The Wolf in Winter by John Connolly Read Free Book Online Page B

Morland.
    He permitted himself a little smile.
    “Show me the door,” he said. “Explain it all to me again.”
    They went down to the basement, and Erin showed him the cell, and the bolt, and the padlock. Just as she had told him, there was a piece of white material on the floor, stained with grease from the bolt. The chief examined it, and toyed with the bolt and the padlock for a while.
    “Get inside,” he said to Erin.
    “What?”
    “Go on. Get inside that cell.” He handed her the strip of cloth. “And take this with you.”
    She did as she was told. The chief closed the door on her and slid the bolt, but did not secure it with the padlock.
    “Now,” he said, “open it.”
    The saliva dried up in Harry’s mouth. He would have prayed, but he had long since stopped believing in God. The continued existence of Prosperous was one of the strongest arguments he could come up with against the possibility of a benevolent deity watching over humankind.
    After a couple of attempts, Erin managed to get the cloth through the gap between the door and the frame, and over the bolt. There was, though, no way that she could pull the other end back in. Harry closed his eyes. This was it.
    A thin shaft of broken wood poked through the gap, caught thestrip of cloth, and pulled it back through to the other side of the cell door. Slowly, Erin began to twist it back and forth. The bolt moved: not by much, but it moved. With some perseverance, it would be only a matter of time before Erin managed to unlock the door from the inside, as she claimed the girl had done.
    Morland stared at Harry. Despite what he had witnessed, Harry knew that the chief still didn’t quite believe what he’d been told. If he was expecting Harry to crack, though, he would be disappointed, unless he resorted to torture, and even Morland was probably above that.
    “Let her out,” he told Souleby, and Souleby pulled the bolt.
    Erin stepped out of the cell, flushed but triumphant.
    “Where did you get the wood?” said the chief.
    “It was on the floor by the girl’s bed,” she said. “I saw it when I was trying to figure out how she did it.”
    She handed him the fragment of pine. The chief tested it with his finger, then went to the bed and found the spot from which it had been taken.
    “Looks new,” he said.
    “She hasn’t been gone but an hour,” said Erin.
    “Uh-huh.” Chief Morland took the stick in both hands and snapped it. It was the first outward demonstration that he had given of the rage he was feeling.
    “You still haven’t told us if you found her,” said Harry.
    “Oh, we found her all right,” said the chief.
    “Where is she?”
    “In the trunk of my car.”
    “Is she—?”
    “Is she what?”
    “Is she . . . dead?”
    The chief didn’t answer immediately. He closed his eyes and wipedhis face with his right hand. His shoulders sank. That was when Harry knew that they were okay, for now.
    “Yes, she’s dead,” said Morland finally. “Just not the right kind of dead. You got a shovel?”
    “Sure,” said Harry. “In my toolshed.”
    “Good,” said the chief. “Because you’re going to help me bury her.”

CHAPTER
    VI
    I had a ticket for the 8:55 P.M. flight with US Airways out of Philadelphia, if I chose to use it, but I realized that I would either kill myself trying to make it or end up with a ticket for speeding. Neither possibility particularly appealed to me, so I changed my flight to 9:30 A.M. the following morning and checked into a motel off Bartram Avenue. I had dinner in a bar that was one step up from eating food off the street, but I didn’t care. Once the adrenaline had stopped flowing after the events in Newark, I experienced a comedown that left me shaking and nauseated. It didn’t matter what I ate: it would have tasted foul anyway, but I thought I needed something in my stomach. In the end, I left most of the food on the plate, and what I ate didn’t stay in my system for long once I was