Read Online In Tongues of the Dead by Brad Kelln - Free Book Online Page A

fuzzy.
    â€œIt’s like that all the way back to the entrance,” Eastman said. “It’s as if someone or something left, but we couldn’t tape it.”
    â€œSomething?” Father McCallum exclaimed. “What are you talking about? It was this Larry guy. The security guard. Did you find him yet? Do we know where he went?”
    â€œOh, we know where Larry is,” one of the police officers said.
    â€œWhat?” Father McCallum yelled. “Well, get him. We need to get the Voynich back!”
    â€œCome with me,” Garrett Eastman said and took Father McCallum’s arm. He led him through the library to the Voynich room. A policeman stood in front of the door.
    â€œForensics is still in there,” he said to Eastman. “Do you need to go in?”
    â€œI just want Mr. McCallum to have a look.”
    Father McCallum stepped to the doorway and looked in. Two men in white paper suits crouched near a library security guard uniform. The priest frowned. There was something else, something inside the uniform. He gasped and turned away.
    â€œWhat is that?” he asked weakly.
    â€œThat,” Eastman said, “is what’s left of Larry Zarinski.”

XVIII
    Jake stood in the doorway of his waiting room looking at nothing in particular. He was listening. Gladys Warbeck had just left after her appointment and should be reaching the staircase soon.
    Bang!
    He heard the heavy crack of the fire door, which meant Gladys was on her way out. Jake’s third-floor office was one of only four on this top floor, and all were connected by a dark, granite hallway. There was only one way on or off the floor and that was via the large staircase at one end. Without physically watching his patients leave, Jake gauged their departure by the slam of the staircase door.
    And in the case of Gladys Warbeck he wanted to make sure she was gone. He couldn’t bear the thought of running into her in the hallway. She’d come to his office about a month earlier on a referral from the Workers’ Compensation Board Return to Work program. Gladys had hurt her lower back on the assembly line at the Hershey’s chocolate factory in Dartmouth. She’d been off work for nearly six months, and although her physical injury was healed, she still complained of debilitating pain.
    Jake’s role, paid for by the wcb, was to help Gladys live in spite of her pain. He met with her weekly to review her activity levels, teach cognitive reframing strategies around the pain, and mentally prepare her to get back to full-time employment. Working with Gladys was regimented, straightforward, and boring. Jake hated it.
    Now that Gladys was gone, he could make a coffee run before his next appointment. It was still early on Friday morning but he already needed more joe.
    He walked slowly down the stairs, not wanting to catch up to his patient. Her chronic back pain made her a fairly slow mover.
    He didn’t see her when he exited the Brewery Market and headed west up Salter Street away from the harbor. He normally went to Tim Horton’s on Barrington or, if he was short on time, up the hill to Cabin Coffee on Hollis. Today he was short on time.
    He jogged up the street and pushed through the front doors of Cabin Coffee to inhale the rich aroma of fresh coffee. The place was rustic and friendly, full of worn furniture and extra-large coffee tables. Lots of people wasted entire afternoons settled deeply into the leather couches and sipping lattes. Jake had never sat in the place; he’d go in, get a coffee, and be gone. Time was precious. To him, maybe the most precious thing.
    He waited at the counter until the server came over. She was an extremely attractive young woman. “What can I do for you?”
    He laughed but suppressed the urge to answer with something suggestive. “Just a coffee. Large.”
    â€œHouse blend?”
    â€œSure.” She turned, and he let his eyes wander down