Waking Hours Read Online Free Page B

was a local and knew a lot of the guys, and partly because it was never a bad idea to make the cops your friends.
    “Twice in one day,” Frank said. “We gotta stop meeting like this.”
    “I got a call from the kid you popped from ESH,” Tommy said. “Liam Dorsett. He’s one of my guys. Can you help me out?”
    “I wish I could, Tommy,” Frank said, “but they’re really clamping down on this one. It’s all need-to-know, and apparently I don’t need to know.”
    “Is that to keep it out of the papers?”
    “That’d be my guess,” the cop told him. “All I got is that they put his cell phone on the scene.”
    “Liam’s?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Where are they taking him?”
    “Kisco,” Frank said. “DA’s office. Across from the hospital. You know where that is?”
    “I do. Thanks,” Tommy said. “Next round of hot wings is on me.”
    “So was the last one,” Frank reminded him.
    Tommy had taken the Harley that morning because he knew there weren’t going to be many days left when it would be warm enough to ride it. He decided to swing by Bull’s Rock Hill on his way to the district attorney’s office.
    He rode over the hill and down the blacktop to the turn for Bull’s Rock Hill where he saw, parked at the end of the gravel road that led to the scenic overlook, a police car surrounded by TV news trucks. The land surrounding and including Bull’s Rock Hill belonged to East Salem’s only country club, known simply as The Pastures, but it was too hilly to use as part of the golf course. The name came from a natural granite formation at the top of the cliff that resembled a sleeping bull.
    Tommy parked the bike and traded his helmet for his watch cap and sunglasses, hoping no one would recognize him. He walked the final thirty yards until he stood next to one of two police officers. The other, positioned in front of a strand of yellow police tape closing off the road, was telling a handful of cameramen and reporters they would have to wait.
    “Hey,” Tommy said casually.
    “Nobody past the tape,” the cop said, and then he did a double take. Tommy had seen the look a thousand times before.
    “You’re Tommy Gunderson,” the cop said.
    “You’re Peterson,” Tommy said.
    The cop looked stunned.
    “Your name is on your badge. I live nearby.”
    “I know,” the cop said. “I mean, I’d heard you did, but I didn’t know where.”
    “What’s all the commotion?” Tommy asked. “This where they found the girl?”
    “Up there. Flat out on the rock,” the cop said. “Not a stitch on. Weird one.”
    “When did they find her?”
    “A couple hours ago,” the cop said. “You know the area?”
    “Like the back of my hand,” Tommy said. “They know what time she died?”
    The cop shrugged. “I’m just traffic control.”
    Tommy took a few steps to the side but not forward—he had no wish to aggravate the cop, who was only doing his job. He stood, hands in his jacket pockets, trying to get a sense of things. Despite the commotion, the woods seemed oddly empty, not a bird in the sky or a squirrel rustling in the leaves. Nothing stirred, nothing moved in the wind, nothing cried out from the distance. Perhaps because of the stillness, he had a distinct sense that someone was standing behind him. When he played football and covered pass receivers on their routes, he’d always had a gift for knowing where his man was, even with his back turned, some sort of sixth sense, sportscasters had commented more than once. He felt it now.
    Yet when he turned, he was still alone. Indeed, the cop he’d been speaking with had moved off.
    You’re losing your touch , he told himself. Either that, or you’re letting yourself get spooked .
    The shiver he felt was as real as the feeling had been. It was not the sense that something had been there. It was the sense that something was still there, palpable but not visible. A sense (and now he thought he really was losing his mind) that the forest was