Read Online Black Water by T. Jefferson Parker - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: T. Jefferson Parker
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wife He couldn't picture her face, exactly. And her absence left in him something very large and very black.
So he swam down, deeper than he'd ever been. Trying to get to the bottom and stay there, to just join the darkness forever. Struggling to get to the depths. Down in the murk, burrowing through the silt and mud and rock, Archie heard the woman's voice again.
Swim. Breathe. Rest. Swim. Breathe. Rest.
The voice had the ring of authority so Archie, a young man use to taking orders, obeyed it. He trusted. He believed. He turned around pushed off the black hard bottom and swam back up.
CHAPTER EIGHT
R ayborn drove her Impala down the on ramp to the Riverside Freeway, looking ahead at four lanes of crawling, belching cars. Like the border at TJ, she thought, everything but the kids selling piggy banks and churros. What a mess. She barged her way in and finally got over to the car-pool lane, which was doing thirty.
Zamorra sat neatly beside her, suit coat still on, looking out the side window. She'd never seen him with his tie so much as loosened, even when he'd come back from seeing his dying wife in the hospital and his face looked like he was dying too.
In the eight months since then Merci had come to love and respect him. For the first two months after Zamorra's wife had died, Merci had watched him thicken with booze and lassitude. He never complained about what he was going through. He seemed hungover every day, though she didn't think he always was. She suspected he had a string of temporary girlfriends, and some evidence to support this suspicion, but she never asked and he never told. Everything else, they talked about. Tentatively at first, like panelists. But as the early months dragged on, Merci was able to talk to him about the death of Hess, and Zamorra about the death of Janine. It was easy, talking with someone who'd lived through something similar. Like exchanging terrible, valuable gifts. And though Merci blamed herself for what had happened to Hess and Zamorra blamed God for Janine, there was enough loss, rage, sadness and guilt between them to begin a friendship. It never felt to her like the losers' club, though. The Loss Club, maybe. She thought there was something noble in their sufferings, hard as it sometimes was to locate.
After a couple of months Zamorra must have quit the heavy booze She knew he'd gotten himself back to his beloved boxing gym in Westminster. He started to look like himself again, even if he often seemed to be a thousand miles away in his mind. She admired the toughness that allowed him to climb out of the hole that he'd fallen into. And she admired the depth of feeling that had allowed him to fall into that hole to begin with.
A secret love began to grow. Secret because she still loved Hess and because Paul still loved Janine. Secret because only a few short months earlier she had been fooled into betraying Mike McNally whom she knew—even while she was betraying him—loved her. How do you offer an unfaithful, mistaken heart to someone who'd remained so true? And secret because they were partners. Their arrest record was eighty-four percent, highest in the detail. Why risk screwing up a good team and complicating the life of yet another man? Were her uncertain emotions worth that?
But Rayborn couldn't reason away her feelings. As the weeks went by she was struck by all of Zamorra's good qualities—his good manners and good looks, his skill as an investigator, his personal neatness He was gentle, unselfish, considerate. He was sensitive to other people's feelings. He was slow to answer but concise when he did. He was observant, often gathering more than her in shared encounters. He understood subtleties that, in her opinion, would have to be explained to most other men. She was also drawn to the darkness in him—no the grief, but the violence he concealed. The anger. More than once she saw it flare up in him at suspects and informants and convicts and belligerent citizens.
So he swam down, deeper than he'd ever been. Trying to get to the bottom and stay there, to just join the darkness forever. Struggling to get to the depths. Down in the murk, burrowing through the silt and mud and rock, Archie heard the woman's voice again.
Swim. Breathe. Rest. Swim. Breathe. Rest.
The voice had the ring of authority so Archie, a young man use to taking orders, obeyed it. He trusted. He believed. He turned around pushed off the black hard bottom and swam back up.
CHAPTER EIGHT
R ayborn drove her Impala down the on ramp to the Riverside Freeway, looking ahead at four lanes of crawling, belching cars. Like the border at TJ, she thought, everything but the kids selling piggy banks and churros. What a mess. She barged her way in and finally got over to the car-pool lane, which was doing thirty.
Zamorra sat neatly beside her, suit coat still on, looking out the side window. She'd never seen him with his tie so much as loosened, even when he'd come back from seeing his dying wife in the hospital and his face looked like he was dying too.
In the eight months since then Merci had come to love and respect him. For the first two months after Zamorra's wife had died, Merci had watched him thicken with booze and lassitude. He never complained about what he was going through. He seemed hungover every day, though she didn't think he always was. She suspected he had a string of temporary girlfriends, and some evidence to support this suspicion, but she never asked and he never told. Everything else, they talked about. Tentatively at first, like panelists. But as the early months dragged on, Merci was able to talk to him about the death of Hess, and Zamorra about the death of Janine. It was easy, talking with someone who'd lived through something similar. Like exchanging terrible, valuable gifts. And though Merci blamed herself for what had happened to Hess and Zamorra blamed God for Janine, there was enough loss, rage, sadness and guilt between them to begin a friendship. It never felt to her like the losers' club, though. The Loss Club, maybe. She thought there was something noble in their sufferings, hard as it sometimes was to locate.
After a couple of months Zamorra must have quit the heavy booze She knew he'd gotten himself back to his beloved boxing gym in Westminster. He started to look like himself again, even if he often seemed to be a thousand miles away in his mind. She admired the toughness that allowed him to climb out of the hole that he'd fallen into. And she admired the depth of feeling that had allowed him to fall into that hole to begin with.
A secret love began to grow. Secret because she still loved Hess and because Paul still loved Janine. Secret because only a few short months earlier she had been fooled into betraying Mike McNally whom she knew—even while she was betraying him—loved her. How do you offer an unfaithful, mistaken heart to someone who'd remained so true? And secret because they were partners. Their arrest record was eighty-four percent, highest in the detail. Why risk screwing up a good team and complicating the life of yet another man? Were her uncertain emotions worth that?
But Rayborn couldn't reason away her feelings. As the weeks went by she was struck by all of Zamorra's good qualities—his good manners and good looks, his skill as an investigator, his personal neatness He was gentle, unselfish, considerate. He was sensitive to other people's feelings. He was slow to answer but concise when he did. He was observant, often gathering more than her in shared encounters. He understood subtleties that, in her opinion, would have to be explained to most other men. She was also drawn to the darkness in him—no the grief, but the violence he concealed. The anger. More than once she saw it flare up in him at suspects and informants and convicts and belligerent citizens.
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