The William Kent Krueger Collection #3 by William Kent Krueger

Author:William Kent Krueger
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atria Books
Published: 2014-07-01T00:00:00+00:00

THIRTY

The baby’s crying, Mom.”

Lucinda opened her eyes. Uly stood beside the sofa, in his pajamas, his eyes barely open, his hair wild from sleep. Lucinda stirred and realized she was under a blanket, the blue one she kept in the hall closet.

“How did this get here?” she asked, trying to come fully awake.

“I put it over you when I got in last night. You looked cold.”

“Thank you, Ulysses.” She sat up and rubbed her eyes.

“Want me to get Misty?”

“I’ll take care of her.”

“Where’s Dad?”

“At the shop. He slept there last night, I imagine.”

“At the shop.” Uly looked at her as if he knew it was a lie, because it had been one of the lies over the years. Sleeping at the shop. Along with: Gone to the Twin Cities to deliver a custom order. Or: He went to a gun show. Before that, when Will was still in the Marine Corps, it was much easier. She would simply tell the boys that their father was on special-duty assignment for a few days. “Whatever,” Uly said, and shuffled back to his room and to bed.

It was early, although already well past dawn. Beyond the living room picture window, long morning shadows fell across grass still wet with dew. The birds were going crazy in the trees. In Alejandro’s old bedroom, the baby cried for her first feeding and changing of the day.

Lucinda threw back the blanket and rose to her life.

After she’d taken care of Misty and brewed coffee for herself, she tried calling the shop. No answer. Of course. She wondered why she even bothered. After her own breakfast of oatmeal and half a grapefruit, she went to the bedroom she shared with Will, and she opened the top dresser drawer. Inside was a cedar case the size of a small loaf of bread that Lucinda proceeded to open. The case contained the medals and ribbons Will had received during his service as a marine—Purple Heart, Vietnam Service Medal, Meritorious Service Medal, Combat Action ribbons, Good Conduct Medal, Drill Instructor ribbon, Presidential Unit citations, Kuwait Liberation Medal—as well as his dog tags and an extra set of keys to the shop. Lucinda took out the dog tags, wrote down the last four digits of his social security number, then put everything back into the case except the keys to the shop. She bundled up little Misty and secured her in the car seat, got behind the wheel of her Saturn, and drove to Will’s shop. His van wasn’t there, but she parked at the curb anyway and walked to the door.

Through the shop window, she could see that inside everything was dark. No surprise. She rang the buzzer but got no response. She used the key to unlock the door. As soon as she was inside, she reached out to key in the disarm code—the last four digits of Will’s social security number—on the alarm pad beside the door, but she was surprised to see that the alarm was already disengaged.

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