So Cold the River (2010) by Michael Koryta Read Free Book Online

a stop in the middle of the road. He pushed on the gas again,
     found a set of twin stone arches that guarded a long, winding brick drive that led up to the hotel.
West Baden Springs—Carlsbad of America,
the arches said. He knew from his research that referred to a famed European mineral spa.
    The place gave him an immediate desire to reach for the camera, get this recorded now, as if it might soon disappear.
    He wasn’t certain the brick road was a legitimate entrance, so he drove past the stone arches in search of the parking lot
     and, within the space of a blink and a yawn, found himself in French Lick. Out of one town and into the other, all in what
     felt like six city blocks. They were separate towns, but the reality was, they felt like one place, and the only reason they
     hadn’t merged into one town over the years was those hotels. They’d been rivals at one time, French Lick and West Baden, and
     many locals just referred to the area as Springs Valley.
    He passed the French Lick Springs Resort, which held the grandeur of its West Baden partner but not the magic. The architecture
     was more traditional, that was all. A good-looking building, but a building nonetheless. The West Baden hotel, with its dome
     and towers, quickened the pulse more. The owner of the French Lick hotel, Thomas Taggart, had been a fierce rival of the West
     Baden Springs Hotel owner, Lee Sinclair—in business and politics, with Taggart a key Democrat in the state and Sinclair an
     equally powerful Republican. For decades those two had dueled for superiority in the valley, and while Sinclair’s hotel may
     have won out, Taggart created a million-dollar businesswith his Pluto Water, while Sinclair’s Sprudel Water—virtually the same product—had somehow failed, eventually forcing him
     to sell his interest in the water to Taggart.
    Eric turned at the casino and drove up the road in search of the entrance for the West Baden hotel. The parking lot was set
     to the side and above the hotel, and he parked and took his bags out and walked toward the entrance, looking out at the grounds
     as he went. A creek cut through the middle, surrounded by flowering trees and flowerbeds and emerald-colored grass. The smell
     of the grass was in the air, freshly cut, and something about that drew him away from the parking lot entrance and around
     to the front of the building. He set his bags down on the steps and inhaled and looked off down the long brick drive.
    “What a place.” He said it aloud, but softly, and was surprised when someone said, “Wait’ll you see the inside.”
    He turned and saw an elderly woman heading down the steps toward him. She looked at least eighty but walked with a firm, steady
     stride and wore makeup and jewelry, a pocketbook held between her upper arm and her side.
    “I’m looking forward to it,” he said, stepping aside so she could come down. “Have been for a while.”
    “I know the feeling,” she said. “And don’t worry, it won’t disappoint.”
    He picked up his bags and went up the steps and through the doors and into the atrium. Made it about twenty feet inside before
     he had to drop the bags again—not because they were heavy but because taking the place in called for energy.
    The dome was three times as wide as he’d expected and twice as tall, a tremendous globe of glass resting on white steel ribs.
     The design had been truly ingenious in its time—hell, it still was. Harrison Albright, the architect who had conceived of
     the whole amazing design, came up with the umbrella-like supports tohold the dome up, but he had concerns that temperature changes would cause it to expand and contract at a different rate than
     the building below—a sure recipe for disaster, a collapse of the dome that would shower those beneath with glass and humiliate
     its creator. As a solution, Albright rested the steel support ribs on ball bearings, allowing the dome to expand and contract
     at a different rate