Bloodstream by Tess Gerritsen Read Free Book Online

haven’t tried very hard to like it here.”
    “Like I had a choice? Like you asked me if we should move?”
    “We’ll both learn to like it. I’m still adjusting, too.”
    “So why did we have to move?”
    Gripping the steering wheel, she stared straight ahead. “You know why.” They both knew what she was talking about. They’d left Baltimore because of him, because she’d taken a hard look at her son’s future and was frightened by what she saw. An enlarging circle of troubled friends. Repeated calls from the police. More courtrooms and lawyers and therapists. She had seen their future in Baltimore, and she’d grabbed her son and run like hell.
    “I’m not going to turn into some perfect preppie just because you drag me up to the woods,” he said. “I can mess things up just as good right here. So we might as well go back.”
    She pulled into their driveway and turned to face him. “Messing up is not going to get you back to Baltimore. Either you get your life together or you don’t. It’s your choice.”
    “When is anything my choice?”
    “You have lots of choices. And from now on, I want you to make the right ones.”
    “You mean the ones you want.” He jumped out of the truck.
    “Noah. Noah!”
    “Just leave me alone!” he yelled. He slammed the door shut and stalked off to the house.
    She didn’t follow him. She just sat clutching the steering wheel, too tired and upset at that moment to deal with him. Abruptly she shifted into reverse and backed out of the driveway. They both needed time to cool down, to get their emotions under control. She turned onto Toddy Point Road and headed along the shore of Locust Lake. Driving as therapy.
    How easy it had all seemed when Peter was alive, when one of his cross-eyed looks was all that was needed to make their son laugh. The days when they were still happy, still whole.
    We haven’t been happy since you died, Peter I miss you. I miss you every day, every hour Every minute of my life.
    The lights from lakeside cottages shimmered through her tears as she drove. She rounded the curve, drove past the Boulders, and suddenly the lights were no longer white but blue, and they seemed to be dancing among the trees.
    It was a police cruiser, and it was parked on Rachel Sorkin’s property.
    She pulled to a stop in the driveway. Three vehicles were in the front yard, two police cruisers and a white van. A Maine state trooper was talking to Rachel on the porch. Beneath the trees, flashlight beams zigzagged across the ground.
    Claire spotted Lincoln Kelly emerging from the woods. It was his silhouette she recognized as he passed before one of the searchlights. Though not a tall man, Lincoln was straight and solid and he moved with a quiet assuredness that made him seem larger than he was. He stopped to speak to the state trooper, then he noticed Claire and crossed the yard to her truck.
    She rolled down the window. “Have you found any more bones?” she asked.
    He leaned in, bringing with him the scent of the forest. Pine trees and earth and wood smoke. “Yep. The dogs led us over to the stream-bed,” he said. “That bank eroded pretty badly this spring, after all those floods. That’s what uncovered the bones. But I’m afraid wild animals have already scattered most of them in the woods.”
    “Does the ME think it’s a homicide?”
    “It’s no longer an ME’s case. The bones are too old. There’s a forensic anthropologist in charge now, if you’d like to talk to her. Name’s Dr. Overlock.”
    He opened the truck door and Claire climbed out. Together they walked into the gloom of the woods. Dusk had rapidly thickened to night. The ground was uneven, layered with dead leaves, and she found herself stumbling in the underbrush. Lincoln reached out to steady her. He seemed to have no trouble navigating in the darkness, his heavy boots connecting solidly with the ground.
    Lights were shining among the trees, and Claire heard voices and the sound of