To the Grave Read Online Free PDF Page B

crisp, buoyant breeze. Whimsy swept over her and she whipped around to face Marissa. “More pictures! Just a few more pictures before we go!”
    Marissa beamed. “You’ve made up your mind, haven’t you?”
    â€œI’ve decided to give it a try, but if James doesn’t go for it I want memories of seeing this gorgeous spot on this gorgeous day with my gorgeous sister.”
    Catherine took several photographs, her smile never fading. She heard herself giggling and felt as if she were listening to someone else—Marissa or her mother, Annemarie, both with their unadulterated joie de vivre. The feeling was foreign and heady.
    When they’d worked their way to the front of the cottage again, Catherine insisted Marissa shed her denim jacket and sit on the hood of her red convertible Mustang.
    â€œYou’re not going to sell James on this place by showing him a picture of me sitting on the hood of a car,” Marissa protested.
    â€œThis is for Eric. He can frame it and put it on his desk when he’s elected sheriff next month,” Catherine said as Marissa slid onto the hood. “Let down your ponytail.”
    Marissa pulled the rubber band from her long ash-blond hair with its sunny highlights and shook it free around her shoulders. “How’s that?”
    â€œGreat. Now slip your sunglasses on top of your head for that carefree, beach-girl look.”
    Marissa laughed but obeyed.
    â€œWonderful!” Catherine crowed. “Now put your right hand slightly behind you and lean on it. I’ll take a few more steps back.…”
    â€œDo you have to keep backing up to make me look good?”
    â€œNo, you look great, but you could look even better. Thrust your left shoulder forward slightly and—”
    Catherine’s heel banged against something hard. She looked behind her and saw old, widely spaced wooden planks cut into a circular shape and set on a low, round concrete rim. She took a step up onto the planks and looked back into her viewfinder.
    â€œPerfect! Eric will love this picture.”
    Marissa’s eyes widened. “Be careful! You’re standing on a cistern—”
    Suddenly Catherine heard the boards groaning. Old wood splintered and snapped beneath her feet, and with stunning shock she plunged into a vat of cold water. Deeper, deeper, deeper she fell until her feet touched a hard surface. She’d swallowed water and fought the reflex to open her mouth and cough. Terrified, Catherine thrust upward, flailing arms weighed down by the sleeves of her sopping-wet flannel-lined corduroy jacket until she collided with something large, something soft yet with a hard core she instinctively knew was a body. She thrashed wildly, panicked, and gulped more water. Then she tried to calm herself. It’s an animal, she thought. It’s just a large animal—
    With arms just like mine, Catherine’s stunned mind registered as her own arms slipped beneath the others and slid up to where they joined a torso. She tried to shake loose, but her right hand had tangled in what seemed like thousands of long threads attached to her limp companion. She couldn’t keep writhing to jerk free of them without losing the momentum of her upward surge, though. Her feet paddling frantically, her lungs nearly bursting from the struggle to hold her breath while handling the extra weight, she finally rose to the surface, gasped for air, and opened her eyes.
    Catherine shrieked as she looked into the mutilated, bloated face of a dead woman.

 
    CHAPTER TWO
    1
    In her shock, Catherine’s feet went limp and her head slipped underwater. Then pain shot through her scalp. She rose once more to see Marissa lying on the ground and reaching forward over the cistern. Catherine realized her pain came from Marissa grasping a sizable hank of her hair and using it to pull Catherine’s body back to the water’s surface.
    Catherine looked at the corpse