The Woman Read Online Free Page A

growers’ nearly autonomous region a few miles to the east. Mulvihill stitched Clark’s wound, but the man had lost a great deal of blood and needed a transfusion. Clark told the doctor to forget it. His blood was Bombay Phenotype. The state’s blood banks had none. The U.S. Army had trouble getting Bombay. Only one person in every quarter-million was Bombay, and their bodies rejected blood of any other type. To Clark’s surprise, the doc had one other patient with that type. Linda Darby.
    The doc had called Linda at home. “You share or the odds say this fella dies.” She donated what the doctor needed.
    After that Clark stayed in town. He got a job waiting tables for O’Malley who ordered Clark to get rid of his earring, cut his hair above his shoulders, and work clean shaven.
    Everyone had expected Clark would tell O’Malley to stick his job where the sun didn’t shine and put the coastal dwellers in the rearview mirror of his hog. Everyone was wrong. Other than drinking with some of the growers when they came to town, and letting them crash at his place when they were too drunk to drive back over Pot Ridge, Clark had apparently walked away from that part of his life. He had become a coastal dweller, a quiet citizen of Sea Crest. On more than one occasion, Linda had considered surrendering to Clark’s persistence. He stood about six feet, had a well-muscled torso and a melt-you-inside smile, but he didn’t fit Linda’s first criteria, no locals. No relationships.
    Linda drank an ice tea and a refill Clark brought, without seeing Cynthia as usual, struggling while stepping off the curb on her side of Main Street. There were never many pedestrians in Sea Crest, and those few were mostly regulars. But now and again she saw a stranger, including one passing right now, a camera case slung over his shoulder. Cynthia had recently told her about a new man in town who always carried a camera. Maybe he was that man. Cynthia, having already pitched Linda on behalf of all the eligible men she knew, had moved on to promoting men she had only observed. “After all, honey, it’s the visceral stuff that rings your chimes.”
    The stranger had dressed to blend in. Dark shoes with soft soles, khaki pants and a windbreaker pinned down by the strap of his camera. His head covered by a dark baseball cap, nothing embroidered on its front. Linda enjoyed watching people and over the years, while waiting for Cynthia, had watched hundreds walk by SMITH & CO . Never before had anyone paid any real attention to that brick building. It had been built in the age when contractors didn’t trowel off the mortar protruding between bricks. But this man had paused at the alleys on each side of the building. His pauses were nearly imperceptible, but clearly he had paused to study the unwindowed sides as if the building was a lingerie shop, and he had x-ray vision.
    The man tugged his cap lower, and then suddenly faced in Linda’s direction. Instinctively, she turned away. Then, realizing her reaction had been unnecessary, she looked back, taking note of a cleft in his chin, his small waist and broad shoulders.
    When the man turned at the corner, Linda stared for a moment at the last space he had occupied, then went back to sipping her ice tea and watching two elderly men near the bar playing checkers, each nursing a draft beer.
    When Cynthia was thirty minutes late, Linda asked Clark to bring her a Cobb salad with honey-mustard on the side, and a croissant. That is, after rejecting Clark’s latest request to take her out to dinner. She said no politely, without explanation, and Clark respected her answer. While waiting for her salad, she checked her cell phone to be sure it was on and operating. It was and it held no messages.
    The two women had been meeting at O’Malley’s for lunch once a week for more than six years and never had either of them just failed to come. Linda’s concern grew, but she clung to the thought that Cynthia would