When the Wind Blows by James Patterson Read Free Book Online

doing? Please, wait.”
    She didn’t wait. She actually sped up, tripped over a log, went down on one knee. She shouted something that I couldn’t make
     out from where I was standing.
    My heart started to beat faster. Something wasn’t right about this. I began to run toward her. I thought she might be hurt.
     Or maybe she was high on something? That made some sense to me. Maybe she was older than she looked from a distance. It was
     hard to tell through the scarves of fog.
    There was only the dimmest light from a thin slice of moon, so it was hard to tell, but it looked to me that her proportions
     were a little odd. Her arms were sheathed with something.
    I stopped running. Hard! My heart started to thunder. I could hear it.
    It couldn’t be.
    Of course it couldn’t be.
    I almost screamed. I gasped for breath, steadied myself against a tall spruce.
    The little girl appeared to have white and silver wings.

Chapter 15
    W HAT I SAW was way beyond my abilities to imagine, beyond my comprehension, my system of belief, and maybe beyond my ability
     to communicate it right now. The little girl’s arms were folded back in a peculiar way, but when she lifted them—feathers
     fanned out.
    It wasn’t humanly possible, but there she was—
a girl with wings!
    Spots jumped in front of my eyes. Colors, coruscating reds and yellows, danced. I was definitely a little high from the Crown
     Royal, but I wasn’t drunk. Or was I very drunk? Was I so freaked out by Frank McDonough’s death that I was hallucinating?
    Close your eyes, Frannie.
    Now open them again, slowly
…
    She was still there! No more than twenty yards away. The girl was watching me, too.
    Don’t faint, Frannie. DON’T YOU DARE, I told myself.
    Go slow. Go really slow here. Don’t make any sudden noise or movement to scare her off.
    I watched as the girl awkwardly found her feet. One wing was folded neatly behind her. The other wing dragged a little. Was
     she hurt?
    “Hey,” I called again, softly. “It’s all right.”
    The young blond girl turned toward me. I guess she was close to five feet tall. She gave me a fierce look with her large,
     wide-spaced eyes. I stood in the ferny glade in the milky moonlight. Everything around me was shifting shadows. I watched,
     dizzy and panting, not knowing who was more frightened, her or me.
    She shot me a grim look of horror and ran away again, into the night, farther into the woods surrounding Fourth of July Road
     until she was just a blur.
    I followed until it was too dark to see in the dense woods. I finally leaned against a tree and tried to review the last few
     minutes. I couldn’t do it. My head was spinning too fast.
    Somehow I managed to get back to the Suburban. I climbed inside and sat there in the dark.
    “I did not just see a young girl with wings,” I whispered out loud.
    I couldn’t have.
    But I was sure that I had.
    When I could manage to drive, I went to the police station in nearby Clayton, a burg of about three thousand. Actually, the
     station is an outpost for the main office in Nederland. I stopped the Suburban on Miller Street, less than a block from the
     station house.
    I desperately wanted to continue down the peaceful village street, but I couldn’t do it, couldn’t make myself.
    I
had
been drinking… and driving. It was already past two in the morning, way past the witching hour in Clayton.
    Now that I wasn’t actually
looking
at the girl… I wasn’t completely sure what I had seen. I just couldn’t tell my story to the local cops. Not that night, anyway.
     Maybe tomorrow.
    I went home to sleep on it—or more likely, to sleep it off.

Chapter 16
    K IT WAS SWEATING, just like he had on the American Airlines flight from Boston. Damn it, he still couldn’t fly very well. But
     he had to.
    The pilot of the Bell helicopter shot a look across the cockpit at him. He didn’t bother to conceal a smirk. “You okay? Never
     been up in one of these eggbeaters, huh? You don’t look so