Undertow (The UnderCity Chronicles) Read Online Free PDF Page B

a good call. Jack wasn’t the sympathetic sort.
    “Are you sure about him, Lindsay?” Janice said. “I found an article on him on the internet. He seemed very promising.”
    Trust Janice to check out Jack. She’d regularly googled both Lindsay’s and Seline’s dates. “What does it say?”
    “It says he’s been beneath cities all over the world. ‘The ultimate urban spelunker’ is what they call him.”
    “Does it mention how he got lost under New York for two years?”
    Janice made soft clucking sounds as she presumably scanned the article. “No, nothing. The article is from four years ago, though. From the magazine put out by the Royal Geographic Society. Do you want me to dig around for something more recent?”
    Lindsay grimaced. “No, my meeting with him today brought me about as up-to-date with him as I want to be.” Seeing how Jack had turned out had been like saying goodbye to him all over again.
    “Do you want me to come over? It might help to talk. To have someone around.”
    Lindsay eyed the pile of survival gear on the floor. “Janice, I think I need to be alone tonight.”
    “Okay. You call me if you want to, though. Anytime.”
    Lindsay wondered if it was Janice that needed the company more than her. Seline’s disappearance must be killing her, too. “You take care,, and try not to worry. One way or another we’ll get her back.”
    She opened her new backpack and loaded it up, trying to make every item easily accessible. Giving up, she zipped it close and slung it over her shoulders. She stood and adjusted her balance to the weight on her back. She forced her attention away from the glowing Christmas tree. It landed on Leo. She’d found the fifty-pound stuffed lion at a novelty store, outrageously overpriced, and had instantly bought it, forgetting to even bargain. Seline had squealed in undiluted excitement when she’d first seen it, and would lie down alongside it on the couch and stroke its mane. There’d been many a night that she herself had stretched out along its length and felt comforted.
    The lion stared at her in friendly abstraction. Its golden eyes, Lindsay realized with a jolt, bore an uncanny resemblance to Jack’s. The damn man was tagging her every thought.
    She cut through the Chelsea apartment she’d spent the last three years and every spare penny making over. She and Seline had replaced or redone nearly everything else, and except for the finishing carpentry, all by themselves. She’d scoured stores, auctions, and newspaper ads for the absolutely perfect rug, perfect sofa, perfect dining set. She’d wanted to make an ideal home for them, a perfect home like the one she’d grown up in.
    She found herself looking at it through Jack’s eyes. His crack at her wealth stung more than she cared to admit. She loved beautiful things, because they were beautiful and not because she was materialistic. Didn’t she give to charities? Didn’t she pay her employees generously? Hadn’t she put her heart and soul into every project she’d ever worked on? Yes, yes and yes. So fuck him.
    Anyway, Seline had been the one to take on good causes. From the time she was a little girl she’d been interested in social work and was determined to make a difference in the lives of New York’s poor and homeless. Charismatic, honest and caring, she had earned the trust of addicts, derelicts and petty criminals that many seasoned social workers were afraid to deal with.
    Through it all Lindsay had been worried for Seline—and so very proud. Perhaps her niece’s attraction to things grim and gritty stemmed from her own aversion to them, but the point was the girl was blazing her own trail. Now Seline was the one who needed help, and here, only a few days into the New Year, she found herself about to gamble her life in the hopes of staging a rescue.
    That ought to count for something, Jack Cole. She hadn’t seen the man in eighteen years, he was living in some hole in the wall with all