The River Is Dark Read Online Free PDF

trustworthy, and competent. Phelps exuded none of their traits. “How were Allen and Suzie discovered?”
    “They took the local paper. The delivery boy stopped by for payment early this morning and saw them through the front window.”
    “Was my brother questioned after the Shevlin murders?”
    “Yes, but he and Suzie were in shock. They didn’t know a thing.”
    Liam chewed the inside of his cheek. This wasn’t going anywhere, and he deduced from Barnes’s reactions and answers that there wasn’t a whole lot more than what he was telling him. They were almost as much in the dark as he was.
    “You’re quite a bit younger than Allen,” Barnes said, appraising Liam again.
    “Sixteen years. I was a planned oops, my dad used to say.”
    Barnes chuckled. “You’re young for a detective too.”
    Liam felt the familiar tightening in his chest and swallowed. “Yeah, guess I was too dumb to be on the beat.”
    Barnes smiled, and it looked like a lot of effort. “Is there a reason—”
    Liam stood and reached across the desk to shake the sheriff’s hand. The older man stopped speaking and returned the gesture. “I appreciate all your help, Sheriff. Do you know when the bodies will be released for burial?”
    Barnes blinked and nodded. “Tomorrow, I believe. Agent Phelps wanted the autopsy results as soon as possible.”
    “Could you notify me when they release them? I want to get back home as soon as I can wrap everything up here.”
    “Sure.”
    “Thank you,” Liam said as he exited the office. His footsteps clicked and echoed back to him from the far walls of the cells, and the crushing feeling in his chest accelerated him out of the door and into the evening air.

CHAPTER 3
    He found a pub on a side street that looked like it served food.
    The inside was larger and cleaner than he expected, and when he sat at a table in the back of the room, it was only a few seconds before the locals returned to their drinks. The menu was featureless, and his appetite hadn’t returned. He ordered a cheeseburger basket, and nursed a Guinness until it arrived. He was about to make an attempt at actually eating when the door to the bar opened and a woman walked in.
    She was tall, maybe five feet nine, and wore a knee-length skirt. Her dark-brown hair was swept away from her brow by a black headband and hung almost to her shoulders. She clutched a purse close to her side, and as her eyes passed over him without lingering, he remembered the dances they’d shared, the feeling of her slender back beneath his hand, how her lips felt against his, even the way her skin smelled.
    Liam set his burger in the basket and stood. The woman turned away from him and tried to lean on a barstool as she waited for the bartender to finish with another patron. Liam threaded his way between a row of tables and put a hand on the bar a couple feet from where she stood. He watched her eyes glance at him, traveling up his forearm to his face before sliding away, and then coming back. She pivoted, her mouth open, the beginning of a question on her tongue.
    “Hi, Dani,” Liam said.
    She tried to say something—he could see a word forming in her mouth—but then she simply stepped around the barstool that separated them and hugged him, tears already spilling from her eyes.

    He led her back to his table after she put in an order for a vodka tonic. After the waitress dropped off the drink, she sipped it and stared at him over the rim of the glass. He crossed his legs and sat back in his chair, looking at the spots where her tears dried in ghostly, crooked lines on her cheeks.
    “I can’t believe you recognized me,” she said after a few minutes of them trading gazes.
    “Ditto,” he said, cradling his beer in one hand. “But in all fairness, you haven’t changed that much.”
    Dani huffed laughter as she wiped again at the trails of tears. “In ten years? Yeah, right.”
    “No, really,” Liam said. “I knew it was you right away.”
    She