Faultlines Read Online Free Page B

undulating hills beneath a depthless vault of sky. It never failed to move her, every time, as if she had never seen it before.
    Even the upheaval of construction—the churned ground, the scattered piles of two-by-four stubs, leftover rebar and wire mesh, the smattering of cigarette butts—couldn’t dampen her delight, the feeling of satisfaction. This was her land, hers and Beck’s, and soon their house would hold its face—the face Beck had poured heart and soul into designing—to this beautiful view. Parking alongside Augie’s truck, she got out and walked over to the construction site. When she’d left last Monday, the slab hadn’t been more than a pattern on a blueprint. Now a reinforcing network of rebar and posttension cables encased in a wood frame marked the foundation’s generous proportions. The footings for the load-bearing walls were in place. Lengths of pipe poked up where plumbing fixtures would later go. The electrical conduit snaking in and out of the backfill led to the kitchen island. It was only a matter of hours now. Augie had said the trucks would arrive tomorrow at first light to start the pour in the cool of morning.
    I won’t sleep, she thought.
    “I was about to give up on you.”
    Libby turned at the sound of Augie’s voice. “Oh, I know. I’m sorry,” she said. “First I got lost—again. Then I got stopped for speeding.” She made a face. “Don’t tell Ruth, okay? She’ll never let me hear the end of it.”
    He laughed and said he’d try and keep his mouth shut.
    According to Ruth’s aunt Tildy, Augie and Ruth were cousins, but so far removed only Tildy could recite the lineage that linked them. Their real connection was their work, real estate—building it, remodeling it, selling it. Between them they had it covered.
    Lifting his broad-brimmed straw hat now, Augie wiped his brow. “Where did you get pulled over?” he wanted to know.
    “On 440, not too far from here. I’d just come past the scene of an accident. There were kids all over the place.”
    Augie clicked his teeth with his tongue. “I heard about it. A couple of local boys and one of their girlfriends lost control and slammed into a tree. No names yet, though.”
    “The cop who stopped me—I think his name was Huckabee—said they were drinking.”
    “Ah, yeah, I know him. Len Huckabee, goes by Huck. I heard he was a first responder.”
    Some note of regard in Augie’s voice caught Libby’s attention. “He’s someone special?”
    Augie laughed. “Yeah, you could say—least if you get in a conversation with anyone around here that lasts longer than five minutes, somebody is going to start talking about Huck. He and another guy, John Simmons, are local legends. They took the high school in town to the state football championship back in the day. Both of them got inducted into the Texas Football Hall of Fame. I was in elementary school then, and those two guys were my heroes.” Remembered admiration lightened Augie’s voice, making him sound much younger.
    Libby smiled.
    His stare drifted down the back road of a memory she couldn’t see. “They played in college, too, on the same team, for Sam Houston State in Huntsville. Both of them on a full-ride scholarship. My dad and I never missed a home game. They were like brothers, those two. Did everything together.”
    “What happened?” The shadow in Augie’s voice prompted Libby to ask.
    “They joined the police force in San Antonio, came up through the ranks together. They were both hotshot detectives, got a lot of recognition. But around fourteen years ago, John was killed in a shoot-out with a couple of bank robbers. The crooks acted like they were going to give it up. They laid down their guns and everything, but while Huck had one of them down, the other one somehow got hold of his weapon and shot John in the head. Huck got the guy, but it was too late for John.”
    It was awful, and Libby said so.
    “Yeah,” Augie agreed. “It did a number