The Snow Falcon Read Online Free Page A

what an ex-con ought to look like.
    “So tell me, when did you get here?” Carl asked.
    “I just arrived.”
    “I’ve been expecting you ever since I got your last letter. I was starting to think maybe you’d changed your mind when you didn’t show up. I thought maybe I had the dates wrong, but when I called
     
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    that hospital—St. Helen’s?—they said you got out a couple of weeks ago.”
    “I decided to drive here,” Michael said.
    “All the way from Toronto? Jesus, that’s a long way. They have planes now, you know, Michael.”
    Michael shrugged. “I felt like driving.”
    It was something he didn’t feel like explaining. The fact was, he’d used some of the money his father had left him to buy a Nissan Patrol and had set out across the continent, following Route 1 all the way to the Rockies and across them before eventually turning north on Route 97 toward Williams Lake. He’d stayed in cheap motels, spending only as much time in them as he needed to sleep. The rest of the time he was either driving or sitting in diners at night sipping a beer and watching people come and go. A lot of the time he ate junk food, stopping at a Dairy Queen or a McDonald’s. The food in prison, and after that at St. Helen’s, had featured hamburgers and the like on a regular basis, but he’d learned that it was small things that people on the inside missed the most. For him, one of those things had been the particular taste of a Big Mac, even though it was something he’d hardly ever eaten before his life had disintegrated in such spectacular fashion. He supposed it had something to do with missing what he couldn’t have, and maybe it was just a way of stopping him thinking about the other, more important things he’d lost in his life. Maybe he should have mentioned it to Heller. The psychiatrist would have rubbed the side of his forehead with one finger and given that small disarming shrug. “What do you think, Michael?” He said that a lot, and sometimes Michael had wondered why he needed Heller at all if he had to figure everything out for himself.
    Driving to Little River Bend had been a way of getting used to the idea of having his freedom again. It had felt good to be surrounded by empty spaces, and every now and then he’d felt the need to stop just so he could walk around. Flying to Vancouver and then catching a local plane to Williams Lake would have made the transition all too sudden, the change too abrupt for him to absorb. He’d needed time to adjust, to prepare himself and think about things, though in all honesty he’d done precious little of that. All the way, a trepidation about returning had grown in him, to the point where
     
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    he’d considered just turning back. He didn’t, however, say any of this to Carl.
    Carl’s secretary tapped lightly on the door and came in carrying takeout coffee cups and a paper-wrapped bagel that she put on the desk. Michael saw the way she leaned over from the side, making sure she didn’t get too close, and when he thanked her, she still wouldn’t look directly at him. Carl didn’t seem to notice anything amiss and started unwrapping his sandwich.
    “You want cream or sugar?” he said with his mouth full.
    “No thanks.” The secretary left them, and when she’d gone Michael said, “I think she’s wary of me.”
    Carl looked to the door, his eyebrows rising. “Jenny? What makes you say that?”
    “Just a feeling, I guess.”
    Carl waved his hand. “She’s young. Don’t worry about her.”
    Carl started sorting through stuff on his desk while he drank his coffee and chewed his bagel vigorously. “By the way, Karen said to say hi when I saw you.”
    “Karen?”
    “My wife, you remember Karen White? We’ve got a couple of kids …” He passed over a photograph, then his expression fell. “Hell, me and my big mouth. I guess you probably don’t want to hear my happy-family talk. I wasn’t thinking.”
    “It’s okay,” Michael