The Gift of the Darkness Read Online Free

her but filled her with a dull ache. What would Shawna Williams make of that? she wondered.
    Her beach run had used up the last of her energy, just as she had hoped it would; she closed her eyes, fell into the dream, and Alice Madison, twelve years old, woke up with a start in her childhood bedroom in Friday Harbor.
    The moon is high outside the open window, as always, a warm breeze brushes her cotton sheets, and her heart beats rabbit fast. She knows what’s coming. The Mickey Mouse clock on her bedside table reads 2:15 a.m., as always, and her eyes slowly focus in the gloom.
    Her mother died five months earlier, and in her grief Alice can barely breathe. Her books stand in rows on the shelves, her clothes folded neatly on the chair, her bunny slippers by the bed. She knows what’s coming. The floor in the hall creaks, and her head whips around to her closed door. Someone is in the house. Her father works nights, and she does not expect him back till dawn.
    Her eyes blink, and she forces herself to think. It could be Dad . No, the light in the hall is off. He would have turned on the light; he would have checked in on her. Dad would not creep around in the dark. Her nails press into her palms through the sheets. Someone is moving from room to room, heavy steps trying to be light, going into her parents’ room.
    Her baseball bat is under the bed, and she reaches for it quickly without taking her eyes off the door.
    He’s in the hall again. Alice is afraid to move and afraid to stay where she is. She is frozen, with one bare foot on the cold floor and the rest of her still under the sheet, the bat now gripped in both hands. The steps pause in front of her room, and time stops: 2:18 a.m. Alice doesn’t make a sound, doesn’t blink, doesn’t move, doesn’t breathe. Then a dog barks nearby, and Madison wakes up in her empty house in Three Oaks, her holster digging into her side and her heart still drumming.
    She was used to the dream, like a scar when you rolled up a sleeve: ugly, permanent, and private. The dream didn’t always end there; sometimes she would get to the point where the bat would swing, and the crashing of glass would wake her, but not this time.
    Less than half a mile away, James Sinclair has not moved for hours and cannot feel the first light across his body. Shadows form, lengthen, and melt away. Silence, like smoke, has reached into the corners of the room.

Chapter 3
    Miles and miles away from the city. The man closed his eyes and listened to the stream. The fly hit the water delicately, cast with a fluid motion of the wrist. His hands were cold, but he did not like the feel of gloves against his skin when he was fishing. The three thin scars four inches long crossing the back of his right hand glistened white. The night was turning into day, and the quiet of the woods gave it their blessing.
    He looked like a regular guy out for some camping and a little fishing. A short, neat haircut and good, expensive gear on the ground by his boots. Nothing an incidental hiker would look at twice, nobody anybody would remember for more than five minutes. Under his right trouser leg, the small revolver in his ankle holster was a familiar weight he hardly noticed anymore. The man knew little about blessings.
    He cast the line into the water once more, his eyes following the long, slow arc, and knew then that that was very probably all the peace the world would ever grant him.
    The shots of the hunters above him on the mountain did not startle him at all.
    It was 12:45 p.m. when Madison stirred. She was a little stiff from falling asleep on the sofa—nothing a long, hot shower and a strong cup of coffee couldn’t take care of. She pulled on a pair of chinos, a dark denim shirt, and a tan padded suede jacket. She set the sneakers she’d worn on the stakeout by the closet in her bedroom and picked up some black ankle boots instead. The holster went into a locked safe under the bed.
    The deal was that if Alice