothing.
    “Don’t you think that means something, with all this activity and the eighth only ...?”
    “Why didn’t something happen last year or the year before or five years ago? Why now, fourteen years later? Why not after ten years, or fifteen?”
    “I understand, Eddie.” She was taken aback by the edge in his voice. “I want something to be there so I attach significance to every event. That’s why I need you to keep me grounded and objective.”
    “Tell me how it happened.”
    His place was just ahead. She maneuvered into a parking spot and put it in PARK.
    “They were being stupid. That’s why she’s dead.”

Thirteen
     
    Stupid ? That was how Eddie felt for getting involved in this mess. Did he really want to help, or was he just thinking with the wrong head again? Pretty girl, emotionally vulnerable, late night with a snootful of alcohol and more to come, hero worship in her eyes. It would be easy, he thought, and hated himself for thinking it.
    Eddie led her up the stairs into his apartment and tried to keep thinking with his head instead of his dick.
    He dumped the contents of the duffel bag onto the couch and placed the dog-eared copy of The Unearthed on the kitchen counter.
    He heard Ana pop the top of a beer can and turned in time to see her take a healthy swig. He didn’t want another beer but he took the offered can from her and took a small sip more to be polite than anything else.
    Ana walked to the window and looked out. The electric blue light from the street lamp made her appear almost ghost-like.
    Ana said, “Tessa and her friends were messing around on a frozen lake. She … went under and nobody could get to her.”
    Eddie sipped and the cold light beer tasted like ice water. The image of the eighteen-year-old Tessa trapped under the frozen lake invaded his mind. He imagined the dull thuds of her futile pounding against the ice above, the panic and fear she must have felt. How her long hair streamed around her head, Medusa-like. Her skin pale in the water,