The Long Way Home by Andrew Klavan Read Free Book Online Page B

for a moment, just a moment, I saw them: that family I’d been thinking about. The mom and dad, a son and daughter. They were sitting at a dinner table, eating and talking. I felt something lurch inside me at the sight of them. I wanted to pound on the window. I wanted to plead with them to take me in, to let me sit with them at dinner, let me have a life again away from this fear and loneliness.
    But that was just a fantasy.
    I saw another alley off to the right. I charged into it, and a second later I came out onto another front yard and veered off across it until I was on the street again.
    I didn’t slow down for an instant. There was an apartment building in front of me, and that had an alley, too, and I ran into that one, and through another yard and toward another alley.
    I must’ve been going even faster than I thought. The police never caught up with me again. I ran and ran and ran through a broken pattern of yards and streets and alleys.
    I ran until I ran out of houses. I ran until I reached the edge of town.
    And then I kept running.

CHAPTER ELEVEN
Murder
    There were clouds blowing by in the dark overhead, but there were great swaths of open sky. A half-moon shone, lighting my way, and I had stars enough to guide me.
    I jogged down lonely country roads. When I heard cars coming, I ducked off behind the surrounding trees or dodged into an isolated driveway and hid behind a parked car.
    Sometimes I heard sirens in the distance. Those were the cops, I guessed, still hunting for me. But that was back toward town, back toward Whitney. Out here, it was just me and the passing cars.
    The farther I got from the little city, the easier it was to keep off the roads completely. I cut across flat farm fields harvested to the nub. I tried to lose myself in high brown grass and high brown stalks of gathered corn. Sometimes there were forests, and I’d slide in between the trees. But I couldn’t go too deeply into the woods. At night, with no flashlight, it was just too dark in there, too easy to lose my way.
    Once, in the middle of a great, broad space, with a vast sky of stars wheeling above me and the clouds sailing by overhead like big ships headed for faraway lands, I looked off into the distance and saw the fearful red and blue flashers of two cruisers passing on the state highway. They were heading east, toward Spring Hill. I guess it hadn’t been too hard for them to figure out I was going home. I knew now they would be waiting for me, searching for me, the minute I arrived.
    But I kept on. Getting tired now. My legs feeling like lead. Sometimes my head hung down and my eyes closed, as if I could sleep and walk at the same time. I was thirsty and hungry too.
    I couldn’t keep going. I needed a place to rest. Some­00- where secluded, somewhere safe. I considered a barn I found, but the farmhouse was too close. I could see the lights in the windows, hear the voices of the people talking inside. It felt dangerous. Someone could spot me or hear me moving. Someone could come out and surprise me while I slept.
    Tired as I was, I forced myself to move on.
    I was about two miles away from Spring Hill when I saw the church. It was an old one, but I’d never seen it before. It stood on a stretch of open grass, pressed close to a cluster of hickory and pine trees. In the moonlight, its white clapboards showed gray streaks where the paint had worn away. It had red cedar on the pitched roof and gray shingles at the top of the steeple. At first, as I approached, I thought it might be abandoned. But as I got closer, I saw the sermon sign and it was up-to-date. The preacher was going to give a sermon next Sunday called “Be Not Afraid.” It sounded like good advice. I wished I could take it.
    I tried the front door. Locked. But it was only a padlock, looped through a hasp. The hasp was screwed into the wood of the jamb. The wood looked old and soft. As soon as I pulled at the door, the hasp started to tear away. I pulled