The Bones Will Speak Read Online Free

it?”
    â€œMat—uh, Cherry. My name’s Cherry. I’m twenty.” Just adding six years. She felt thirty.
    â€œTwenty? Okay. If you say so.” He touched her hair. “Perfect.” Letting go, he nudged her toward a peeling shack, and she stumbled toward it on still-numb feet. At least they’d be out of the storm.
    They passed through the doorway, the darkness ebbing from the probing flashlight revealing a blanket spread on the dirty floor. Crude for a guy with his kind of money. She stepped on the blanket and turned to him, then slowly opened the jacket. She knew he’d like the way the wet top clung to her.
    â€œStop!”
    She jumped and snatched the jacket closed.
    â€œI usually enjoy more . . . uh . . . outdoor sport. But it’s raining, you see. That changes everything.” He illuminated his hand, now holding a syringe loaded with a clear liquid. “We’ll just have to have fun indoors.”
    â€œI don’t do H. Not anymore.” She stepped away.
    â€œThis is special. You’ll love it.” His gentle voice soothed and caressed. “It makes you feel like you’re floating. Nothing hurts; it’s all good.” He offered the syringe again.
    She slowly sank down, and he crouched next to her. He smelled good. She focused on his jaw. “Do I know you?”
    He paused, then shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
    â€œYou look familiar.”
    He shrugged. “I look like a lot of people.” Placing the flashlight next to him on the floor, he touched her hair, then pulled out rubber tubing.
    She held out her arm. She’d always been able to spot a crazy, never been wrong. Never.
    He shifted, knocking against the flashlight and rotating the beam toward a rotting wall, plunging her into darkness.
    A handcuff clamped on one wrist, then the other. She started to scream, but a viselike grip caught her throat and squeezed.
    She opened her eyes . I must have passed out . Her throat felt raw, her body broken. What a nightmare . . .
    Blinking her eyes, she tried to focus. She was lying on her side, both hands stretched in front of her on the floor.
    â€œAre you awake?” His voice stirred the hair by her ears.
    She cringed.
    â€œGood. Remember the number—”
    â€œOh—”
    â€œListen to me. Twenty-five, six.” The light glinted off the handcuffs and a metal shape.
    She’d seen a shape like that before . . .
    The shape moved and rose.
    She recognized it just before the hammer smashed her fingers, one by one.

CHAPTER THREE
    I WOKE WITH A START. A GAPING MOUTH LINED with gleaming teeth was inches from my face. Foul, hot air blew over me. The tongue splashed burning drops of saliva on my arm.
    Winston.
    I rolled over in bed and watched a glint of sunlight stream through the curtains. Something made today different. Drowsy, I slid my leg under the covers to the cool side of the mattress. That side of the bed was undisturbed for over a year and a half. Since my divorce.
    Winston sniffed my hair . Winston . Something about . . . the skull! I bounded from bed, startling the dog, and sprinted to the bathroom. I showered and dressed in record time. The stapled and taped paper sack waited on the table in my studio.
    After slipping on latex gloves, I took a craft knife and sliced into the side of the bag and nudged the skull free. A long-legged spider dropped from the eye orbit.
    I gagged and bolted away, then took off my shoe and annihilated the bug. That was probably a significant arachnid to a forensic entomologist. I debated saving the squished remains, then scooped them up with a paper towel and tossed the bundled mess in the trash. Let the entomologist find his own bugs.
    Moving to the floor-to-ceiling shelves filling the west wall of the studio, I retrieved a plastic container from the bottom shelf. I opened it and selected a packet filled with modeling clay. I propped the skull on a sculpting stand, a