Saratoga Woods 02 The Edge of the Water by Elizabeth George Read Free Book Online Page A

old island cottages that defined the little town.
    Along this street, an unusual number of cars were parked. As Becca walked along them, she began to smile, for there was a car she recognized—a 1965 restored VW bug—and its presence meant that she might not have to wait for the bus for the long journey to her hiding place after all. For somewhere in town was the only person who knew exactly where she was staying, and Becca had a fairly good idea where she would find him.

SIX
    T he place was called South Whidbey Commons. It stood on Second Street, which broke to the west off Cascade and ultimately climbed a route to the woods outside of town. Unfortunately, South Whidbey Commons was also directly next door to Diana Kinsale’s destination, the Star Store, but Becca had a feeling that if she ducked inside the place, she’d be able to locate Seth Darrow quickly enough.
    Seth was a regular at South Whidbey Commons, an ancient cottage that had been transformed into a community gathering place. A front garden there offered tables and chairs, flower beds and planters, and some whimsical art pieces for the summertime customers who bought coffee, tea, and baked goods inside, while the rooms of the cottage itself provided a bookstore, an art gallery, and a game room featuring secondhand PCs. The gallery could be transformed into a meeting space, too, which members of the community sometimes used. And when Becca entered the place on this late afternoon, the gallery was crammed with arguing people.
    She felt a little dizzy with the assault of noise. It combined not only whatever was going on in the gallery, but also the whispers of the dozens of people present in the rest of the building. The result for Becca was a bit like having a wall of bright colors directly shoved just inches from her eyeballs, only in this case the colors came in the form of words like
better work this year . . . more time for tourists . . . an ass for sure . . . into her pants she’s so majorly hot . . . wouldn’t know a doer . . . if her period’s late like she’s saying . . . be grateful for . . .
and a great deal more. As quickly as she could, she grabbed the earphone of the AUD box from her jacket pocket and fastened it into her ear for relief. That left her with what was being said aloud, and as she gazed around the place in a search for Seth Darrow, she couldn’t help hearing it as most of it was shouted by one party or another in the gallery.
    Inside the room, someone had set up a white board. There, a man with Coke-bottle glasses and thatchlike hair bursting from beneath a baseball cap was listing things. Seemingly unrelated items were being offered by the gathered crowd. He jotted “feeding from pier” alongside “boat tours,” which in turn had an arrow pointing to “picture opportunities” as well as “beach possibilities.” Along one edge ran “protection from orcas?” while at the bottom was “is early bad?” Not a single word made any sense to Becca, and she was about to turn away from the group when she saw among them Jenn McDaniels.
    Jenn was sitting with a red-haired young woman who was taking notes in what looked like a state of high excitement. Becca looked beyond them and saw that the walls of the room held dozens of pictures of seals. She frowned at these, at the people, at the shouting, at the statements still being listed on the white board.
    Seals and Langley appeared to have a very strange relationship, she thought. Some people apparently wanted to keep them at a safe distance from possible encounters with human beings while others wanted to feed them from the marina’s pier. But everyone wanted to argue about them, especially about an unusual-looking black one whose picture was just being flashed on the white board in lieu of a screen. The writing already on the white board was making it tough to discern the details, though.
    Thus someone shouted, “Erase all that crap, Thorndyke. We can’t