A Breath Away. Rita Herron

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СКАЧАТЬ Inside, the dismal atmosphere magnified the emptiness of the house. Once this place had breathed with life, with Darlene’s incessant chatter, the scent of cinnamon bread Teresa had baked. The joy of a family.

      “Dad?” He walked across the hardwood floor, listening for sounds of his father. A curtain fluttered in the evening breeze, the sound of crickets chirping outside reminding him of his lost childhood. Of nights when he and Darlene had raced barefoot across the backyard, catching fireflies in mayonnaise jars. Had streaked in front of the sprinkler on hot July afternoons.

      He checked the den, then his father’s office, surprised he wasn’t slumped in front of the TV watching All in the Family reruns on cable. Something about Archie Bunker had appealed to Walt’s twisted sense of humor, when he’d had one.

      Hot air surrounded Grady as he walked through the house. A scraping sound coming from somewhere near the kitchen broke the silence. He headed through the double wooden doors, then crossed the room and halted in the doorway to the garage. His father was sitting there—so still that for a brief moment Grady thought he might be dead. The low sound of a knife scraping against wood invaded the stale night air. Grady exhaled. His father was whittling again.

      He spent hours carving, scraping away the edges of a raw piece of wood until he achieved the perfect smoothness he wanted. Back and forth, scraping and sawing, watching the splinters and dust fall. Once Grady had even watched him carve a chicken bone into an odd shape, then tell Darlene a story about his creation.

      Grady had hated the sound of that carving.

      He cleared his throat to alert his father of his presence, then descended the two stairs to the garage. His father’s face was craggy, his eyes fixed in concentration, his bourbon beside him.

      Oddly, his dad was carving a baby lamb. Did it have some significance?

      “Dad?”

      As if his father had just realized he had company, his knife froze in midair. The gaze he swung to Grady was not inviting.

      “We have to talk,” Grady said, ignoring the jab of pain his father’s reaction caused.

      “Not tonight, Grady. Go away.”

      Anger flared in his chest. “It’s important. It’s about Darlene’s murder.”

      A vein throbbed high in his father’s forehead. “You realize what day it is?”

      He nodded. “Of course. The anniversary of her death.”

      Pain robbed Walt of all color.

      “But it may also be the day we’ve discovered her killer.”

      The knife fell to the cement floor with a clatter.

      Grady scrubbed a sweaty hand over his chin. “Tonight I found Jed Baker’s body on the cliff out at Briar Ridge.” He studied his father for a reaction, but detected only the slightest twitch of his eyebrow. “Dad, he left a suicide note confessing to Darlene’s murder.”

      IN THE EARLY DAWN, Violet awoke with a sense of dread, but also with purpose. She ran her fingers over the Best Friends necklace. She had to face the old demons to move on.

      Quickly showering and dressing, she grabbed some coffee and phoned the hospital to check on her grandmother.

      “She’s resting comfortably,” the nurse said. “We’ll be moving her to the assisted care facility in Tennessee later in the day.”

      “Please tell her that I’ll visit as soon as possible.” The nurse assured her she would, so Violet hung up, then left a message with her store manager, telling her she’d be gone for a few days. She left her cell phone number in case they needed to reach her.

      After tossing a few things in a suitcase, she headed to the car. It would take several hours to get to Crow’s Landing. She didn’t want to arrive at midnight. There were too many old memories she’d left behind, too many ghosts.

      As she climbed in her car, the anguished cries of the young woman she believed to be Amber Collins seemed to float through the haze. The sound of the bone whistle followed, reminding her of the gruesome murder in her vision.

      And now her father was dead, too.

      Why was all this happening now? And why did she feel connected to each of these horrid things, but helpless to stop the chain of events from unfolding?

      OVER COFFEE the next morning, Grady was still stewing over his father’s reaction to Baker’s confession. Or his lack of a reaction.

      He’d simply turned back to his whittling with a vengeance, as if he wasn’t surprised at all to learn Baker had killed Darlene. Or maybe he was, and he couldn’t deal with it.

      Or maybe he’d known Baker had killed Darlene, and he’d finally exacted his own vengeance.

      Grady didn’t want to contemplate that possibility, but the argument he’d overheard between Baker and his dad gnawed at him. Determined to get to the truth, he sent the suicide note to the lab to see if it was legitimate. He’d have to get something Baker had written to compare the handwriting.

      Rubbing at his aching neck, he poured himself a third cup of coffee and sat down to study the files. First, he pulled up the report of the crime scene and read the details of Darlene’s murder. The photograph of her lying in the bottom of that well still tore him to shreds. Her face was deathly pale. Her wild, curly hair frizzed around her face in a tangled mop. Her clothes were covered in dried dirt and sticks and…bugs. Her shorts were tattered, the white cotton shirt ripped, her sneakers caked in mud. Forcing the anguish at bay with deep-breathing exercises, he zeroed in on the ligature marks on her neck. Would they match the size of Baker’s hands and fingers? He’d make sure the coroner checked it out. Criminology techniques had changed a lot in twenty years.

      Next, he read through the reports chronicling the search party’s efforts to find Darlene. Locals had combed the woods behind his family’s house, the hollow between the Monroes’ and the shack Violet Baker had lived in, all the way to Briar Ridge, where Baker had just been found dead on the overhang. When his father was questioned, a meeting with a town council member had served as his alibi. Baker had an alibi, as well—he’d been supposedly working as a mechanic at a garage that had since closed. The owner, Whitey Simms, had confirmed his presence. But Whitey had passed away ten years ago, meaning Grady couldn’t question him now. Not much help there.

      He scratched his chin in thought. Had Whitey lied for Baker? If so, why?

      A statement from a local citizen, Eula Petro, drew his eye. “Little Violet Baker claimed she heard Darlene’s voice calling to her, crying for help. Told her daddy where to look for Darlene.”

      Grady chewed the inside of his cheek. If Violet claimed to have heard voices telling her where his sister was, had they followed up on what she’d told them? Had she been wrong? Or had the statement been pure gossip?

      Ruby Floyd, the woman’s older sister, had stated, “The child’s not quite right. Might be touched in the head.”

      Had Violet suffered from a mental condition? Had she ever been treated?

      He’d have to do more research to find out.

      He read further.

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