Bad Move by Linwood Barclay Read Free Book Online

grabbed some unread Suburbans that had been stashed on the lower shelf of the coffee table, and leafed through them. I spotted a familiar name on the letters page. There was a submission from one Samuel Spender, who identified himself as president of the Willow Creek Preservation Society.
    When will this council, and in particular the members of the Land Use Committee, recognize the importance of the Willow Creek Marshlands, and prevent the destabilization of this environmentally sensitive ecosystem? Development has already been allowed to encroach too closely upon this area, but there is still a chance for the council to do the right thing and stop the approval of the final phase of the Valley Forest Estates development. This phase, if allowed to proceed, will put another hundred homes within a pop can's throw of the marshlands, threatening the homes, and the very survival, of a wide variety of species, both land-based and aquatic.
    Standing at the banks of Willow Creek, surrounded by some of the only trees within a five-mile radius, I had worked out several characters' motivations over the last few months. (Does the alien slime monster eat the Earthling's brain out of hunger, or did a troubled upbringing make him do it?) When you stood next to Willow Creek, held your breath, and listened to the sounds of the shallow waters flowing by, you could almost imagine that you weren't a few hundred yards from a soulless subdivision. I could remember, when we went in to sign the deal to buy our house, seeing this area on an oversized map on the wall behind Greenway. I had to agree with Spender's letter, that it would be a shame to see the land near the creek developed, but felt like a hypocrite at the same time. What had this entire area looked like before the developers took over? What had the land where our house now stood been before the surveyors marked out where the streets would go, and the bulldozers came in and leveled everything? Had it been woodlands? Had it been farmland? Did corn used to come out of the ground where we now parked the cars? How many birds and groundhogs and squirrels had to relocate once the builders broke ground on Valley Forest Estates?
    But at least our house didn't back up onto a marshland. It's not like we were tossing our trash into the creek. I've never been what you'd call a rabble-rouser, a guy who stands up at meetings and demands change. I'm not the type of taxpayer who gets on the phone to his representative and demands a stop sign at the corner. I've always been content to let others be activists, and maybe that comes from a background of reporting. You felt you were doing enough just by keeping a record of what the champions for change were up to. I gave you a voice, I got your story into the paper, but don't ask me to get involved personally. I've got articles to write.
    I didn't know that the developers of Valley Forest Estates were a bunch of environmental rapists, but I did know that they were unable to properly caulk a window or keep a leaking shower from staining the kitchen ceiling below. Maybe they should be stopped from building more homes anywhere, not just on the banks of Willow Creek.
    When I was finished reading the Suburbans and some sections of the Metropolitans from the previous weekend, the sun was up. I heard Sarah go into the kitchen, and she said nothing when I wandered in.
    The remainder of the day before had not gone well. I expected to make amends with Sarah shortly after I returned with her car. But she took the car out again as soon as I was back with it. She went, it turned out, to the drugstore, and bought a tube of ointment for my burned hand. She pulled into the driveway half an hour after she'd left and found me sitting at the kitchen table, where I had been wondering whether Sarah had left me for good and what that meant in terms of how many burgers I should throw onto the barbecue. She pulled the tube out of her purse and threw it at me, nailing me right in the