CO'C04 - Blood Hollow by Krueger William Kent

Author:Krueger, William Kent [Krueger, William Kent]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Thriller, epub-transfer-done
Amazon: B00B3VGPW2
Publisher: Atria Books
Published: 2004-02-02T23:00:00+00:00

22

CORK LEFT HIS BRONCO parked in front of the Soderberg house and walked the quarter mile up North Point Road to the old Parrant estate, a huge thumbnail-shaped plot of land at the end of the peninsula, surrounded by cedars. Cork lingered on the drive, which was lined with peonies, and he took a good long look at the imposing house. An undeniable power emanated from all that dark stone, but it seemed to Cork a joyless energy, with anger at its heart. He thought about Judge Robert Parrant and his son. The father a brutal man, the son even worse. Violence, betrayal, death, these had been their lives and their legacy. Fletcher Kane and his family had fared no better. Charlotte was dead, and no sooner had she been buried than Glory took a powder, vanished without a clue. Cork understood. He’d probably have fled that doomed house, too.

His knock wasn’t answered immediately. He waited in the deep porch shade, listening to noisy crows that had established a small rookery in the cedars down toward the lake. The door was opened a minute later by Olga Swenson, the housekeeper.

“Afternoon, Olga,” Cork said. “Is Fletcher in?”

Olga Swenson wasn’t a cheerful Swede. Before Kane hired her, she’d been a waitress and part-time cook at the Pinewood Broiler. Her dour nature had probably kept the tips minimal, which may have explained why she’d gone to work for a man like Kane. She seemed just about as thrilled to see Cork at the door as she’d been to see him park his butt on a stool at the Broiler.

“Yah.”

“Could I speak with him?”

She appeared to view this as a burdensome request, but she stepped aside and let him into the foyer. “I’ll get Dr. Kane.”

She walked down the hall toward the room Cork knew was a study. She knocked, opened the door, then came back.

“He’s not there.”

“Upstairs, maybe?”

She scowled, turned, and climbed the steps as if mounting a gallows.

“Mind if I sit down while I wait?” he called.

Without a word, she lifted her hand and waved him in.

He wandered into the living room. He was about to sit on the sofa when a photograph on a bookshelf caught his eye. He walked over and took a look. It was of Glory and a young girl, maybe fourteen or fifteen. They were standing in the desert with a big pipe cactus behind them. Glory had been wearing a straw hat, which she held in her hand so that her face would be clear in the shot. The girl wore a baseball cap that shaded her features. Even so, it was clear that she had a large gauze bandage over the left side of her face, and that she stared unhappily at the camera. She looked vaguely familiar to Cork, but he couldn’t quite place her. He took the photo down to study it more closely.

“He must’ve gone down to the boathouse.”

Cork turned quickly. Olga Swenson had come downstairs quietly and was eyeing him as if he were a thief.

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