Storm Season Read Online Free Page A

brought it to her. It smelled of him, and she breathed deeply, the scent swamping her. Memories as well. Of her and Erik’s fight, her inability to commit, Dan’s unnecessary death.
    She hadn’t slept well. Her dreams had been turbulent and disturbing--   She and Dan at the altar. A gunshot. Blood spraying her white gown. But then she had been holding the gun. And it was Erik, not Dan, who lay dying at her feet. Not at a church altar, but in the woods, in the snow. The red-stained snow.
    A sound passed her lips. Of despair and grief. One dredged from her very core.
    She pressed her face into the pillow to stifle it.
    Let it go, Mary Catherine. For the love of God. Move on.
    But she couldn’t. M.C. balled her hands into fists. Dammit, she wanted to, but . . .
    Angry at herself, she threw back the covers, climbed out of bed. The temperature had dropped dramatically overnight. She heard the wind whistling through the trees outside the bedroom windows. The clawing of branches on the glass. The cold front. The apocalyptic storm Sorenstein had been carrying-on about.
    She snatched up her robe, found her slippers and stalked to the bathroom. After relieving herself, she brushed her teeth and ran a comb through her hair.
    Then went looking for Erik.
    The TV. in the great room was on. “Morning!” she called out, stopping in front of the seventy-inch flatscreen. The Weather Channel. A map of the U.S. showing the jet stream, the arctic air pushing all the way down to Florida where they predicted it to collide with a tropical low in the Atlantic before moving up the east coast. The meteorologists were waxing ecstatic over what would happen when the two systems met.
    M.C. frowned, thinking of Sorenstein’s rant. “Let’s just keep fucking with Mother Nature. We’ll be like the dinosaurs. Extinct.”
    M.C. shook her head. She refused to buy into Sorenstein’s doom and gloom. She couldn’t. She’d been to hell and had fought her way back. To launch herself willingly into that place of despair? Never again.
    She found the remote and hit the mute button. The house went silent. Too silent. M.C. frowned and started for the kitchen.  
    She reached it. “Erik,” she said, stepping into the room.
    But he wasn’t there. Not anymore, anyway. The newspaper lay open on the table, a cup of coffee beside it.
    M.C. crossed to the table, glanced down at the paper. The Register Star. Main news, page two. A mention of Bello’s death. Her picture.  Damn. She touched the cup; it was cold.
    Where was he? His office, she thought. Or the music room. Sometimes when he was upset, he lost himself in the classics.
    She checked both, came up empty and headed to the garage. Sure enough, no Jeep.
    Where could he have gone so early? And why hadn’t he told her? Neither was like him.
    Yesterday’s uneasiness crept over her once more. The memory of their argument.
    “What if I don’t want to do this anymore?”
    And now he was gone. Without saying goodbye.
    What if it was over?
    She plucked her phone from the robe’s deep pocket. She dialed him; her call went straight to voicemail.
    He’d turned off his phone. He never turned it off. In case the clinic or a patient needed him.
    He was shutting her out. Already.
    It was her own fault. She deserved this.
    “Hey, babe,” she said. “You must have been in super-stealth mode this morning. I didn’t hear you get up, dress or anything. How crazy is that?”
    She sounded desperate. Panicky.
    She cleared her throat, lowered her voice. “Are you okay? I just want you to know that--"
    But she couldn’t say what he wanted to hear. So instead, she asked him to call her and hung up.
    A moment after she ended the call, another came in. She answered. “Erik?"
    “It’s Kitt. You sound out of breath. Are you okay?”
    “I’m good. What’s up?”
    “Sal’s called a pow-wow in the war room. Nine o’clock.”
    Salvatore Minelli, her boss, Deputy Chief of Detectives. His calling a meeting meant one of