Bone Rattle by Marc Cameron (best ereader for pdf .TXT) 📕

trial – though he had another bombshell in his passenger seat. “I need to go back to the hotel and get out of this monkey suit.”

“The hotel sounds like a good idea,” Ensley said. She took his hand as he drove out onto Egan, guiding it to the hem of her dress, which was conveniently above her knee.

They were staying at the Super 8, way out by the airport. Her idea. It was quieter, with fewer scrutinizing eyes than the Sheraton or Baronof, more upscale hotels, but both downtown.

“I guess we have a minute,” he said, his mouth going suddenly dry.

Ensley wasn’t one to pout. She was too aggressive for that. Instead, she pushed his hand off her thigh and folded her arms as if it was all the same to her.

“It takes twenty minutes to get there,” Tyler said, working through the timeline in his mind. “Even from the hotel. And we need to get there early.”

Ensley brightened. “I get to come to the meeting?”

“Sure,” Tyler said, regretting it as soon as he said the words. “But you have to stay in the car.”

“Okay,” Ensley said. “So where is it?”

“Some kind of remote chapel. The Shrine of St. Therese.” He took a chance and put his hand back on her thigh, letting his little finger sneak under the hem of her skirt. She didn’t push it away. “I’d never heard of it.”

Ensley shuddered. “I’ve been there,” she said. “It’s a little stone church surrounded by humongous trees. Out on this quaint little peninsula. Quiet. Kinda spooky, really.”

She was so beautiful.

Tyler nodded to himself. “Good place to meet a secret informant then.”

“I suppose,” she said. “Only one way in and one way out, unless you have a boat. It’s a ways out past Auke Bay.”

Chapter 17

The guy at the corner market where Mim bought firewood suggested Auke Bay was a good place for a picnic.

The twins were going spastic with unbridled energy by the time Arliss picked them up. Lola came with him, which was great because she always played with the boys. Arliss wasn’t one to download much after a day at work, but he told Mim enough she got the gist of what was going on. The sequestration sounded like it was going to be a hassle, but the judge had recessed court early, and Arliss didn’t have to be back until the following morning.

It sounded like he’d not been happy with the level of security on the jail run and upped it, ruffling a few feathers of the inspector who’d planned everything. Mim was glad to hear he’d erred on the side of extra security. Frankly, the idea of driving around in a car with a couple of shackled drug dealers in the back seat terrified her. Arliss did that every day.

The fog and drizzle that had hung over Juneau when they arrived that morning turned into what Ethan used to call “severe clear.” Rainbows graced every waterfall, and impossibly green mountains rose straight up from a sun-dazzled sea. Mim had heard all kinds of stories about Southeast Alaska’s “liquid sunshine,” the endless fog and rain – but today turned out to be the perfect afternoon for a picnic.

Lola was playing some word game in the back seat with the boys before they’d gone a mile. Mim felt sorry for her. Most of her large and boisterous family had moved back to the Cook Islands, and it was easy to see that she missed their noise. She had the twins call her Auntie Lola, which, Mim hoped, might make her feel more like part of the family.

Arliss had given each boy a knife to strap to his belt, making them promise to leave them sheathed until he got them set up with some sticks to carve. Fortunately, they made it to Auke Village picnic area before the boys forgot that rule and shredded the upholstery in the back seat of the rental.

As was his custom, Arliss took a moment to get a lay of the land as soon as they arrived. He made no secret of the fact that each of his four previous wives had chided him for the way he checked out everyone at a restaurant when he walked in the door. Mim had even joked when he’d gone to church with her that it looked like he was trying to find someone to fight before he sat down.

“Trying to see if there’s anyone there who needs fighting,” he’d said, only half joking.

Their rental car shared the small, roadside parking area with a lone Toyota. There was a rusted copper van parked a hundred yards away at another pull-off. A quick look through the huge evergreens over the railing showed there were at least two wood pavilions and several fire rings on the gravel beach fifty yards below. A tiny stream tumbled down the steep incline beside a set of expanded metal stairs. Mim’s tolerance for other people was much greater than Arliss’s, which seemed to hover somewhere around immediate family plus… well, just immediate family was best. There seemed to be enough room here for several groups to picnic without bumping into one another. The boys scrambled around the rental, throwing spruce cones at each other. Matthew slid to a sudden stop, trying to sound out the Tlingit name of picnic area number three, written on a sign above the railing.

“Ts’eegeeni,” he said, surely butchering the pronunciation.

“Magpie,” Michael read the word above in his usual of-course-itis tone, as if he’d always known that Ts’eegeeni meant magpie.

The boys raced down the stairs, making it halfway to the ocean before Arliss whistled them back to help with the picnic stuff.

“What Grumpy Man-Rule am I thinking of?” he said when they came trudging up the metal steps.

Michael scratched his head.

Matthew groaned. “A man doesn’t play until the chores are done…”

Cutter had the boys’ full attention when he let them build the fire – using a fire steel and a couple of cotton balls dipped in Vaseline he’d