A Song of Shadows Read Online Free

new black Lexus LS 600h L, which Soames figured to be about $120,000 worth of machine. Clearly, being a security consultant paid well. He just wished that he understood exactly what that meant.
    As Angel had promised, a revised rental agreement was waiting for him when he got back to the office. It wasn’t until he was e-mailing a countersigned copy back to Aimee Price that he noticed the agreement had been sent at 8:15 a.m., when he was still on his way to meet the men called Angel and Louis.
    Bobby Soames had just been railroaded.
    Four days later, Charlie Parker arrived in Boreas.

3
    S oames parked his car at the turnoff for Green Heron Road, which ran behind the two houses on the bay. A pair of dirt drives connected the homes to the road: Parker’s first and then, about a quarter of a mile along, the second house, which had always been known as the Gillette House, even though no Gillettes had lived there since the 1960s.
    It was now being rented by a woman named Ruth Winter and her nine-year-old daughter, Amanda. Soames had taken care of the paperwork, but only after running it by Walsh and the chief first. The Winters were given a clean bill of health. Their family was from Pirna, where Ruth Winter’s mother still lived. Soames hadn’t gone poking into Ruth Winter’s affairs, or her reasons for moving to Boreas. It seemed to him that she simply wanted a little breathing space for her and her daughter. Residing in Boreas would allow Amanda Winter to continue her schooling in Pirna, as it was the same school district and the school bus would pick her up and drop her off from near the house.
    Soames had paid a couple of visits to the Winters since they had taken up residence in Boreas – more, if he were being honest, than might be considered entirely necessary under the circumstances, not least because Ruth was not unattractive. She was in her late forties, with fair hair and blue eyes. Her daughter took after her, and was already tall for her age. It was only on the third visit that Ruth Winter inquired if Soames was always so attentive to his clients. She posed the question with a degree of good humor, but underpinning it was the clear message that Bobby Soames had delighted her long enough with his presence, which was why, on this particular morning, he had driven no farther than the road. His attention was instead fixed on the house occupied by the detective. Soames liked to think that he was taking a personal interest in Parker’s continued good health, while also remaining concerned about the house itself. He didn’t like not having access to it, and he was still worried by the possibility that Parker’s presence in Boreas might bring trouble down on the town and, by extension, on Bobby Soames.
    He had made only one previous visit to the detective, and that was on the day after Parker’s arrival. Something odd had occurred as Soames turned into the lane. He was listening to WALZ out of Machias when the signal was interrupted by a low buzzing noise. It passed quickly, and Soames thought nothing more of it, but Parker had been waiting outside for him when he reached the house, and Soames was certain that, under the detective’s loose windbreaker, he had caught a glimpse of a gun.
    Soames’s first thought was that Parker did not look well. He moved slowly, and was clearly in some pain. His hair was streaked with strange markings, and it took Soames a couple of minutes to realize that his hair had grown back white where the pellets had torn his scalp. Two attackers, armed with pistols and a shotgun, had ambushed him as he entered his home. They’d have killed him, too, if he hadn’t somehow found the strength to fire back at them. Even then, what really saved him was that he hadn’t been given time to deactivate his alarm before they fired, and his alarm company was under strict instructions to notify the Scarborough cops if it went off. The police figured they must have missed cornering his attackers only