The Angel Maker - 2 by Ridley Pearson Read Free Book Online Page B

income, you know. You know that, don't you?" "She's a sixteen-year-old runaway."
    As he had hoped, Liz momentarily forgot about the IRS. "What are you talking about?"
    "They stole her kidney," Boldt explained.
    "Who did?" she gasped. "Worse than that: She hemorrhaged. She almost died. Sixteen-years old," he repeated.
    "Lou?" There it was, that flicker of recognition he had been expecting, but dreading. "If I go active again, I'm eligible for a loan through the credit union."
    Her eyes grew sad and then found his. She didn't speak, just stared. Boldt said, "We'd have to juggle Miles. I realize that.
    Maybe day care," he said tentatively, expecting an eruption.
    Instead, she turned a ghastly pale. She rose, her back to him, and walked into their bedroom. She shut the door behind her, closing him out. He loved this woman. Her sense of humor. Her courage. The way she laughed when it was least expected. The way she reached into the shower to test the temperature. Little things, all of them important. The way she hummed to herself when she didn't know he could hear. Her sense of organization.
    The silly presents she would show up with on no particular occasion. Her pursuit of pleasure. The way she made love when she was really happy.
    He could hear the radio through the closed door. The news. The weather. More rain. They couldn't take any more rain. The flooding was as bad as it had ever been. Suicide rate was up: bungie jumping off Aurora Bridge, without the bungie cords.
    He looked around for something to do. Lately, Miles, this woman, and The Big joke had been his whole life. Now he found himself thinking about Cindy Chapman and Daphne Matthews.
    Maybe he'd try to talk her into this in the morning. Maybe he would admit to a promise already made. Maybe Cindy Chapman was an isolated case. Maybe there wasn't some guy out there carving up runaways after all. Maybe, maybe, maybe.
    He went to the bedroom door and opened it cautiously. "Mind if I join you?"
    She was on the bed, her jeans unbuttoned. She shrugged. "More rain," she said, as if nothing had come before. "Yeah, I heard."
    She patted the comforter beside her. He knew that look.
    Forgiving. Cautiously optimistic. He loved her for it.
    Boldt stepped inside, kicking off his shoes, and shut the door.
    A hundred yards down the dark, narrow, overgrown lane, Elden Tegg encountered a truck blocking his way. A huge man with an untrimmed beard asked him his name 'checked his driver's license, consulted a list, and finally backed out of the way, allowing him to pass.
    He drove under a canopy formed by the limbs of trees. The road was all mud and leaves. He parked the Trooper amid a group of battered pickup trucks and hurried through the rain toward the large barn. A yellow light escaped the slats in the wood. He pulled open the door and stepped inside.
    He smelled cigarettes, hay, manure and musty, rotting wood. He smelled a metallic, salty odor as well, one that as a veterinarian he knew only too well: animal blood. He stepped into shadow and studied the scene before him.
    The fighting ring, a wooden box ten-feet square, had been hastily constructed out of gray barn wood. It occupied an area in the middle of the wide dirt aisle between the stalls. A hayloft, cloaked in darkness, loomed above them. The building's only light came from a single bare bulb suspended directly above the center of the ring. It cast harsh shadows on the rough faces of the nearly twenty men in attendance.
    This scene repulsed him. Pitting dogs to the death. He repaired life; he did not waste it.
    A head in the crowd turned and faced him. The same man from earlier in the day, Donnie Maybeck. His gold Rolex winked at Tegg as it caught the light. He approached Tegg with an exaggerated stride. He smiled, flashing his ragged gray-brown teeth at Tegg like an old whore lifting her skirt at a would-be John. "Are we set?" Tegg asked. "Everything's cool." He indicated the loft with a nod. "But before we get to that, we