Grave Shadows Read Online Free Page A

here.
    The great thing is, lots of people are sponsoring me for 25 cents a mile or even a few dollars a mile, and all the money goes to cancer research. In the hospital kids just like me are fighting for their lives, but you’d never know it. They’re really neat people who just have something wrong with them.
    I’ve learned a lot over the past few months about what’s important, what’s not important, and to make every day count. I believe God gives us life for a reason, and when we get sick, he can use that too. (If you don’t believe in God, that’s okay. I just hope you give him a chance, because he really loves you a lot.)
    People ask me sometimes what it’s like to not know how much longer you’re going to live. My dad let me see part of the movie Braveheart once where William Wallace says, “Every man dies; not every man really lives.” Whether I die in 50 years or 50 days, I want people to say that I really lived.
    So if you see a lot of bikes and people wearing the same blue and red shirts, slow down and wave. We’re just people who want to really live and help others do the same.

Chapter 17

    I found out that Darren Baldwin works at the RadioShack in Red Rock, in a little strip mall near some restaurants. Before dinner I rode my ATV close to town and walked the rest of the way.
    The sun, which is almost always out where we live, was staying up longer. Kids rode bikes on the middle school parking lot, trying to jump over a wood ramp they’d set up. Others played baseball behind the school.
    The RadioShack sat between Red Rock Donuts and Spotless Dry Cleaners. A sign read Summer Blowout Sale. The store was packed with electronic gadgets, remote-control cars, TVs, batteries, computers, and every cable and plug ever invented.
    An older man behind the counter looked over his glasses and asked if he could help me.
    I felt like I should buy something, especially if I was going to ask questions. I touched the battery display. “I need double As for my CD player.”
    He came out from behind the counter and recommended a package. I looked at the price and gulped, then grabbed the smallest one. “Darren working today?” I said.
    The man’s eyebrows went up. “As a matter of fact he is. Darren?”
    Darren ducked as he came through the low-hung door. He was thin and had a fair complexion, with freckles and white skin, and sandy red hair. His long arms reminded me of a jazz piano player I had seen on TV.
    I introduced myself and said, “I hear you’re a friend of Gunnar Roberts.”
    “Known him since we were kids. Why?”
    “I’m trying to help find him. Any idea where he could be?”
    Darren looked at the manager, and the man must have nodded or something because Darren relaxed. He pointed to a stool in the other room, and I sat. A computer lay on a workbench with lots of tools spread around. “Haven’t talked with Gunnar for a few weeks,” Darren said. “It’s like he disappeared off the face of the earth.”
    “When was the last time you saw him?”
    “Went to a Rockies game. Sat in the Rockpile and tried to get a tan. I just got burned.”
    “He didn’t say anything about leaving?”
    He shook his head. “We talked about our jobs, girlfriend stuff.”
    “He has a girlfriend?”
    “Taryn broke up with him. He said she was really ticked.”
    “Ticked enough to hurt him?”
    He shrugged. “Never thought of that.”
    I wrote down her name, and Darren told me where she lived. He chuckled. “You a junior detective or something?”
    If I had a nickel for every time I heard that . . . “You think Gunnar could have done something to himself? Was he that upset about this girl?”
    He frowned. “Kill himself? Nah. He was squirrelly, always has been. But he wouldn’t do anything like that.”
    “What do you mean, squirrelly?”
    “He’d go off for a couple of days, and we wouldn’t know where he was. Take his dog and hike or go up in the mountains four-wheeling, I guess. He never told me