A Welcome Grave by Michael Koryta Read Free Book Online Page A

and then went around the side of the building, the way Kara Ross had taken me earlier in the day. A moon that was about three-quarters full provided the only light on this side of the building. I knew there was a name for that stage of moon, waxing or waning or something, and it had that coppery color it gets only in the fall. I turned the corner and found the door to the loft apartment.
    The note was gone, every trace of tape peeled away. I banged my knuckles off the rough wood and waited. Nobody came down to open it, and I didn’t hear anyone move upstairs. I knocked again and got more of the same. There was no knob, just an odd hooked handle and a lock. I tugged on the handle, but the door didn’t open. Jefferson’s son had gotten the note, but he hadn’t waited for me. Maybe he hadn’t been as intrigued as Kara Ross had predicted.
    I turned away from the door, shoving my hands into my pockets and tightening my shoulders against the chill night air. Out ahead of me, the black surface of the pond rippled as the wind passed over it. I was watching that when I noticed the figure in the gazebo.
    There was no light in the little building, but the silhouette of a man was clear. He was sitting on the bench beneath the fancy trelliswork that passed for walls, as still as the scarecrow that hung in front of the barn. When I saw him, I tensed slightly, a human presence somehow seeming threatening in a spot that was absolutely desolate at night. Then I realized the man had to be Jefferson’s son. If I lived in this place, I’d spend my evenings down by the water, too. The gazebo and the pond were maybe a hundred feet from the rear of thebarn, and I was surprised he hadn’t heard me approach or knock on the door, but maybe the wind had carried the sounds away from him. I set off down the stone path that led to the gazebo, stepping carefully in the darkness.
    By the time I was halfway there, I could see he was sitting with his back to the pond, facing me. He must have seen me at the door, and yet he hadn’t said a word, just sat there and watched. I’d planned on calling out a hello before I reached the gazebo, but his behavior was so odd that breaking the silence seemed wrong somehow, and instead of speaking, I just kept walking.
    When I reached the gazebo, I went up the three steps and onto the main surface, only a few feet from him. I could see now he was wearing jeans and a heavy flannel shirt; thick dark hair hung over his shoulders and across his forehead, a few strands in his eyes, blending with the shadows. His chin was close to his chest, but his eyes were up, on me. There was a bottle on the rail beside him, some sort of whiskey, not much left in it. I was opening my mouth to say hello when I saw the gun.
    It was resting on the bench beside him, but his hand was around the butt, and even though my night vision was still adjusting, I could tell his finger was on the trigger. The barrel was pointed at me but not raised. I stopped moving forward and looked from the barrel of the gun to hollow dark eyes that were watching me without interest or emotion.
    “My father’s dead, isn’t he?” His voice matched his eyes.
    I tried hard to look at his face and not the gun. “Yeah,” I said. “He is. That’s what I came to tell you.”
    The hand with the gun shifted, and then it was pointed at my chest, maybe six feet separating me from the barrel. It was the kind of range that took shooting ability out of the equation. Even if the whiskey bottle on the railing had started out full, he wasn’t going to be able to miss if he pulled the trigger.
    I stayed as still as I could. My mouth had dried out as quickly and completely as desert sand after a cloudburst, and I could feel my heartbeat picking up, the blood beginning to pound in my temples and wrists, my leg muscles trembling the way they do after a long run.
    “Listen,” I began, but he cut me off immediately.
    “I could kill you,” he said. “Could have as soon as