Read Online Snowfall at Willow Lake: Lakeshore Chronicles Book 4 by Susan Wiggs - Free Book Online

snow. It now covered everything in a pristine layer of white. “It is, madame, ” she said. “It is a wondrous thing.”
    Sophie took a mental snapshot of the girl with her face tilted up to the sky, laughing as snowflakes caught in her eyelashes. The moment with Fatou was a reminder that there was beauty and joy in the world, even in the most unlikely of places. She pointed out the individual snowflakes landing on a low garden wall, each one a tiny miracle of perfection.
    â€œThey look like the smallest of flowers,” Fatou said.
    â€œYes.” Sophie took her hand again. Both she and the girl were freezing by now. “We should go back inside.”
    She heard something then, a footfall and a breathy voice, and turned to see a hulking shadow coming toward her. “Go inside,” she said more urgently to Fatou. “Quickly. I’ll join you in a moment.”
    Sophie recognized the set of his shoulders, silhouetted by the exterior lights. André? She frowned at him. Staggering, he lurched around the side of the building, his dark footprints marking a sinuous path behind him. She wondered what had gotten into him. André was an observant Muslim. He didn’t drink. Sophie hurried forward.
    â€œAndré,” she said, “ qu’est-ce qui ce passe? What happened?”
    â€œMadame,” he mumbled, and sank to his knees, right there in the snow. Then he toppled sideways, resembling a bear felled by a hunter.
    At some moment, between the time he spoke and the time his head hit the ground, Sophie’s confusion turned to ice-cold clarity. No, she thought, even though she knew the denial was in vain. Oh, no.
    She landed on her knees beside André, scarcely feeling the bite of the cold through her dress and her stockings. “Please, oh, please be all right.”
    Yet even as the words left her mouth, Sophie knew it was already too late. She had never seen a person die before, yet when it happened, she recognized the event on some horrible gut level. He emitted an eerie rattle; then there was a shutting down. A slackening. A release. She clung to a moment of disbelief. She had just spoken with her driver, a man who was dedicated to keeping her safe. Now some violence had been done to him.
    The hot, meaty odor of blood was so strong she couldn’t believe she hadn’t smelled it earlier.
    He was wounded in the chest, the gut. Probably more places than that. She couldn’t tell whether they were stab or gunshot wounds. She had never seen such a thing up close. As she knelt next to him, feeling the amazing speed with which the heat left his body, she felt as though her own blood had stopped circulating and she simply dropped to the ground. He lay so still, his bulky form limned by the yellowish lights.
    Sophie looked around the area, finding it eerily deserted. She screamed for help, her voice echoing through the courtyard. She was edging toward panic as she tried to pat his torn and bloody overcoat back into its proper place. “Please,” she said, over and over again, with no idea what she was pleading for. “Please.” She pressed herself down on top of him, pressed her face to his as though she could somehow infuse her own life back into him. This was André, her friend, a gentle giant who had never done anything but good in the world, who was dedicated to Sophie, devoted to keeping her safe, wherever she went.
    Keeping her safe.
    Her rational mind pushed past the terrible sense of loss. André had come to find her. Not to seek help or to bid her a sentimental farewell. That wouldn’t be like him. No, he had forced himself to survive his wounds long enough to find Sophie for only one reason she could imagine—to warn her.

Five
    S ophie had occasionally wondered how she would react in a crisis. Would she be helpless? She didn’t know. She did not disappoint herself by flying into hysterics or folding herself into a whimpering fetal