The Whispers by Lisa Unger Read Free Book Online Page A

his finger.
    “Neither do I,” she answered. She wrapped her arms around herself. It was so cold. She was always so cold lately. She felt as if she’d be shivering even if it were a hundred degrees.
    “I don’t believe in this kind of thing,” he said. He kept his eyes on the cheap plastic bauble, not on her.
    “I don’t blame you,” she said.
    After a moment, she reached for the barrette. At first, there was nothing. It was just a piece of plastic and metal, no energy at all. But then she was there, in the woods. She was above them while he carried her carefully between the trees. Her hair snagged on the branch, and the barrette fell onto the ground.
    “It’s hers,” she said.
    Muldune was looking at her strangely.
    “What?” she asked.
    “I just lost you there for a minute,” he says. “You were a million miles away.”
    “He knows her. But she doesn’t know him,” Eloise said. “He saw her, but she didn’t notice him. No one ever does. Once he saw her, he followed her all the time. He has access to the school.”
    It came out of her in a strange tumble, facts that she had no access to moments before. There was something else. She’d seen it before, but it was just out of reach. What was it?
    “Someone saw a car by the side of the road,” the detective said. “It was parked in the shoulder by The Hollows Wood.”
    It came to her then, something about the mention of the woods. She’d lost that piece. “The blind,” she said. “He took her to a hunters’ blind.”
    Muldune sat up at that. He put the car into reverse and backed out of the driveway.
    “Okay,” he said. He pulled out onto the rural road and started to drive. “Where?”
    “Somewhere in the woods,” she said. “He walked miles with her. He’s tall and strong. He works with his hands.”
    “We tried to bring the car owner in,” he said. It was more like he was speaking to himself, though, as if she wasn’t really there. “But we can’t find him.”
    “Is his name Tommy?” asked Eloise. The name was just in her head. Muldune didn’t say anything. “Does he work with cars?”
    Still nothing from Muldune, but he was driving faster. She knew where he was going. He was taking her to where the car had been parked. At first, she didn’t think that was right. The man had been on foot. But then she put it together: he’d driven first and then come up the back way. That’s how he’d made it there so quickly.
    After a bit, the detective pulled over. They both got out of the car and headed between the trees without a word to each other. He had a big powerful flashlight that illuminated the way before them. They walked far, getting breathless and tired. Muldune followed close behind Eloise, who had no idea where they were going. But she did know. Of course she did.
    When the flashlight beam fell upon the hunters’ blind, almost invisible among the trees, Eloise stopped. A wave of nausea hit her so powerfully that she almost doubled over with it. She had to lean against a tree until it passed. All the while, Muldune kept his eyes on her. He had no idea what to do with Eloise—he was afraid of her, confused by her. He didn’t want to believe in her. All of this, she could read in his concerned frown.
    Muldune pulled a radio from his belt and turned it on, its staticky hum filling the night. He spoke softly in a language of shorthand and number codes that she didn’t understand. She heard the trickle of a creek, and she turned toward the sound. Muldune’s flashlight beam filled the area. She saw what she didn’t want to see. One slender white arm. That coldness inside, it spread.
    She folded herself over and started to cry.
    •    •    •
    Eloise thought that justice was a funny thing. It was a big idea, a romantic one. It was imagined like a satisfying end to a story. Justice must be served. Is one served Justice, like a meal at a table? Or does one serve Justice, like a maid in a grand house? These are the