Twisted by Jay Bonansinga Read Free Book Online

canard. Helena flooded the lowlands, and decimated both the dig and the camp. Most of our specimen tables washed away. All is lost. Perhaps it’s appropriate. The only saving grace is the fact that the whole team made it back to high ground at Merida City. All accounted for. Looks like we all shall make it back to the States with our skins intact. Although I’m not so sure about our sanity. Will certainly have plenty to discuss at the Royal Society symposia this autumn! More later.

    Grove’s scalp crawled. He knew in his bones he was onto something. He felt this way whenever the opaque aspects of a case began to clear. The crawling scalp, the dry mouth, heart rate speeding up—it was practically neurophysical. The fur standing up on a cat. Three years ... and three hurricanes?
    â€œThis feels wrong, Ulysses,” Maura’s voice called from the kitchen. “Us poking around in here.”
    â€œWrong how?”
    She came back out with two steaming teacups, handed one to Grove, and stood looking over his shoulder for a moment. She still wore her little black dress. “Wrong like creepy.”
    â€œListen, the old man would have wanted us to dig, believe me, he was the champion digger.”
    â€œHow can you be so sure he was murdered?” she asked then, sipping her tea.
    He looked up at her. “Accumulation of detail.” He started to say something else, to amplify, but he realized there were aspects of all this, cognitive leaps that he was making, that he didn’t understand himself.
    â€œExcuse me?” Maura was looking incredulous.
    Grove smiled. “Call it intuition.”
    â€œDidn’t the coroner deem it an accidental death? Officially, I mean?”
    â€œYes, and he may be right, but it looks hinkty to me.”
    She looked at him. “Hinkty?”
    He nodded. “In the words of Delilah Debuke ... fishy. ”
    â€œWhy?”
    A pause here as Grove considered how much he should tell her. Even though Maura County was tough as nails, and ambitious as hell, and smart, too—smart enough to crack open the strange connections between a six-thousand-year-old mummy and a modern-day serial killer on the Sun City case a year ago—she was still pure civilian. She had been scarred permanently by her flirtation with Sun City. Kidnapped by Ackerman in the final throes of his spree, beaten to within an inch of her life, left for dead in the Alaskan wilderness, the young journalist had experienced trauma that would have destroyed most psyches. But now, in a strange way, she seemed more grounded than ever. It was as though the experience had galvanized her. Grove saw it in her level stare, in the way she carried herself, that stubborn sort of vigor.
    â€œBecause of a lot of things,” Grove finally said, blowing on his tea. “But mostly because of what happened last night, at my hotel.”
    â€œWhat happened at your hotel?”
    He told her everything. Told her about the carabineer, about the shadowy figure trying the scale his wall. He told her about the suspicious wound patterns on the professor’s body. He even told her what Delilah and Miguel had said about De Lourde inexplicably turning up dead in a place he vowed never again to visit.
    When he was done, Maura looked ashen. “You’re telling me whoever’s responsible for this is after you ?”
    â€œIt’s too early to tell, actually ... and besides, I didn’t say he was after me. That’s not exactly what I’m talking about.”
    â€œThen what exactly are you talking about?”
    â€œI’ve seen this kind of thing before.”
    â€œWhat do you mean? What kind of thing?”
    Grove sipped his tea. “Look, sometimes I get in the newspapers. That’s all I’m saying. I get into the press, and that leads to certain stuff.”
    She thought about it for a moment. “You mean like last time ... with the Weekly World News ?”
    He gave