Darkness Before Dawn by Ace Collins Read Free Book Online Page A

lifelessly to the ground, the other birds scattered in a panic,
     some quickly landing on low limbs then turning back to observe their fallen comrade.
     Others, pushed by continually exploding fear, flew out of sight. They didn’t want
     to know what would happen next. They didn’t have the stomach for it. Yet, Meg couldn’t
     pull her eyes from the victorious feline. The cat quickly surveyed the area before
     picking up the lifeless bird in his mouth. He violently shook his prize once more
     and then trotted off, disappearing beneath her window.
    These events would have shocked her not so long ago. The brutality of the act might
     have even brought tears of rage, but now the nature play only served to give her a
     few minutes of escape from the reality of her own loss. So while it registered in
     her mind, it came nowhere near touching her heart. Casually turning from the window,
     she opened the refrigerator and announced to no one, “Well, now that we know what
     the cat’s having, I wonder what I can whip up for breakfast?” After a moment of staring
     at her choices, she closed the door without making a decision.
    Wandering back through the living room, she pulled her oversized, terry cloth robe
     a bit more tightly around her, stepped out on her second-floor landing, walked down
     the steps to the apartment complex’s first floor porch, and bent over to pick up her
     paper. A bloody sight stopped her short. Once again standing upright, she studied
     the form of the newly dead cardinal, lying on the walk less than a foot from the rolled-up
     paper.
    “I guess the cat wasn’t hungry,” she coldly murmured.
    Shrugging her shoulders, Meg once again bent over, grabbed the paper by one end, while
     using the other end to flick the bird off into the snow-covered grass. Turning, she
     marched back to her apartment, opened her door, tossed the paper on the floor, walked
     to her bath, eased out of the robe and nightgown, and turned on the shower. As the
     water heated up, she attempted to lose herself in soap and steam. But no matter how
     hard she scrubbed, she couldn’t get rid of her anger or pain.

7
    W ITH THE SHOWER ’ S HOT WATER POURING DOWN HER FACE , M EG ONCE again went through the
if
s she had considered for the past three days. What if she had told him to wait? What
     if he hadn’t gotten his work done so quickly? What if? What if? What if? Then, as
     she reached for her shampoo, another question surfaced, the same question that had
     haunted her the night before. Who? Who was that drunk kid? Who killed Steve?
    Putting the shampoo down without ever using it, Meg turned the water off, wrapped
     herself in a towel, and still soaking wet, ran back to her landline phone. She punched
     in a familiar number and waited as it rang—once, then twice, and finally three times.
    “Come on, Heather, be home.”
    On the fourth ring, a sleepy voice answered. “Hello?”
    “Heather.”
    The shock of hearing from her friend must have yanked Heather from deep sleep into
     a complete and fully awake awareness. Somehow, as she framed a question, she also
     managed to embrace a tone filled with compassion. “Meg, how are you?”
    “Heather, do you know the name of the kid that was driving the other car?”
    “What kid?” After an awkward pause, she added, “Oh, Steve’s wreck. I don’t know? Why?”
    “You can tell me,” Meg was pleading. Her tone was almost frantic. “Surely you’ve heard.
     I’ve got to know.”
    “I really don’t know, Meg,” Heather answered sincerely. “If I did, I’d tell you. I
     just haven’t heard anybody say. In all honesty, maybe I didn’t want to know.”
    Meg swore.
    In four years of working with her, Heather had never heard Meg utter even the mildest
     obscenity, so the word likely contained the shock value of a 7.0 earthquake. Maybe
     that was the reason she didn’t offer a response. For whatever reason, before Heather
     could fully gather her wits and respond, Meg’s