The Burning Soul: A Charlie Parker Thriller by John Connolly

Author:John Connolly [Connolly, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Mystery, Thriller, Horror, Suspense, Contemporary
ISBN: 9781439165287
Amazon: 1439165289
Publisher: Pocket Books
Published: 2012-06-26T05:00:00+00:00

III

When we creak your step, when we crack your glass, when we tap tap tap,

that is a bone

that is all we have

though we are very shiny, and filled with beetles.

We are made entirely of bone.

—Danielle Pafunda, “The Dead Girls Speak in Unison”

CHAPTER

XVIII

Randall Haight felt the difference in the house as soon as he returned from the store, as though a charge of static electricity held by the carpets and fabrics had been voided. He stood in the hallway, a paper bag cradled in his left arm, the coldness of the ice cream inside making itself felt through the fabric of his sweater. He had chocolate as well, and soda, and cinnamon candies. She liked the smell of all of them, and they had a calming effect on her; quite the opposite of most children, he thought, but then she was so very different from other children.

The trip into town had already provided him with one unsettling experience. He had seen Valerie Kore on the street, accompanied by a man whom he didn’t recognize but who, by his size and stance, he believed to be a policeman of some kind. Mrs. Kendall, who worked part-time at the drugstore, was talking to her, her right hand resting on Valerie’s shoulder, her face close to the younger woman’s as she offered what Randall assumed were words of hope and consolation. Then Danny, the weird but decent kid who ran the Hallowed Grounds coffee shop, came out and gave Valerie a white paper bag loaded up with pastries and muffins, and something inside her broke at this small, unexpected gesture and she had to walk away, the cop trailing in her wake. Randall watched her go, and tried to pin down his feelings at the sight of her. Sadness. Empathy.

Guilt?

The cop had caught him looking at her. Randall hadn’t overreacted, though. He’d just smiled sadly, because that was what he believed a regular person would have done, a normal person. He was an actor inhabiting a role, and he inhabited it well, but as soon as she was gone from his sight he pushed her from his mind. Instead, he found himself looking at the faces of those whom he passed even as he exchanged friendly greetings with them, and peered in the windows of the businesses on Main Street, waiting to see if someone might look back, their eyes lingering a little too long on his, betraying themselves to him.

Which one of you is it? Which one of you knows, or thinks you know?

But there were no answers to be found, no suspicions to be confirmed, and he had driven back to his house in silence, wondering if the mailman had come yet, fearing what he might find in his box. To his relief, there were only bills, and his subscriber’s copy of National Geographic. No photographs, no films, no images of naked children, and he tried to make himself believe that it might be over even as he acknowledged this as just a brief respite.

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