Light of the World by James Lee Burke

Author:James Lee Burke
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Hachette UK
Published: 2013-07-04T04:00:00+00:00

I DIDN’T BELIEVE IN wolves that stood on their hind legs to look through bathroom windows, any more than I believed in Wyatt Dixon’s claim that a goat-footed creature out of a medieval book on demonology had taken up residence in the cave behind Albert’s house. At least that’s what I told myself. Regardless, I couldn’t sleep that night. In this case, the source of my insomnia was simple: I feared for Alafair’s life.

On the late-night news, there had been a follow-up story on the waitress who had gone missing. A silver bracelet with her name inscribed inside it had been found by a fisherman on a flat rock in the middle of the St. Regis River. There was no explanation as to how it had gotten there.

In my opinion, the abduction was the work of Asa Surrette. He had placed one of his trophies on the rock to confound his pursuers. He was one of those serial predators who controlled both his victims and his adversaries by stoking their imaginations, leading them up a cul-de-sac, making them resent themselves for their powerlessness and the suffering he brought into their lives. Surrette wanted to instill as much pain as possible in the friends and family of the victim. Until her body was discovered, they would get no rest, find no peace, and be tormented by every dark possibility imaginable each time they closed their eyes.

While Asa Surrette was doing this kind of damage to other people, Love Younger and his family lived in wealth and splendor and dealt with problems like the temperature of their bathwater and the noise the gardener was making with the Weed Eater. I’m aware that all of us reach the same denouement, that we return to dust and our teeth are sown in the field by the farmer’s plow, but that is poor solace when you look into your daughter’s face and try to guess at the fate a man like Asa Surrette might be planning for her.

I fell asleep around four-thirty in the morning and woke at seven. Molly was still asleep. I got dressed and went down to Clete’s cabin and woke him up. “What’s going on?” he said.

“I need Felicity Louviere’s cell phone number.”

“What for?”

“Because I don’t have Love Younger’s number, and I need to talk to him.”

“I’ll call her for you.”

“No, I’ll do it.”

“She doesn’t know you real well. She thinks you don’t like her.”

“I don’t. I think she’s screwing up your life.”

“You remember those fireworks we called devil chasers? They’d ricochet all over the place and go nowhere. We’d stick them up people’s tailpipes on neckers’ row at the drive-in. That’s exactly what you remind me of.”

“Are you going to give me her number or not?”

He was sitting on the side of the bed, the covers pulled across his lap, his face full of sleep. Gretchen’s bedroom door was closed. He threw his cell phone to me. “It’s in my contacts,” he said.

I drove down to the foot of the road to get service, then dialed Felicity Louviere’s number.

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