Peter Pan Must Die Read Online Free Page A

chill.
    “You need to talk to Malcolm Claret,” she said matter-of-factly.
    He blinked, turned, and stared at her. “What?”
    “Before you get involved in this, you need to talk to him.”
    “What the hell for?” His feelings about Claret were mixed—not because he had anything against the man himself or doubted his professional abilities, but the memories of the occasions that prompted their past meetings were still full of pain and confusion.
    “He might be able to help you … help you understand why you’re doing this.”
    “Understand why I’m doing this? What’s that supposed to mean?”
    She didn’t answer immediately. Nor did he press the question—taken aback momentarily by the sudden sharpness in his own voice.
    They’d been through this before, more than once—this question of why he did what he did, why he’d become a detective in the first place, why he was drawn to homicide in particular, and why it continued to fascinate him. He wondered at the defensiveness of his reaction, given that this was well-trod ground.
    Another pair of small birds, high in the darkening sky, were hurrying to some more familiar, perhaps safer, place—most likely the place they considered home.
    He spoke in a softer voice. “I’m not sure what you mean by ‘why you’re doing this.’ ”
    “You’ve come too close to being killed too many times.”
    He drew back a little. “When you’re dealing with murderers—”
    “Please, not now,” she interrupted, raising her hand. “Not the Dangerous Job speech. That’s not what I’m talking about.”
    “Then what—”
    “You’re the smartest man I know. The smartest. All the angles, possibilities—nobody can figure it out better or faster than you can. And yet …” Her voice trailed off, suddenly shaky.
    He waited a long ten seconds before prompting her gently. “And yet?”
    It was another ten seconds before she went on. “And yet … somehow … you’ve ended up face-to-face with an armed lunatic on three separate occasions in the past two years. An inch from death each time.”
    He said nothing.
    She stared sadly out over the pond. “There’s something wrong with that picture.”
    It took him a while to reply. “You think I want to die?”
    “
Do
you?”
    “Of course not.”
    She continued looking straight ahead.
    The hillside pasture and the woods beyond the pond were all growing darker. At the edge of the woods the gold patches of ragweed and lavender sprigs of grape-hyacinth had already faded to shades of gray. Madeleine gave a little shiver, zipped her windbreaker up to her chin, and folded her arms across her chest, pulling her elbows tightly against her.
    They sat in silence for a long while. It was as if their conversation had come to a strange stopping place, a slippery declivity from which there was no clear way up and out.
    As a quivering spot of silver light appeared in the center of the pond—a reflection of the moon, which had emerged at that moment through a break in the clouds—there was a sound deep in the woods behind the bench that made the hairs stand up on Gurney’s arms. A keening note, a not-quite-human cry of desolation.
    “What the …?”
    “I’ve heard it before,” said Madeleine. “On different nights it seems to come from different places.”
    He listened, waiting. A minute later, it sounded again, weird and plaintive.
    “Probably an owl,” he said, without having any reason to believe it.
    What he avoided saying was that it sounded to him like a lost child.

Chapter 4
Pure Evil
    It was past midnight, and Gurney’s efforts to fall asleep had been as unsuccessful as if he’d had half a dozen cups of coffee.
    The moon, glimpsed briefly at the pond, had disappeared behind a thick new blanket of clouds. Both windows were open at the top, letting a humid chill into the room. The darkness and the touch of the damp night air on his skin formed a kind of enclosure, giving him a creeping sense of