Dying Embers by Robert E. Bailey Read Free Book Online Page B

fucking lost!”
    â€œPlease! This is important,” I said.
    Inside the house someone touched off a large hand cannon. The bullet ripped through the top of the door above our heads and gave us a shower of splinters and paint chips. Leonard and I stood for a frozen moment and examined a half-dozen similar ragged holes in the top of the door.
    â€œThe next one won’t be as kind!” The voice seemed closer to the door. “I’m working, asshole. Leave me the fuck alone!”
    â€œAnnie?” asked Leonard.
    We got silence for a reply. Then someone, inside, snapped off the latch.
    Leonard turned the doorknob and gave it a shove. The door creaked slowly open and revealed a woman standing in an unlit hallway. She wore tan coveralls under a black welder’s apron. On her head was a welder’s helmet with the face shield turned up to reveal an angelic face. She wore a heavy gray gauntlet on her left hand and a large frame revolver on her right. Her eyes were dark watery pools.
    â€œWhy have you come here?” she asked.
    â€œTo see you, Annie-fannie,” said Leonard. He smiled and spread his arms.
    It happened in a flash. She pitched the helmet aside, took maybe three steps, and leapt on Leonard—her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist. Luckily for Leonard she was only about five feet tall and a shade over a hundred pounds—gear and pistol included. Leonard staggered back a step but kept his feet.
    â€œI missed you,” she said, the only part I could make out. The rest was sobs. She settled her face into Leonard’s neck.
    â€œYou missed Dad’s funeral,” he said, patting her back.
    â€œI was in Europe. I didn’t find out until I got back.” She wiped her face on the sleeve of her coveralls. “I called Mom. She said I had broken Dad’s heart and hung up.”
    â€œAfter Dad died,” said Leonard, “I retired to be here for her. She’s moved out to the cottage. Sometimes she says mean things when she’s hurt or frightened.”
    â€œI know,” said Anne. She snuggled her head back to Leonard’s neck and tightened her hug. She made a sob and retched out, “So do I.”
    I left them, walked down the hall and turned right. I found myself in the well of a two-story studio. The west wall and roof were made of glass like a greenhouse. The room should have been an inferno, but a coolbreeze off the lake was drawn in through a series of screens on the bottom row of windows and blown out through exhaust fans in the ceiling. The studio comprised fully half of the building and held a jumble of construction materials. In one corner a kiln and casting furnace glowed cherry red.
    A gas welding rig with long, coiled hoses on a small cart sat parked at the base of a stone and metal spiral—a double helix—topped with a burst of bright metal balls that swayed on the ends of thin metal rods. Drawings cast about on the floor were titled,
Reach for the Stars.
    â€œI wrote you every couple of months,” said Leonard as he and Anne walked arm-in-arm into the studio, “but I always got them back unopened and marked ‘Return to Sender.’”
    â€œI really don’t understand that,” said Anne.
    â€œI called, but I got the houseman. He was always rude. He said you didn’t want to talk to anyone.”
    â€œBrian?” she asked. “He is usually such a sweetheart.”
    â€œYes, ma’am,” I said. “He is such a sweetie that he sicked a pack of dogs on us when we came to the gate today.”
    â€œThis is Mr. Hardin,” said Leonard. He gave her the card I had written Lambert’s telephone number on. “That’s his card.”
    Anne set her pistol on a wooden crate that had been pressed into service as a table for a newspaper and a half-eaten Danish roll. She examined the front of my card and then the back.
    â€œScotty Lambert?”
    â€œYes,