Darkness Becomes Her Read Online Free Page B

pedals so she could reach. “Some people didn’t have anywhere else to go, some were too dang stubborn to leave.”
    “Which one are you?”
    Crank let out a small laugh. “Both, I guess. My dad died in the flood. My uncle hid my brother and mom, like a lot of people did when the troops came through and ordered the city evacuated. I wasn’t born until after, though. Why are you going?”
    I hugged the box a little tighter. “Trying to find out about my parents. I was born at Charity Hospital a few years before the hurricanes struck.”
    “No shit, really?”
    A small laugh bubbled in my throat. Crank was like a little adult trapped in a prepubescent body. “Really.”
    “Well, maybe my brother can help you with that. He’s pretty good at finding things. You have a place to stay yet?”
    Yeah … I hadn’t actually thought that far ahead when I decided to jump into the mail truck. “No, not yet.” All I needed was one day. One day to find the hospital and access my records. I wasn’t going to turn back now.
    “Good. You can stay with us. Those tourist hotels, the ones in the French Quarter, they are
high
dollar.”
    The offer was the last thing I expected. But then, I never expected to be driven to New 2 by a twelve-year-old, either. “I don’t know. …”
    “Trust me, we have tons of rooms. Forty bucks will get you one for the night.” When I didn’t answer right away, she said, “You in?”
    “Sure,” I said on a sigh, settling in for the ride and rolling my eyes at nothing. “Why not?”
    The truck sped through the tattered remains of Mandeville and then passed what used to be the toll area for the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway. There was a dim light inside one of the booths along with a dark, shadowed figure. Crank slowed the truck. The man, at least that’s what I guessed by the size of him, waved us through.
    I squeezed the oh shit handle tightly as the truck rolled over one side of the double-span bridge; the other side was impassable, missing huge chunks of pavement, leaving only the massive concrete pillars standing, most of which were topped with bird nests.
    Crank slid a sideways glance at me, a knowing smile on her lips. She gave the truck a little more gas. “Twenty-four miles to go,” she sang under her breath, enjoying my anxiety a little toomuch. She leaned over, reaching for the radio, her eyes barely seeing over the dashboard. The truck began to veer dangerously close to the guardrail.
    My hand tightened around the door handle, the other holding the box tightly. “Um, Crank?”
    The radio blared to life and Crank straightened, taking the steering wheel with her and veering to the left side of the road, where a chunk of the guardrail had vanished. Without missing a beat, she settled back into her driving stance and slowly guided the vehicle into the center of the road.
    Twenty-four miles of bridge, minus the last hair-raising few, stretched out low and mostly flat over the calm waters of the lake. Twenty-four miles of zydeco music as every one of my stomach muscles grew sore and my fingers began to stiffen around the door handle. By the time we reached land, I felt like I’d done a hundred sit-ups and heard enough zydeco to last a lifetime.
    Crank navigated through the suburb of Metairie, which was dark and quiet this time of night, only a few random lights where there should’ve been thousands, then onto Route 61, which led to Washington Avenue. The street changed names a few times before it intersected with St. Charles Avenue in the Garden District. Crank didn’t slow down to check for traffic, just shot out into the intersection, veering left onto the street. Not that it mattered; there wasn’t anyone else on the road. There were a fewstreetlamps working, and I could see the double tracks of the St. Charles Avenue trolley running parallel with the road.
    The Garden District had become a semi ghost town, a beautiful lost place where once-manicured gardens surged over their