ECLIPSE by Richard North Patterson Read Free Book Online Page B

sins.”
    Femi Okari gazed at his only son as his face sagged with regret. Then he stood, abandoning all ceremony to place a hand on Bobby’s shoulder as he looked into his face. “I have made mistakes. They are painful. I do not wish for you to make a mistake more painful than losing a son, at a cost to many more people than one old man. Please, heed me.”
    Bobby met his eyes. Then, his face closing, he slowly shook his head. “Too late, Father. For us both.”
    Without waiting for his father’s answer, Bobby left. Glancing over her shoulder, Marissa saw Femi Okari shake his head.
    At the center of Goro, the villagers had gathered, their mood shadowed by fear of Karama and by the passage of the moon, its edge now appearing to touch the sun. As Bobby moved toward them, his cell phone rang.
    He answered swiftly, eyes fixed on Marissa as he listened. Briefly, they shut. Before hanging up, Bobby said quietly, “Be safe.”
    Once more his gaze met Marissa’s. “That was Atiku,” he said. “In Ebu, the demonstration has collapsed. In most villages people are afraid to leave their houses. There are whispers that our youth lynched those workers on my orders.”
    “Is that possible?” Marissa asked. “Not on your orders, but despite them?”
    Bobby stared at the ground with hooded eyes. “So many of our youth are filled with hatred. It’s as though violence is in the water we cannot drink and the air that singes our lungs.” He came to her, placing his hands on her shoulders. “We are truly alone, Marissa. Those rumors about me are part of it.”
    Looking into his face, Marissa searched for a way to ask him to disperse the crowd. “Think of what you’ve already done. You’ve given the Asari identity and purpose.”
    Bobby smiled faintly. “And now I should stop?”
    “Not stop. Pause.”
    He angled his head to indicate the gathering. “In ten minutes the eclipse will be upon us; in another ten I will send them home. But now is not the moment for me to show fear. Please, Marissa, do not make me afraid.”
    He held her gaze for one more moment. Then he took a cigarette lighter from his pocket and snapped it once, then twice more. When it did not light, he took out another. As this one produced a flame, Bobby laughed softly.
    “Always prepare,” he said. He straightened, standing taller, and walked toward the crowd and into the lengthening shadow of the eclipse.

7

    A T S EA R ANCH , P IERCE GLANCED AT HIS WATCH AGAIN.
    It was just after midnight. In the deep black surrounding him, unfiltered by city lights, he imagined the darkness moving toward Goro. Then, as vividly, he recalled the night his relationship to Marissa proved as complex as he had begun to sense it was.
    T HAT EVENING HAD begun no differently than others. The two of them emerged from class, debating a classmate’s story that she liked and he disdained. “I call it ‘ennui fiction,’” he said as they reached the sidewalk, “where the main character wakes up, discovers his hair dryer doesn’t work, perceives that as a metaphor, and decides not to leave his apartment—”
    “I thought it was sensitive.”
    “What about ‘enervated’? If the guy in that story came to life, you wouldn’t give him a nanosecond.” Pierce turned to her. “So where are we going to dinner? Stories that go nowhere make me hungry.”
    Marissa considered this. “I don’t feel like being waited on,” she said. “Tonight I feel more like pizza from a box.”
    “Fine with me,” Pierce responded on impulse. “Let’s go to your place and order one.”
    Marissa scrutinized him in the dark, then gave what passed for a careless shrug. “Only if you like anchovies,” she answered.
    They stopped at a corner store for a bottle of cabernet, then drove to her walk-up in a venerable three-story building. When she opened herdoor, hesitating for just a moment, Pierce followed her into a cramped efficiency apartment. Its contents—a fold-out couch, chair, desk,