the First Rule (2010) by Robert - Joe Pike 02 Crais Read Free Book Online Page A

smelling the chlorine, then touched the water. Cold. He went to the French doors, popped a pane near the handle, and stepped into the deeper black of the family room. Pike listened again, then turned on a small flashlight that produced a dim red light. He covered the lens with his fingers, letting out only enough light to reveal the room. His hand glowed as if filled with fire.
    The heart-shaped stain where Cindy Meyer and her younger son died was a darker smudge on the dark floor, one murky red over another. Pike studied it for a moment, but Pike wasn't looking for clues. He was looking for Frank.
    Pike circled the family room, the dining room, and the kitchen, moving as silent as smoke. He noted the furniture, toys, and magazines as if each was a page in the book of the family's life, helping to build their story.
    A hall led to the master bedroom, which was large and spacious. Photographs of the kids and Frank and Cindy dotted the walls like memories captured in time. An antique desk sat opposite a king-sized bed with a padded headboard, a plaque on the desk reading: Empress of the World. Cindy's desk, where she had paid bills or helped with the business.
    Something about the bed bothered Pike, and then he realized the bed was made. The family room and Frank's office had been upended, but the bed here in the master was undisturbed. It had likely been made that morning, and was still waiting for a bedtime that would never come. This suggested the home invaders had either been frightened away before searching the master, or had found what they wanted. Pike concluded there was no way to know, and that John Chen might be right. The invaders could have realized they hit the wrong house, but by then they had killed Frank, so they killed everyone else to get rid of the witnesses.
    Pike played the red light over Cindy's desk, and saw more snapshots. Frank and the kids. An older couple who might have been Cindy's parents. And then Pike found the picture he was looking for. He had not known he was searching for it, but felt a sense of completion when he saw it. The snapshot showed Frank in a swimming pool with one of the boys. Frank had heaved his son into the air amid a geyser of water, both of them laughing, Frank's arms extended. This picture was the only photograph of all the photos that showed the blocky red arrows inked onto his del toids. Pointing forward, just as the arrows on Pike's delts pointed forward. Identical.
    Pike studied the picture for a long while before he returned it to the desk and left the bedroom. He moved back along the hall, thinking how different his own home was from the home that Frank Meyer built. Pike's furnishings were minimal, and the walls were bare. Pike did not have a family, so he had no pictures of family on the walls, and he did not keep pictures of his friends. Pike's life had led to blank walls, and now he wondered if his walls would ever be filled.
    When Pike reached the entry, the outside of the house lit up like a blinding sun. Vengeful bright light poured around curtains and shades, ignited the cracks in the broken door, and streaked through the windows. Pike closed his hand over the tiny red light, and waited.
    A patrol car was spotlighting the house. They had probably been instructed to cruise by every half hour or so. Pike was calm. Neither his breathing nor his heart rate increased. The light worked over the house, probing the hedges and side gates for three or four minutes. Then the light died as abruptly as it appeared.
    Pike followed his crimson light upstairs.
    The house seemed even more quiet on the second floor, where a stain on the carpet marked the older son's murder. Little Frank. Pike counted the years back to a deadly night on the far side of the world when Frank told Pike that Cindy was pregnant.
    That time, they were protecting a collective of villages in Central Africa. A group called the Lord's Resistance Army had been kidnapping teenage girls they raped and sold as