The Night Ranger Read Online Free PDF Page B

Arghandab: Had he acted justly? Francesca didn’t bother him. Alders did.
    Though in some ways the question didn’t matter. The word once writ couldn’t be undone, et cetera. No one else could help him answer, not Shafer, not even Anne. So Wells ran.
    —
    Back at the farmhouse he found Anne in the kitchen, squatting beside the open cabinet under the sink, which was full of dirty dishwater. Two wrenches and a penlight were laid on a rag on the floor. Wells squatted behind her, smoothed her hair away, kissed her neck.
    “What seems to be the problem, Officer?”
    She was a cop in the North Conway Police Department, though she was thinking about joining the state police, which investigated many murders and major crimes in New Hampshire. She and Wells had been together almost three years. In the last few months, she’d stopped asking if he thought they should marry. Maybe she thought he risked his life too casually to commit to a marriage, much less a family. Maybe she had her own reasons for taking marriage off the table. He couldn’t bring himself to ask. He was happy to be with her this way for as long as she would let him.
    She was past thirty now, and the New Hampshire winters had given her hints of crow’s-feet and wrinkles that city girls didn’t get until their forties. But her jeans and sweaters hid a supple body and strong legs. Wells loved watching her walk. At the moment, though, she wasn’t happy to see him.
    “Why don’t you go take a shower and let me fix this.”
    “I can help.”
    “Like you know anything about plumbing. If I weren’t here, you’d have done what you always do. Tossed in a bottle of Drano, and if that didn’t work, bought the really strong stuff, and if that didn’t work, called the plumber. It’s bad for the pipes.”
    “I’m feeling very emasculated.” Though Wells had to admit that aside from chopping wood, he wasn’t particularly handy around the house. His survival skills were more primal.
    “Where’d you and Tonka go?”
    “The usual.”
    She turned around, nuzzled against his neck. “You smell good. Like the woods. Tell you what. If I can fix this quick enough, maybe I’ll join you in the shower.”
    “Give me a chance to regain my manhood.”
    “Something like that.”
    —
    She didn’t join him. While he was soaping up, he heard the phone. He showered quickly and then brought up logs for a fire in their bedroom. She found him just as he kindled it. “Trying to prove you’re not completely useless around the house?”
    “That obvious?”
    “Yes. As a matter of fact. Evan called.”
    “Evan my son?”
    “Is there another Evan? Said it was important.”
    That’s impossible,
Wells almost said. Just before his last mission, he had visited Evan in Montana. He hadn’t seen his son in more than a decade and wanted to reconnect, explain his absence. Evan had smashed that hope in the time they needed to finish a cup of coffee. He’d made clear that he hated the CIA and viewed Wells as a professional vigilante at best, a war criminal at worst. Wells had left Montana figuring that they wouldn’t talk again for many years. If ever.
    Wells couldn’t imagine Evan had woken up today and had a change of heart. He had no idea what his son might want. Not money. His stepfather was a doctor and they lived well.
    “Maybe somebody’s pregnant and he doesn’t want to tell his parents,” Anne said.
    “I don’t see him coming to me for that. I don’t see him coming to me for anything.”
    She handed him her phone.
    Despite everything, he knew Evan’s number by heart.
    —
    “Hello?”
    “It’s John.” “John” seemed safer than “your dad.”
    “Thanks for calling me back so fast.”
    “Everything okay?”
    “How are you, Dad?”
    The falsity of the last word churned Wells’s stomach.
    “Let’s talk about why you called.”
    But Evan didn’t seem to know what to say next.
    “Something wrong with Heather?” Wells finally said. Wells’s ex-wife,