SUMMER of FEAR by T. Jefferson Parker Read Free Book Online Page B

coming from deep
within. Reuben Saltz had not gone into the bedroom. No, of course not. He had stood
in the entryway, called out to her, heard nothing, maybe climbed halfway up the
stairs before the creeping dread of being in someone else's home uninvited
turned him back.
    I took a drink from the flask. With all my love, Isabella. A
voice inside told me to get out of there, go back home to all that love,
preserve myself. But the voice was faint, drowned by alcohol. Yes, I wanted
that love, but I wanted more. I wanted that other world now, the world of
speed, the world with no history and no conscience. I got my gloves from the
trunk and put them on.
    Down the sidewalk, through the gate, along the stepping-stone walkway,
around the corner of the house and onto the patio. The same half moonlight of
the night before, a fraction, gradient brighter, maybe.
    The glass door was shut and the screen door was pulled tight. I put my
finger to the mesh—the flap gave, then closed
    But neither was locked. Because you can't lock them from the outside, I
thought, because whoever has been here since last night didn't want to be seen
going out the front. Reuben?''
    I slid open the doors and stepped in. I went to the stairway and
climbed. On the landing, I stopped for a moment to receive whatever silent
messages the house might be sending. A voice told me again to leave. I crushed
that voice by walking straight to Amber's bedroom door. I felt the vein
pounding in my fore head. I reached inside and flipped on the light.
    The bed was made up.
    The walls and mirror were clean.
    There was a throw rug where I had last seen Amber.
    Amber was gone.
    Something from hell welled up inside me, rode along with my blood. I
felt a tremendous withering—as if my cells were trying to retreat, shrink,
cover themselves. I could smell something strong, and it took me just a second
to realize what it was Fresh paint.
    I stood beside the new rug, knelt down, and lifted. A stain very faint,
so faint that it vanished when I stepped away and looked from another angle.
Was it just a shadow? I arranged the rug over it—just as it had been.
    I realized I was scarcely breathing. In the bathroom, I turned on the
light to look in the mirror at my own sweating yellow face. The eyes belonged
to someone I'd never met and wouldn't want to.
    That was when the door slammed shut behind me and I felt the hard steel
of a gun barrel jammed into the base of my skull.
    "Turn around. Real slow."
    I knew the voice. It went with the face. My forehead felt as if it were
ready to explode. I turned very slowly, open hands edging up. "Hello,
Marty," I said.
    "Monroe."
    Martin Parish's face looked worse than mine did. His breath smelled like
gin. He was wearing a pair of underpants and that was all.
    "Nice outfit," I said.
    "You're under arrest for, for, uh..."
    "For what, Marty? Put down the gun."
    "Breaking and..."
    I reached up and, purely on speculation, cupped the gun barrel away from
my face and walked past Marty Parish, back into the bedroom. When I turned to
look, Marty was standing in front of the mirror, hands to his side, shoulders
slumped, and an expression of absolute bewilderment on his face.
    "B and E shit," I said. "If you're going to arrest me for
anything, it ought to be for the murder of Amber. But then you'd have to
explain what you were doing here tonight—and last night, too. I saw you,
Martin."
    Parish turned to face me. He had the look of a man whose eyes are only
looking about one foot into the world. "This is not what it appears. You
don't understand what you're seeing."
    I had to smile. "What the fuck am I
seeing, Marty?"
    "I didn't do it. I swear to God, I didn't do
it."
    "Who did?"
    "I swear to God, I don't know." He lifted up his gun—a .44
Magnum with a two-inch barrel, a stupidly big gun, I have always believed—and
studied the end of it. In a flash, I thought, He's going to shoot himself. But
he let his hand drop to his side again. There are few sights in