Hell's Horizon by Darren Shan Read Free Book Online

me but came up blank. I always assumed he ran off with another woman.”
    The Cardinal rose and crossed the room to the huge window that afforded him a bird’s-eye view of the city. He stood looking down in silence. I stared at his chair and waited for him to speak. I had a good idea what he was preparing himself to say.
    “Tom Jeery was killed in the line of duty.” He glanced over his shoulder to check how I’d taken that, noted my neutral expression and continued. “One of those stubborn shopkeepers pulled a knife on him. Cut deeper than he intended. Severed an artery.”
    “So he’s dead.” I’d thought, over the years, that he must be, but had always held out hope that one day he’d walk back into my life, even if it was just so I could deck him for cutting out on me and my mother.
    “Your mother knew,” The Cardinal said. “I informed her personally, as I did in those days, before I started delegating. A hard, cold woman, if you’ll allow me to say so. Kept her emotions to herself. Refused my offer of financial assistance. Wouldn’t even let me pay for a decent burial.”
    “Where was he buried?” I asked, head spinning.
    “He wasn’t.”
    “Then where…?” I winced. “The Fridge.”
    “He was one of the first occupants. You can retrieve the body if you wish to lay it to rest. I only held on to it because your mother showed no interest.”
    “After all these years, what would be the point?”
    The Cardinal smiled. “My thoughts exactly.” He beckoned me over to the window. “See those cranes off to the right?” I pressed against the glass and searched the horizon until I found the cranes in question. “That’s where they’re building the Manco Capac statue.”
    “The what?”
    “Manco Capac was an Incan god. After hundreds of years, somebody’s decided to raise an effigy of him. It’s going to be one of the most incredible monuments ever constructed. It will put this city on the architectural map. You must have heard about it—reporters have been discussing little else since it was commissioned.”
    “I don’t pay much attention to the news.”
    “No matter. I only pointed it out to show what a real mark of respect for the dead is like. Sticking people in the ground or running them through a furnace… I’d rather be jammed away in a dark corner of the Fridge or left outside to rot.
    “Come,” he said. “This conversation is veering toward morbidity. Tom Jeery has been dead far too long to shed any tears over. Let’s return to the corpse in question—Miss Hornyak. I don’t like it when people use my facilities for their own ends. Her murderer made a fatal mistake when choosing the Skylight.”
    He returned to his chair and picked up the file he’d been studying earlier. I took my seat again and concentrated on what he was saying. I’d think about my father later, on my own time.
    “Any idea who killed her?” he asked.
    “No.”
    “No enemies? Jealous ex-boyfriends? Business rivals?”
    “She wasn’t in business. She comes—came—from a wealthy family. Lived off inherited income. No enemies that I was aware of. Old boyfriends…” I shrugged. “She was beautiful. Rich. Exciting. Something of a tease. I guess there’s lots of disgruntled exes hanging around, but none that I’m aware of.”
    “How did you meet? Miss Hornyak was a woman of means. Elegant. Sought after. You’re not what I would consider a catch.”
    “We met at AA.”
    “She was an alcoholic?”
    “Not really. She didn’t talk much about it, but from what I picked up, her brother controlled the purse strings—her parents died when she was young, which was one of the things we had in common—and he felt she’d been drinking too heavily. He made her go. Threatened to cut her off if she didn’t.”
    “So you got talking, one thing led to another, you realized you were two of a kind…”
    “I wouldn’t say that. Nic was in a different class. I knew nothing would come of our fling. We just