Read Online Red Tide by G. M. Ford - Free Book Online Page A

turned along the front of the market and disappeared from her view.
    She short-legged it to a stop. She could feel the rough sidewalk through the freshly worn holes in the bottoms of her stockings. Her mouth hung open, but she was breathing easily as she peeked around the corner. No Brian.
    Another step forward and she could see into the store. He was at the counter, buying cigarettes. Waving his hands around, making small talk with the four hundred pounder on the other side of the counter.
    Dougherty crossed the side street, angling over to a small traffic island and a pair of battered utility poles. She settled into the semidarkness just in time to watch Brian emerge from the market. Through the space between the poles, she watched as he opened the cigarettes, shook one out into his hand and then lit it with his silver Zippo lighter and a practiced flip of the wrist. He liked to think he smoked like James Dean. All cool and casual like. His hair was dark now and combed forward in a series of waves. Working the butt, he watched the passing parade until he spotted a break in the oncoming traffic and then stepped off the curb, all squinty-eyed, cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth.
    He got three steps into the street when she heard the roar of an engine rise above the hiss of traffic. Brian must have heard it at just about the same time because he snapped his head around toward the dark blue Mercedes sedan screaming up the hill, full-tilt boogie, lights out, coming right at him like a high-end German missile. He started back for the sidewalk, but slipped and went to one knee in the street, before scrambling to his feet and limping back the way he’d come.
    The driver must have been drunk. As he rocketed closer and closer, he began to veer toward the right almost as if he was intentionally trying to catch Brian before he made it to the curb. Nearly on him now, the driver snapped on the headlights as if to fix his quarry in the beam at the moment of collision.
    Involuntarily, Dougherty turned to face the terror. She pressed her back into the rough surface of the poles. The car, lights ablaze, engine screaming, was now coming right at her. She opened her mouth to scream, but all that came out was a hoarse croak, the sound of which was swallowed whole by the scream of the approaching Mercedes.
    The right front tire bounced over the curb six feet away from her. She closed her eyes and waited for the impact…and then…a violent whoosh of air stirred her clothes and the heat of an engine rose to her cheeks as the driver veered back into the street, missing Dougherty and the telephone poles by no more than a couple of feet.
    Breath raced like a hurricane in her chest. Her knees shook so badly that, had it not been for the utility poles, she would have dropped to the ground. And then she remembered Brian. And the evils she’d mentally visited upon him over the years. The horrific pictures she’d savored. Pictures of his bent and broken body as it paid in blood for what he’d done to her in ink. And…she began to cry.
    She turned slowly and flattened her chest against the poles. The smell of creosote filled her nostrils as she drew in a long breath and held it. And then she heard his labored breathing and the small keening sound that was coming from his chest. He sat on the pavement, gathering himself. She watched as he struggled to his feet and then staggered out of view. Dougherty pressed her cheek against the rough wood and listened to his heels clicking on the pavement. After a moment she peeked around the utility poles and watched Bohannon limp back up the side street toward the van. His gait was unsteady and his line crooked as he moved from shadow to streetlight and back until finally, about halfway back to the van, he stepped into a thick blotch of shadow and…then…somehow…never stepped out. She waited, staring intently into the darkness. Her eyes thought they detected a sudden rush of movement in the