The First Detect-Eve Read Online Free

elbow and smiled down at me. “Maybe it was a sign,” he said. “Maybe everything will work out okay, after all.”
    Staring up at him, I didn’t share his hope for a moment. With Abel dead, it was too late for things to work out okay.
    But I have to admit, as he looked down like that, I saw the old sparkle in his eyes, the one from before we’d left Eden. He wasn’t drunk, he wasn’t depressed, he wasn’t dying inside.
    He reminded me of the man I’d loved.
    Reaching up, I traced a finger over his lips, and he kissed it. Dipping his head lower, he pressed his lips against mine.
    And in spite of the fact that we were in the middle of an ongoing nightmare, with one son dead and one son missing...and we were far from home, with only each other to rely on...and the next day might bring us unguessable suffering...or maybe because of all that...
    We kissed. And more.
    As things heated up, I slid the dagger from my leg when he wasn’t looking and hid it under the goatskin bag. Unencumbered, I moved with my husband upon the earth, exploring his body as if for the first time.
    Everything that had come between us was forgotten, at least for a while. All my doubts and suspicions and fears about him were set aside. Inexplicably, unexpectedly, we had a night of actual happiness together.
    And I swear, though I might have been the only one who saw it, that the stars in the sky whirled around just like in the old days in Eden. At least a little.
    *****
    When we reached Nod the next day, I at first thought we had made a mistake in going there.
    Standing on the crest of a ridge, I gazed down into the fertile valley that had once been our home...and saw no sign of my missing son. Nothing but the glittering river snaking through the grassy plain, the stands of trees thickening into forest that carpeted the opposite slope.
    And, of course, the one sight that could completely derail Adam from our purpose. The land upriver, misty and twinkling in the distance, visible and reachable yet forever barred to us.
    Eden.
    Naturally, Adam’s gaze fixed on it as soon as we topped the ridge. Shading his eyes against the light of the midday sun, he stared longingly at the only place he could not enter in the world, the only place where he wasn’t welcome...the only place where he really wanted to be.
    “I think I see angels over the treetops,” he said breathlessly. “It’s hard to tell from here. Or are those griffins?”
    I knew he could have stood there all day, spying on paradise. He’d certainly done it often enough in the past.
    Which was one of the reasons I’d insisted we move.
    “Come on,” I said, grabbing his arm, pulling him down the slope. “We need to get down there.”
    He resisted at first, then gave in with a sigh and another glance upriver. “Maybe we could go there next,” he said wistfully. “Just to have a peek from outside.”
    “And maybe we can get back in and get thrown out again for old times’ sake,” I said, dragging him into the valley. “In the meantime, why don’t we concentrate on finding our son?”
    Adam didn’t answer. When I glanced back at him over my shoulder, he was staring toward Eden again.
    I was feeling more charitable toward him after the night before, but I was still tempted to haul off and slap him across the face just then.
    *****
    The valley seemed just as deserted when we walked through it as it had when we’d gazed into it from above. We found nothing to suggest that anyone had been there recently--not a shelter, not the charred remains of a campfire, not even the bones of a fish or the rind of a piece of fruit.
    We walked along the riverbank, spread apart to cover more ground, but found no sign of human habitation. Even our old campsite looked as if no one had ever been there; everything had been picked clean, washed away, or covered over. It made me sad to realize how time could wear away every trace of a home that had once been the center of our lives. Our memories were all