The Front by Patricia Cornwell Read Free Book Online

him. Her bouts of premonition and clairvoyance, her spates of casting curses and spells, resurrect old feelings of foreboding, distrust, maybe even blame. Magic Nana. What good was she when it came to the worst thing that’s ever happened to him? All those promises about what the future held. He could go anywhere, be anything, the world was his to seize. His parents didn’t want another child because he was so special, he was enough. Then that night, and Magic Nana never saw it coming and certainly didn’t prevent it.
    That chilly night when she took her adoring grandson on one of her secret missions, and she had not the slightest sense that something was terribly wrong. How was that possible? Not even the faintest foreshadowing, not even when they got home and opened the door and were greeted by the most absolute silence he’s ever experienced in his life. He thought it was a game at first. His parents and his dog in the living room, pretending to be dead.
    After that he didn’t go on any of Nana’s secret missions, has never had any interest in the same mystical guidance so many other people seem to need. All while he was growing up, this parade of strangers in and out of the house. The bereft, the helpless, the desperate, the frightened, the sick. All paying her whatever they could, whatever their commodity might be. Food, hardware, clothing, art, flowers, vegetables, handiwork, haircuts, even medical care. It never has mattered what or how little, but it has to be something. Nana calls it an “equal exchange of energy,” her belief that an imperfect ebb and flow of giving and receiving is what causes everything that’s wrong in the world.
    Without a doubt, it’s the root of what’s wrong between Win and Lamont. There sure as hell’s no quid for her quo. He stares at her retractable-hardtop black Mercedes, as shiny as volcanic glass, about a hundred and twenty grand, forget pre-owned. She doesn’t care what she pays, is too proud to ask for discounts, or more likely enjoys the rush of being able to afford sticker price, afford whatever she wants. He imagines what that must be like. To be a lawyer, an attorney general, a governor, a senator, to have money, to have an extraordinary wife and children who are proud of him.
    It will never happen.
    He couldn’t get into law school, business school, a doctoral program—Ivy League or otherwise—not even if he were a Kennedy or a Clinton. Couldn’t even get into a decent college, his application to Harvard probably laughed at, didn’t matter that his father had been a professor there. Good thing his parents weren’t around when his high-school guidance counselor commented that for such a “bright boy,” Win had the lowest SAT scores she’d ever seen.
    Lamont suddenly emerges from the courthouse back door in a hurry, briefcase, keys in hand, wireless earpiece pulsing blue as she talks on her cell phone. He can’t hear what she’s saying, but it’s obvious she’s arguing with someone. She gets into her Mercedes, speeds right past without noticing him, has no reason to recognize Nana’s car. He has a funny feeling, decides to follow her. He stays several cars behind her on Broad Street, then on Memorial Drive along the Charles River, back toward Harvard Square. On Brattle Street, she tucks her Mercedes in the driveway of a Victorian mansion worth six, maybe eight, million, he guesses, because of the location and size of the lot. No lights on, looks unlived-in and poorly maintained except that the grass is mowed.
    He drives around the block, parks a couple streets away, grabs a small tactical light he always keeps in Nana’s glove compartment. He trots back to the house, notices the grass and some of the shrubbery are wet. The irrigation system must have been on earlier. A curtained window dimly lights up, a barely discernible glow, barely wavering. A candle. He moves silently