The Devil Went Down to Austin by Rick Riordan Read Free Book Online Page A

fear. How good it felt. How much I wanted to be underwater right then, scared as hell but loving the taste. The thought warmed me.
    When the trees illuminated, I slid the rough paper cylinder out of my coat pocket. The thrill was not knowing whether the plan would work, whether I would have to use the little gun I had in my other pocket.
    Headlights appeared and I knew it was the right car. It could be no other—not at this time of night, on this little country road.
    The rest happened fast.
    I snapped the end of the flare and stepped into the glare of their headlights, waving the orange fire frantically, making a huge arc to my left—toward the dropoff.
    And they were going too fast. In driving class, they always tell you—don't look at the lights in the opposite lane, because you will drift toward them. You instinctively want to look at the light, and you will drift toward what you see. That's what happened with the wave of the flare, in those three seconds.
    That old fart could have run me down. He could have swerved the other way, into my car, into the side of the hill, and caused me to use a much more difficult plan, but instead he turned the car toward the wave of the flare and swerved into nothing—a short BUMPBUMP of wheels leaving the road, the cracking of brittle tree branches and crunch of metal, rolling, insanely large sounds of a dumpyard compactor, and then quiet.
    No fire. No headlights. Just darkness. Two large wet marks at my feet where the old green Mercedes had taken flight.
    I knew the cliff. I'd seen it in daylight, many times. I estimated a fiftyfoot drop, fortyfive degrees, until they hit the creek bed.
    I smiled, thinking about that—the place where water touches your life. You have to confront it, sooner or later.
    I knew there was an outside chance they hadn't died. But I also knew they would get no help. At least not soon. No one would think to look for them until morning, maybe longer.
    Part of Providence is trust, isn't it? Magic thinking. Words said over and over again, "I wish they were dead." And now I trusted.
    The snow helped cover my traces—what few there were.

    I watched for media coverage. The police were anxious to dispel rumours of foul play.
    Too much work for a sleepy county sheriff's department to construct a murder scenario when it was so obvious what had happened—an elderly couple drinking, unused to the icy roads, bad eyes and reflexes. Perhaps a deer had run in front of them. Or a dog. It had happened before.
    Call it Providence.
    Sometimes all you have to do is wave that arc of orange fire in the wrong direction, and the ones you love will follow it.

CHAPTER 7
    The police tape made a satisfying sound as I ripped it off the railing on Jimmy's front steps.
    I found his spare key behind the ceramic angel on the wall, unlocked the door.
    The dome was dark. In the stale air of the closedup house, one smell hit me as completely wrong—a woman's perfume. Halston, maybe. A faint trace.
    "Gas company," I called. "Ma'am?"
    No answer.
    There'd been no other cars on the property. Maybe the scent had been trapped here since Travis County did the crime scene, two days ago. A reporter or detective could've brushed against the door frame. Still—the place had a presence, like it was holding its breath.
    I put Robert Johnson's cage down and let him out. He padded his way up to the canvas sofas, sniffed the fringed edge of the Oriental rug, looked at me.
    "Just for a few weeks," I said. "We can do anything for a few weeks, right?"
    He did not give me a rousing huzzah.
    Morning sun filtered down from the skylights, making stripes across the railing of the sleeping loft above. The stovehood fluorescent flickered. I went around the ground floor and turned on every light I could find.
    On the fireplace mantel, some of Jimmy's photos were missing. His roll top desk was open. Bills and receipts were scattered across the coffee table—the work of deputies not worried about leaving a mess.
    I