Hunter: A Thriller by Robert James Bidinotto Read Free Book Online Page A

correct?”
    Silence.
    “I assume that you intend to write about it, then?”
    He stopped rocking. Lowered the file folder and met his researcher’s eyes.
    “Among other things,” said Dylan Lee Hunter.

 
SEVEN
    ARLINGTON , VIRGINIA Monday, September 1, 6:45 p.m.
    They stood in the hallway of the funeral home. Susanne Copeland, clutching a tissue, stared at the open door of the parlor just ahead of them, on the left. Her eyes were red-rimmed and swollen; her dark-red, shoulder-length hair bordered a pretty face now lined with pain and fatigue, a face that seemed to have aged ten years in the past three days.
    She breathed deeply. “Okay. I guess it’s time.”
    Annie took her arm gently and they began to walk slowly toward the room, followed closely by about a dozen of Susie and Arthur Copeland’s closest family members.
    The funeral director who had greeted them at the building entrance had walked ahead, and now stood to one side of the parlor door. On the opposite side of the entrance a small, marble-topped table supported a spray of white roses, the visitors’ register, and a golden pen. The director smiled sadly as they approached, his hands clasped before him like a maitre d’.
    “Mrs. Copeland,” he said, placing a consoling hand on her shoulder, “please take all the private time you need, and let me know if you require anything, anything at all.”
    She blinked and swallowed. “Thank you, Mr. Reynolds.”
    He moved to greet the relatives following them. She glanced at Annie, then at the door yawning open before her, as if it were the entrance to hell. Annie gave her arm a supportive squeeze. Susie took another deep breath, let it out, and they entered.
    Soft string music was playing over the intercom—some banal, bittersweet religious hymn. She felt Susie’s arm go rigid at the first sight of the casket. Illuminated by hidden lights, it rested in a recessed alcove to their right. It was a gleaming bronze thing lying on a bier draped in cascades of rich white fabric, surrounded by what seemed to be a solid wall of floral wreaths and displays. The sickly sweet scent of hundreds of flowers was almost overpowering.
    Arthur Copeland’s face and folded hands were visible against the white satin of the casket’s open lid.
    As they neared, Susie’s pace slowed; then her steps became halting, each punctuated by a little gasp. The gasps became sobs. She sank onto the kneeling pad at the side of her husband’s body.
    “Oh God. Oh God. Oh Arthur! ” she cried out, her voice high and thin. She reached out a trembling hand, touched his sleeve. “Oh Arthur!”
    Annie found hot tears running down her own cheeks. She knelt beside her friend, wrapped her arm around her quaking shoulders. Susie turned into her, and they hugged and cried together.
    Annie didn’t know how long they remained like that. She became dully aware of the family members around them, sobbing and praying.
    Eventually, Susie regained her composure. Annie helped the young widow to her feet and then stepped aside to let her lean in close to her husband’s body.
    It was a cliché, she thought, but Arthur looked as if he were merely asleep. The man’s face, so anguished during the past two years, was serene now—unlined, unmarked, bespectacled, just as it had been earlier in his life. She had dreaded seeing his body tonight almost as much as Susie had; but she marveled now that there was no sign of the gunshot wound that he had inflicted to his own skull. Clearly, the funeral director was as skilled at his own reconstructive craft as Dr. Arthur Copeland had been at his. At just forty-four, Arthur had been one the nation’s most renowned plastic surgeons.
    “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it,” Susie said, shaking her head. “Oh, Arthur, why? ” She touched his clasped hands, flinched a bit—the shock of the hard coldness, Annie realized—but then let her palm rest on them. She touched his wedding ring with her forefinger. Then