The Dark Tide Free for a Limited Time by Andrew Gross Read Free Book Online Page B

from the main deck. He prepared to board.
    That’s when his cell phone vibrated. He grabbed it off his belt. It was 5:10 in the morning. Anyone not insane was still asleep. The screen read PRIVATE . Text message.
    Some kind of picture coming through.
    Pappy yelled forward to Al to hold it and jumped back from the Persephone ’s gangway. In the predawn light, he squinted at the image on the screen.
    He froze.
    It was a body. Twisted and contorted on the street. A dark pool beneath the head that Pappy realized was blood.
    He brought the screen closer and tried to find the light.
    “Oh, Lord God, no…”
    His eyes were seized by the image of the victim’s long red dreadlocks. His chest filled up with pain as if he’d been stabbed. He fell back, an inner vice cracking his ribs.
    “Pappy!” Al called back from the bridge. “You all right there?”
    No. He wasn’t all right.
    “That’s Abel,” he gasped, his airways closing. “That’s my son!”
    Suddenly, he felt the vibration of another message coming through.
    Same: PRIVATE NUMBER .
    This time it was just three words that flashed on the screen.
    Pappy ripped open his collar and tried to breathe. But it was sorrow knifing at him there, not a heart attack. And anger—at his own pride.
    He sank to the deck, the three words flashing in his brain. SEEN ENOUGH NOW?

CHAPTER TWELVE
    A month later—a few days after they’d finally held a memorial for Charlie, Karen trying to be upbeat, but it was so, so hard—the UPS man dropped off a package at her door.
    It was during the day. The kids were at school. Karen was getting ready to leave. She had a steering-committee meeting at the kids’ school. She was trying as best she could to get back to some kind of normal routine.
    Rita, their housekeeper, brought it in, knocking on the bedroom door.
    It was a large padded envelope. Karen checked out the sender. The label said it was from a Shipping Plus outlet in Brooklyn. No return name or address. Karen couldn’t think of anyone she knew in Brooklyn.
    She went into the kitchen and took a package blade and opened the envelope. Whatever was inside was protected in bubble wrap, which Karen carefully slit open. Curious, she lifted out the contents.
    It was a frame. Maybe ten by twelve inches. Chrome. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble.
    Inside the frame was what appeared to be a page from some kind of notepad, charred, dirt marks on it, torn on the upper right edge. There were a bunch of random numbers scratched all over it, and a name.
    Karen felt her breath stolen away.
    The page read From the desk of Charles Friedman.
    The writing on it was Charlie’s.
    “Ees a gift?” asked Rita, picking up the wrappings.
    Karen nodded, barely able to even speak. “ Yes. ”
    She took it into the sunroom and sat with it on the window seat, rain coming down outside.
    It was her husband’s notepad. The stationery Karen had given him herself a few years back. The sheet was torn. The numbers didn’t make sense to her and the name scrawled there was one Karen didn’t recognize. Megan Walsh. A corner of it was charred. It looked as if it had been on the ground for a long time.
    But it was Charlie—his writing. Karen felt a tingling sensation all over.
    There was a note taped to the frame. Karen pulled it off. It read: I found this, three days after what happened, in the main terminal of Grand Central. It must have floated there. I held on to it, because I didn’t know if it would hurt or help. I pray it helps.
    It was unsigned.
    Karen couldn’t believe it. On the news she’d heard there were thousands of papers blown all over the station after the explosion. They had settled everywhere. Like confetti after a parade.
    Karen fixed intently on Charlie’s writing. It was just a bunch of meaningless numbers and a name she didn’t recognize, scribbled at odd angles. Dated 3/22, weeks before his death. A bunch of random messages, no doubt.
    But it was from Charlie. His writing. It was a