Read Online In Shadows by Chandler McGrew - Free Book Online Page B

friend, Cramer. Cramer, this is Mandi Rousseau.”
    “Morin,” said Mandi, frowning.
    “Sorry,” said Jake. “Pam said . . . I thought.”
    “I haven’t changed it since the divorce. I heard you were coming home. How have you been?”
    “The same,” said Jake, flustered. “Yourself?”
    “Not quite the same,” she said. “Let me show you.”
    She led Pierce out into the church, introducing him by way of long, slow handshakes to Cramer and Jake. Pierce studied each of their faces with questing fingers, taking an especially long time with Jake. Jake couldn’t take his eyes off of the boy.
    “He can’t see or hear at all?” Cramer asked Mandi.
    “Pierce is one of the rare kids born deafblind. He’s never heard or seen
anything.”
    “Mon
poor
petit ami,”
muttered Cramer.
    Mandi stared at Jake. “I often wondered how you were, Jake.”
    “I’ve kept a low profile.”
    She nodded. “Not a phone call or card.”
    Jake flushed. “I’m sorry.”
    He glanced at Cramer, but Cramer pretended to be paying a great deal of attention to some muffins on the table.
    “I got over it,” said Mandi. “I just always wondered if you were going to let me know what the real story was, why you ran out like that. Are you back for good?”
    “Just visiting.”
    People began filtering in through the double doors down the aisle. Mandi glanced at Pierce, but he was sniffing the air and twisting his head from side to side. He probably knew as well as she did who was in the church and who was missing.
    “What do you think of Crowley?” she asked Cramer.
    “Exciting.”
    “Well, that’s a description I never expected to hear.”
    Jake smiled. “Cramer got lost in the woods today.”
    “Are you serious?”
    “I thought I heard something, and I went to investigate,” said Cramer. “Cop instinct.”
    “You’re a cop, too?”
    “Jake’s partner.”
    Mandi nodded. “What was it you heard?”
    “I thought perhaps someone was lost,” said Cramer.
    “He thought maybe it was a grizzly bear,” said Jake, smirking.
    “We don’t have grizzly bears,” said Mandi.
    “So I’ve been told,” said Cramer.
    “You didn’t get a good look at it?”
    “It kept to the shadows.”
    “Probably just a trick of the light.”
    Cramer nodded. “The light was making funny noises.”
    “What kind of noises?”
    Cramer frowned. “I couldn’t put my finger on where it was coming from, but it sounded like someone whispering or singing to me.”
    Mandi nodded noncommitally, then turned back to Pierce.
    “He’s a fine-looking boy,” said Jake.
    She nodded. “The apple of my eye.”
    “Where are you living now?”
    “The old Miller cottage, between Albert’s place and the highway.”
    She stared into Jake’s eyes, sensing the old attraction like a storm building inside her. She knew that all he had to do was open his arms, and she would fall into them like a fool, and she prayed that he did nothing of the sort. Instead she searched for the heat of anger that had sustained her for the past fourteen years. But this close, it was difficult to kindle much more than a flickering warmth.
    Pierce took Cramer’s finger, showing him how to finger spell by “writing” each letter of the alphabet on his palm, and Jake watched the two of them.
    “Must be hard, raising him alone,” he said.
    She shrugged. “I wouldn’t have it any other way,” shesaid, discovering that that sounded harsher than she had intended. “You do what you have to do.”
    Jake nodded.
    But she wasn’t letting him off that easily.
    “Why’d you run out, Jake?” she whispered. “Was it another woman?”
    His face fell. “Don’t ever think that. Not ever.”
    “Then what? Tell me.”
    He glanced around the church. People were heading their way, and Mandi could tell that Cramer
really
wanted to hear their conversation although he was pretending to pay attention to Pierce.
    “Can we talk later?” pleaded Jake.
    “Sure, Jake,” she said.