Heaven's Shadow by David S. Goyer, Michael Cassutt Read Free Book Online Page A

notoriety.
    None of which was much comfort to Zack, to Rachel, or to Megan’s parents.
    James Doyle, Megan’s father, was a thick, ruddy man of seventy who looked like a career cop with a history of alcohol abuse, but was, in fact, a retired insurance salesman with a history of alcohol abuse. He had summed it up for Zack: “No matter how bad things are going, they can always get worse.”
    Zack’s own parents were not present, though the circumstances—Dad’s increasing frailty, Mom’s lack of comprehension—were not happy, either.
    Now James Doyle sat across from Zack in the limo thoughtfully provided by the funeral home. He was vainly trying to comfort Megan’s mother, Diane, a slim, vital woman of Scottish descent in her midsixties, clearly the one Megan took after.
    In the seat ahead sat Megan’s brother, Scott; his wife; and their seven-year-old son. Their grief was either overwhelmingly numbing or under control. But thank God they were here. The challenge of having to face them, to comfort them and be comforted, had allowed Zack to compartmentalize his own grief and put it aside.
    For the moment. He had yet to break down over the loss of lover and wife.
    Or his loss of the Moon. He would have traded that adventure, every glorious moment of it, to have Megan back.
    As the car rolled down the Gulf Freeway toward Forest Park Cemetery, Zack thought about the casket in the hearse ahead of them.
    Megan was inside. Megan with the deep brown eyes and that wicked smile. The athletic yet feminine build. The slim legs that still, after eighteen years of intimacy, had the magic to stir him. The walk that had caught his eye at Berkeley.
    The throaty laugh and perfectly pitched voice that, he realized after many years, was the single trait he found most attractive in her.
    All stilled and silenced. Boxed for shipping.
    At the hospital, he had forced himself to look on her battered body. Not as horrible as he feared—the only visible damage a bruise on the right side of her face. But Zack could not believe it was Megan . . . the collection of bone, muscle, and blood on the gurney was too still to be his often-jittery, constantly mobile wife.
    Enough. Time to act like an astronaut—don’t look back, look at the problem directly in front of you.
    Which was Rachel. She had escaped serious physical injury in the crash, but the shock and trauma would be with her forever.
    In the first hours afterward, she had acted irrationally, speaking only to demand her Slate and, when Zack failed to produce it (the unit was still in the wreckage of the car, wherever that was), sinking into a sullen stupor that stretched over three days. She went through the motions of her precrash life—she ate, she dressed, she continued to experiment with makeup. There was nothing robotic about it, nothing overt enough to trigger a diagnosis of depression. She was merely . . . subdued. When addressed, she would respond, but usually with a single word.
    At least, that was Zack’s perspective. How reliable were his judgments?
    Zack could not make words come out of his mouth. Take a breath. He had to be strong not only for Rachel, but for Megan’s parents, who sat across from them, their faces furrowed with concern. He patted his daughter’s hand and tried to be calm and businesslike. “Have you got your poem?”
    Rachel’s eyes widened in apparent horror. Emotion! Zack wanted to cheer. “Oh my God, I think I left it home!”
    Before Zack could react, Rachel’s face reset to cold and stoic. Her voice, however, was rich with teenage condescension. “Do you honestly think I’d screw this up?”
     
     
    By the time the cortege reached the grave site, the wind and rain had stopped. The cemetery was bathed in a gauzy sunlight that Zack found both peaceful and unusual.
    As the casket was being wrestled into place, another car arrived from a different direction.
    For an instant, Zack hoped it would be Harley Drake. Harley had been badly injured in the