The Dry by Jane Harper Read Free Book Online Page A

cleaners’ve been through, so there aren’t any nasty surprises,” Raco said. “They couldn’t save the carpet in the kid’s bedroom. Not that you’d want to.”
    Family photos covered the walls. The frozen poses looked somehow familiar, and Falk realized he’d seen most of them at the funeral. The whole scene felt like a grotesque parody of the warm family home he’d known.
    â€œKaren’s body was found right here in the hallway,” Raco said. “The door was open, so the courier saw her straight away.”
    â€œWas she running for the door?” Falk tried to imagine Luke chasing his own wife through their own house.
    â€œNo, that’s just it. She was answering it. Shot by whoever was standing on the doorstep. You can tell from the position of the body. But tell me this, when you come home at night, does your wife answer the door to you?”
    â€œI’m not married,” Falk said.
    â€œWell, I am. And call me liberated, but I’ve got a key to my own house.”
    Falk considered. “Catch her by surprise, maybe?” he said, playing out the scenario in his mind.
    â€œWhy bother? Dad comes home waving a loaded shotgun, I reckon they’d still be pretty bloody surprised. He’s got them both inside the house. Knows the layout. Too easy.”
    Falk positioned himself inside the hall and opened and closed the door a few times. Open, the doorway was a rectangle of blinding light compared with the dimness of the hall. He imagined Karen answering the knock, a little distracted maybe, perhaps annoyed by the interruption. Blinking away the brightness for the crucial second it took her killer to raise a gun.
    â€œJust strikes me as odd,” Raco said. “Shooting her in the doorway. All it did was give that poor kid a chance to piss his pants and bolt, not necessarily in that order.”
    Raco looked past Falk. “Which brings me to my next point,” he said. “When you’re ready.”
    Falk nodded and followed him down the bowels of the hall.
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    As Raco snapped on the light in the small blue bedroom, Falk’s first dizzy impression was that someone was renovating. A child’s bed had been shoved against the far wall at an angle, stripped back to the mattress. Toys were piled in boxes and stacked haphazardly beneath posters of football players and Disney characters. The carpet had been ripped out, exposing untreated floorboards.
    Falk’s boots left patterns in a layer of sawdust. The boards in one corner had been heavily sanded. A stain still remained. Raco lingered by the doorway.
    â€œStill difficult for me to be in here,” he said with a shrug.
    This had once been a nice bedroom, Falk knew. Twenty years ago it had been Luke’s own. Falk had slept there himself many times. Whispering after lights out. Holding his breath and stifling giggles when Barb Hadler called through to them to shut up and go to sleep. Wrapped warm in a sleeping bag, not far from those floorboards with their awful stain. This room had been a good space. Now, like the hall, it stank of bleach.
    â€œCan we open the window?”
    â€œBetter not,” Raco said. “Got to keep the blinds down. Caught a couple of kids trying to take photos soon after it happened.”
    Raco pulled out his tablet computer and tapped it a few times. He handed it to Falk. On the screen was a photo gallery.
    â€œThe little boy’s body’s been removed,” Raco said. “But you can see how the room was found.”
    In the photos, the blinds were wide open, spilling light onto a horrendous scene below. The wardrobe doors were flung wide open, and the clothes had been roughly pushed aside. A large wicker toy box was overturned. On the bed, a spaceship duvet was rucked up on one side as though tossed back to check what was under it. The carpet was mostly beige, except for the one corner where a rich red-black pool seeped out