Return to Dust by Andrew Lanh

Author:Andrew Lanh
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press
Published: 2015-07-03T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nineteen

At five o’clock in the morning I was up for a run. The house was quiet except for the creaking of old Victorian woodwork, the breathing of loose-paned windows against dark morning wind. I ran the empty streets. A thick frost covered everything. Veins of white lace twisted on buildings and fences and cars. Wearing sweat shorts and a light parka and knit cap, I was numb with cold. So I ran and ran.

I ran until I exorcised the confusing night—Karen lovely in her fragile bones—out of my system. Sweating, exhilarated, eyes bright with the coming sunny day, I took a long hot shower, steamed my skin into reddish wrinkles, and settled down to hot, fresh coffee and a bran muffin from Whole Foods.

Hank knocked at eight. I was expecting him.

“You’ve been running.”

“How’d you know?”

“You got that health-club glow.”

“The body dutiful.”

He poured himself coffee. “Is everything all right? You got a look on your face.”

I ignored him. “You ready to go?”

“Yeah, that’s why I’m here. I’m supposed to be studying at the Academy. Instead I follow you around like a puppy dog.”

“I’m the Alpha dog.”

“Clever.”

“Let’s move. You want to watch how a real PI functions, right?”

“If I did, I’d be in Hollywood on the set of CSI: Special Victims Unit.”

We headed for the town of Clinton, a town less than an hour away, down I-91 and over to I-95. I turned off the highway into the small shoreline village. I’d never been there before. Some shoreline towns like Branford and Guilford I knew—friends rented beach homes in summer. In November Clinton looked lazy and anonymous, a coastal town getting ready for winter, the tourists gone and permanent waterfront homes beginning to wear their drawn-in sheltered look. Beach cottages, with their bleached, blue-gray wood, lined narrow roads near the water, clustered together tight and cozy. We could smell the seaweed-laced salt water.

We drove around, found Main Street with its rustic coffee shops, antique shops, and clothing boutiques. We asked directions. Gusts of wind off the unseen ocean made walking difficult. The complex we sought was a few streets removed from the shore, tucked into a hidden cove, overlooking choppy water where hungry, swooping seagulls dipped and swooped. Only a few boats remained in the water now. A quiet secluded area, a hidden retreat for the very few.

“Looks like real money,” I told Hank.

“Everything looks like money on the shore. A shack is money here.”

The string of cottages circled the cove, but everything was closed now, off-season. A chain stretched across the entrance, blocking passage, a sign announcing it a private road. I copied down the realtor’s name and address. But first I wanted to walk the grounds, despite the blustery cold. We ducked under the chain and strolled among the bleak, deserted tiny bungalows, smaller than I would expect, but carefully styled, all shuttered and shingled to look a hundred years old. I tried to imagine the place in summer, at the height of the season, but I realized it

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.