Wake to Darkness Read Online Free PDF Page B

“I appreciate you picking up the slack in the meantime.” Then she pushed away from the table and stood up. “I’ve got to go.”
    She headed out the door to her car and took off—a little too fast for the road conditions, in his opinion. He’d had a set of studded snow tires put on for her, though, so she should be all right on the road.
    But she wasn’t all right emotionally. He knew that.
    He carried his coffee mug through the house to the back, passing Jeremy again on the way. He was as morose as his mother. Poor kid. But Mason kept going into the back room, the coldest room in the little farmhouse, which had no real purpose and would, he thought, make a great woodworking shop if he ever followed his intention to learn how to do that sort of thing. Right now it was a catch-all area for anything he didn’t know what to do with. He passed the piles of junk, opened the back door and hollered out to Josh, “I’m making breakfast. You hungry?”
    Joshua was at the bottom of the hill, picking himself up out of the snow and preparing to head up again for another ride. He hollered, “Come out and sled with me!”
    “I need food and a shower, and then I’ll sled with you.”
    “Awwwwl-riiiight.”
    “So you gonna eat?”
    “How long?”
    “Half hour?”
    “Okay.”
    “That’s about six more trips down the hill, Josh. Count ’em off and come on in, okay?”
    Josh nodded and started back up the hill at a pace that made Mason smile. No question. The kid was going to try to get in ten. At least. Mason headed back into the living room, stopped behind the sofa and put both hands on Jeremy’s shoulders to be sure he had his attention. “I need to take a shower. Ten minutes, tops. Keep an eye on your brother, okay?”
    “Yeah.” He didn’t look away from the TV screen.
    “Jeremy, that means put the controller down, get up, walk to the window and check on him at least three times while I’m gone.”
    “He’s eleven.”
    “That’s not an answer. Come on, Jer, help me out here.”
    “All right, I’ll check on him. Jeeze. ”
    Mason closed his eyes and prayed for patience. The kid had lost his father, his baby sister and, for all intents and purposes, his mother, he reminded himself. Add to that the typical brooding of a seventeen-year-old male, and you had a recipe for frustration that couldn’t be beat.
    Mason headed upstairs for a shower that would compete with his record for brevity. When he came back down, hair wet, pulling on a long-sleeved green thermal shirt with a big black bear on the front, he heard voices. Female voices. He popped his head through the collar and pulled the shirt down over his belly.
    Rachel was standing in the living room, eyes glued to the chest he’d just covered up and making him want to pull the shirt right back off again.
    * * *
    I had known from the second I woke up this morning that I had to tell Mason about the dream, because I knew damned well it wasn’t a dream. I was pretty certain it was, instead, a murder. A real one. Maybe the murder of the woman he’d said was missing. I was shaken and trying not to show it to Misty, but she didn’t miss much. Still, she was happy to go along to meet my friend Detective Brown. She was even a little excited. She knew that Mason and I had worked together to solve a string of serial killings, though she didn’t know about my personal connection, that I had the damn killer’s eyes in my head. And she knew Mason’s nephew had saved my life by shooting the killer.
    We pulled into Mason’s driveway, and I saw an unfamiliar green Jeep parked beside his classic Monte Carlo. Since he had mentioned that his nephews would be with him for the weekend, I’d stopped at Mickey D’s for a gigantic breakfast order and brought it along. No use showing up empty-handed, right? When we got out of the car, and headed up onto the porch, Myrtle walking with her side touching my calf, my stomach went all queasy. Seeing Mason again was a big deal