Greely's Cove Read Online Free Page B

hoarsely. “I’ll be right as rain.” He dropped his shivering gaze to the Persian carpet beneath his feet and wished with every cell in his scrawny body to be out of this house, away from its dusky antiques and smothering tapestries. He craved sunlight, the smell of rain, a clean breeze. He craved distance between himself and Whiteleather Place.
    “So, it will be Saturday next, I presume,” said Craslowe, helping the little man with the zipper of the coat, squaring him away.
    “Saturday next,” agreed Mitch Nistler.
    Seconds later he was out the door and down the walk of the looming Victorian mansion, climbing behind the wheel of his rusting ’73 El Camino. The engine burbled to life, and the rear wheels of the half-car/half-pickup truck sprayed rock chips into the clumps of yellowing shrubbery as he roared away.
    Behind the front door of Whiteleather Place stood the doctor and his helper, staring into each other’s eyes, searching and reading, scarcely needing spoken words.
    “Will he be all right?” asked the raven-haired Mrs. Pauling at length, breaking the silence.
    A smile—this one was anything but avuncular, from impossibly old lips. “Oh, yes, Ianthe, he will be all right. In fact, he will do nicely. Nicely indeed.”
    “Then you have chosen well?” she asked, her almond eyes brimming with sadness.
    The doctor’s smile grew broader, darker. “Chosen well, yes. And very soon I’ll have the proof of it, I daresay.”

3
    A few minutes after noon on February 8, 1986, the day after Lorna Trosper died, a Boeing 737 ascended from National Airport near Washington, D.C., and set out for the city of its birth—Seattle. After a journey of more than seven hours, with intermediate stops in Minneapolis and Billings, it touched down in a perfect instrument landing at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, a short drive south of the massive Boeing manufacturing complex. Carl Trosper got off the plane and, since he had checked no luggage, went directly to the Avis counter, muscling along his expensive leather carry-on bag. He used his American Express Platinum Card to rent a metallic-brown Olds, which he picked up in the subterranean rental car terminal. Minutes later he was on Interstate 5, northbound for the Washington State Ferry Terminal in the heart of Seattle.
    By now the winter dusk had deepened to night, and the Saturday rush hour was in full swing. The ferry terminal was clogged. Weekenders who lived on the west shore of the Puget Sound were homeward bound after a day of shopping and frolicking in the city. Carl Trosper fell into the long, slow-moving queue for the ferry to Bremerton, feeling alone amid the throng, listening to the thrumming rain and swishing windshield wipers, thinking sadly of the countless times he and Lorna had waited together in this very spot for the ferry.
    He followed the taillights of the car ahead of him into the cavernous maw of the huge vessel, and a crew member directed him to a spot near the bow, meaning that he would be among the first to get off on the Bremerton side. He cut the engine, locked the Olds, and climbed the stairs from the parking deck to the passengers’ lounge. A glance at the nearly deserted observation deck told him that that was where he wanted to be, despite the chill and steady beat of winter rain, a place where he could think and reflect—alone. So he turned up the hood of his blue Henri Lloyd parka and leaned against the cold rail, face into the wind, eyes slitted against the rain. Through the soles of his boat shoes he felt the churning of huge engines as they imparted their energy to propellers, and the ferry began to move. The whoot of a powerful whistle sliced through the sharp air, announcing departure, and the rush of excited waters came to his ears.
    So it’s come down to this, has it, Old Carl? said the voice in his head—his father’s voice, from the depths of a long-dead boyhood. His father had always called him “Old Carl,” even when