A Measure of Darkness by Jonathan Kellerman & Jesse Kellerman

Author:Jonathan Kellerman & Jesse Kellerman [Kellerman, Jonathan & Kellerman, Jesse]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2018-07-31T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 17

Tuesday, January 8

5:58 a.m.

A silver BMW coupe slowed outside my building, and I stepped from the lobby into a chill, clinging mist. Delilah Nwodo leaned to push wide the passenger door. “You okay?”

“All good.” I pressed on the little bar to urge the seat back; it complied unhurriedly, with a smug hum. Unzipping my fleece, I slotted the crutch in the backseat and stretched out on the heated leather.

In the cup holders were two gas-station coffees. “Bless you,” I said.

The car glided north along 580, the radio murmuring Top 40. A viscid gray dawn climbed over the hills. On the San Rafael Bridge, the wet air ripened into rain, and we reached the Marin Peninsula under a full-blown downpour. The blocks of San Quentin Prison squatted between damp humps of dun and mustard, a square jaw confronting the Bay. I’d never been inside. Not for work. Luke had served his time down south.

Nwodo noticed me staring. “Million-dollar view,” she said.

“Rent-controlled,” I said.

“All your friends live nearby.”

“I smell an opportunity.”

“Somebody call Zillow,” she said.

Two routes took us where we needed to go, up through Petaluma, or out toward Point Reyes. Nwodo opted for the latter, and we pushed coastward through a briny slime.

Bay Area folk are jealous of their territory, the rich buffet of color and texture packed into its confines. Today gave few reasons to brag. A dank duochrome prevailed, matte silver and green-black, curled fog strangling the pines. Nwodo seemed to enjoy driving. Her smooth hands worked the wheel with ease, taking one hairpin after another, under the sporadic flare of opposing headlights: commuters, sleep-addled, bound for San Francisco. We startled them; they weren’t used to anyone coming their way; they jerked their wheels, ducking the center stripe.

Before we retreated inland, I caught, through two blades of stone, the briefest glimpse of the ocean. Kamikaze whitecaps, jagged gray shelves in languid collision, warfare incessant and soundless through the glass, until the abrupt contours of the land drew a curtain.

Misnamed, the Pacific.

I pressed myself down into the seat, rubbing the humid, pebbled leather, seeking the substrate beneath me. Even as we plunged into the valley, a green, corrugated womb, I could feel the sea shouting behind us, drunk, dissatisfied, swinging its fists and demanding a sacrifice. In my nostrils lingered a primal stink, of iodine, and blood; of life forever putrefying, waking only to die again.

Approaching the northern edge of the county, where Marin bled into Sonoma, the road cast off a spur, then another, contracting to a pitted fire route that dropped between slabs of bedrock and moss. Signs of civilization grew fewer and farther between; redwoods rose up like a broken bower. GPS showed the campus as a scarlet balloon drifting over a lake of pale green, until the system gave up on us at last, its computerized voice falling silent as though chastened.

A weatherworn sign appeared on the shoulder.

The Watermark School

2.2 miles

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