Rivers to Blood Read Online Free

frayed cutoff blue jeans. He rarely wore a shirt or shoes, and he was the only non law enforcement member of the team present.
    “We didn’t get a good look at it,” Todd said, “but I think we’d a heard if it went down.”
    Kenny was the only member of the group who was excessively obese and looked out of place. A few of the others carried a little extra beer weight, but Todd and Shane were bodybuilders, spending several hours a day in the weight room at the prison or high school––and they wore too-small shirts that showed off all their work.
    As usual, Sandy had yet to say anything. Quiet, sensitive, and slightly effeminate, he was nearly the opposite of the other members of the team, and probably would not be tolerated if he weren’t by far the best diver in the area.
    “I could have sworn it was going to crash when I saw it,” I said.
    “When was that?” Goodwin asked.
    “Just before I was knocked out,” I said.
    “Knocked out?” Todd Sears said.
    “Convict sapped him with an oak limb,” Dad said.
    Jake laughed. “Bet crashing planes weren’t all you saw.”
    “Well,” Goodwin said, “I think we’d all know it if it went down, but if it’d make you feel better, we can take you back up the river to look for it—if it’s okay with the sheriff.”
    Dad sighed and nodded. “Look for the inmate while you’re at it. He may try to cross. Todd, you get the dogs and meet me back at the scene.”
    “Sure thing, boss,” Goodwin said.
    “Let me get my gear first,” Todd said.
    “It can’t wait?” Dad asked, his impatience obvious.
    “No,” Todd said, “it can’t.”
    “Well hurry. He’s got a big jump on us already.”
    “Oh, I’ll catch the convict,” Todd said. “Needn’t worry ’bout that. Never had one get away yet.”
    “You boys make some room for the chaplain,” Goodwin said.
    As Dad left and Todd finished what he was doing, the boys gathered up their duffle bags and dive gear, quickly shuffled it off the boat and into their jacked-up and bulldogged trucks.
    I shot them a quizzical look. “What if we need that?”
    “It’s just our empty tanks and some random dive gear,” Goodwin said. “There’s more on the boat.”
    The others rejoined us. Todd shoved us away from the dock and Goodwin gunned the engine. Within moments the bow of the boat was raised and we were racing down the river, the setting sun starting to streak the horizon with flamingo feathers.
    “Any idea where we should look?” Goodwin yelled over the wind and motor.
    I told him.
    For several hours, we searched the area the plane was most likely to have gone down—if it went down at all—while keeping an eye out for the escaped inmate.
    It was evening and the day had a cooling, gloaming, coming-to-rest quality. Subtle, desaturated, still.
    Long past the time when their strained patience became hostile impatience, the guys who had already spent most of their afternoon on the river running rescue drills in hard rain helped me look for what increasingly seemed to be something that wasn’t there.
    Eventually, we gave up—mostly because they insisted—and I caught a ride back over to the scene of the escape in full dark. Numerous deputies and COs, joined now by the K-9 unit, were still searching the area lit by the generator-powered light tower, but the escaped inmate was proving to be as elusive as my phantom plane.
    When Dad dropped me at my trailer well after midnight, I was wet, tired, and hungry. I had totaled my truck, failed to prevent an escape, and wasted a lot of time. As the fatigue and frustration set in, I felt angry and depressed, and, as usual, I was unable to find any solace in sleep.

Chapter Seven
    “I think we’ve got a serial rapist here,” DeLisa Lopez said.
    “Actually,” I said, “we’ve got several.”
    It was the next morning and I was tired, on edge. We were sitting in my office in the chapel of Potter Correctional Institution, drinking coffee from paper cups.
    She frowned