Voodoo Heart Read Online Free Page A

incredulity. It was at least fifteen stories tall, the highest structure he’d ever laid eyes on. There were no other buildings around, save some shacks out back. No trees in the area, just scattered bunches of desert four-o’clock and some tongue leaf cactus.
    Pres skidded to a stop just outside the hangar’s mouth. High, spidery scaffolding buttressed its walls on both sides, and though there were no men working now, Pres could see pails and rags scattered along the planking. A pair of overalls draped over a banister whipped back and forth in the wind. Pres pulled his suspenders up over his undershirt and slipped the .38 into his pocket.
    As soon as Pres stepped into the hangar’s shade, he was hit with a soft shower of water. He glanced around for a leaky pipe or someone hosing down a piece of machinery, but when he looked up, he saw that above the hangar’s highest rafters there floated a soupy gray cloud from which a quiet rain was falling. Dex had shown Pres postcards his son had written from Europe, in which he told of churches so tall that air sometimes condensed up in the rafters and created miniature clouds, but Pres had not been able to picture such a thing.
    He looked around and noticed some heavy fans aimed up at the cloud from the catwalks zigzagging the hangar’s walls. Whoever was working on the hangar must have been taking a break while they waited for the moisture to dissipate. He stared at the square of clear blue sky framed by the doorway at the other end of the hangar, at the shacks and tents burning with light in the distance, but he saw no one. He wondered if the hangar was even operational yet. He didn’t see any hydrogen or helium tanks, no main line anywhere. A runway of mooring rings had been anchored in the cement floor, but there were no cables hooked to them. Perhaps the blimp hadn’t come this way at all. For the thousandth time in the last couple of months, the picture of what it would be like to return home without Claire crept up on him: opening the door on a dark house; finding her dresses still hanging in the closet, her empty side of the bed, a hair curled up on her pillow. He forced the image from his mind and headed through the rain toward the far end of the hangar. He would get some information from whoever was working there. He touched the cold bulge in his pocket. He could taste his sweat through the sweet water running down his face.
    Something twinkled from the ground, catching his eye: when Pres walked over, his heart seized: Claire’s compact. He picked it up and held it in the palm of his hand for a moment. He’d bought it for her six months ago, after hers was stolen at the museum. Claire had been sitting on her bench, powdering her forehead, when a girl came around the corner and surprised her. Claire had been forced to quickly resume her pose, hands gripping the edge of the bench, frozen like that, neck craned down the tracks. The compact fell to her lap, and the girl snatched it up and ran down the hall before Claire had time to react. So Pres had bought her this one. It was white with gold webbing and shaped like a mitten. He’d picked it because it reminded him of winter, which was when they were going to be married. When he flipped it open now, a tiny puff of powder rose from its dish, and for a moment he could smell Claire in the hangar with him. Behind the puff he thought he saw a design in the powder well. At first he figured it was just a smear left by a quick dip of the fingers, but no, it was a traced letter, a
V
or a
W,
he was sure of it. Suddenly, though, a fat raindrop hit the compact, and then another, and before he could snap it closed the compact was a puddle of cream. No matter, he thought, racing back through the hangar to the car. The message had been a
W,
for west—there was no doubt in his mind.

    Pres had been working at the falls the afternoon Claire vanished. The day was clear and bitter cold, with chunks of ice spinning through the black