Gathering Dark by Candice Fox (best life changing books txt) 📕

was damp with sweat. She settled back on her haunches and finally faced the fact that there was only one mental project that would take her away from this moment, from the little yellow stars crowding the cream universe beneath her. She let go, and thought about Blair Harbour.

She’d been wrong about the cheese sandwich. It was looking as though she was wrong about the view through Harbour’s window into the Orlov house. Like Diggy had said, it was possible these were meaningless variables in an otherwise solid case. But Jessica could feel the heat in the darkness. A strange, rising fever that wanted to envelop her. Jessica dried her hands and slid her phone out of her back pocket. She searched for Kristi Zea, Orlov’s girlfriend, the only witness to the murder. There was no social media profile, no links to any information on Zea that didn’t originate from news sites covering Orlov’s murder. That was strange. Zea had been a prolific social media user before the killing, with multiple accounts on different platforms. Jessica guessed the young woman had changed her name, tried to move on to a new life.

She stood and went to the smashed back window, decided to give the piss stains a rest for a while and see to the broken glass. It wasn’t a good idea to leave it lying here with the Harbour boy jumping the back fence and strolling over any time he wanted. She looked back at the meager supplies she had bought for the clean-up job. She hadn’t factored in the glass, too revolted by the urine on the carpet. She wondered if there was a broom and trash bags in the garage. She went there, unthinking, and opened the internal door.

It was the lights that did it. Fluorescents blinking to life, white eyes waking, reflecting on the polished concrete surface of the big, bare space. She remembered different things every time the flashbacks hit her. A sign above the door to the Lonscote Place garage, soldered into pine and lovingly polished—Garage-mahal. A joke gift from a family member, probably. The old battered red couch. Beer fridge. Rug. Framed photographs on the walls, hot rods and football teams, a lime-green Chevrolet parked in a field. The rippling shock of panicked pain that seemed to pass from her head to her toes as she turned and saw the man crouched over the old woman, bending to take another bite.

Jessica realized she was on her knees in the middle of the garage of the Bluestone Lane house when the doorbell rang. Her hands were gripping at her own throat, where air refused to pass. She staggered toward the front door, wiped at invisible creeping, itching feelings crawling up her arms and neck. Taking the gun from the counter was a thoughtless action. She didn’t expect any friendly visitors here.

She wrenched open the door and lifted the gun.

“Motherfucker,” Jessica sighed, shook her head. The anger was instant, washing over the terror that had gripped her in the garage. She had the gun pointed at the woman on the doorstep, out from her hip, cocked. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Blair Harbour paused, looked at the gun, then glanced into the street, where a group of women in jogging Lycra were standing on the corner, talking. The Harbour woman was older than Jessica remembered. Prison time was etched on her face. Ten years without proper food, sleep, or exposure to sunlight. Her chocolatey hair was pulled into a bun at the nape of her neck and her shoes were worn sneakers, the T-shirt and shorts combo something she could probably slap a cap on and call a uniform at whatever shitty job she’d managed to acquire since her release.

“It’s complicated,” Blair said. “Can I come in?”

“You must be lost. Your son’s house is over the back. I have nothing to say to you. I’ll give you thirty seconds’ head start, and then I’m calling the cops.” She flicked the gun sideways. “Go now.”

“Look, I just want to talk to you.”

“Beat it. This is your first and only warning.”

“It’s not about my case.”

Harbour held her hands up. Her eyes were big, full of emotion. Jessica remembered her at the defense table. How those soulful eyes had wandered through the jury, assessing faces as they looked at the crime scene photographs. The big blue eyes of a curious deer, like her son had.

“It’s not about my son, either,” Harbour said when Jessica didn’t answer. “He seems to like you living here.”

“I don’t live here.”

“Can we just talk?” Harbour glanced at the Lycra women again. “We’re causing a scene. And you’re not going to shoot me, because I’m not a threat to you. I come in peace.”

Jessica thought there was something pretty ironic about the Neighbor Killer’s stance on shooting people who were not a threat, but she didn’t have the sense of humor to make it. She went inside but kept the gun hanging, ready, by her thigh. Blair followed her through the living room to the first-floor kitchen, glancing thoughtfully at the pile of soap suds slowly dissolving on the otherwise empty living room floor that was visible through the large passageway.

“Here’s what’s not happening,” Jessica said when they arrived. “I’m not reviewing your case so you can seek exoneration and a payout from the state. I’m not appearing in a true crime documentary about you, and I’m not saying nice things about you to a judge so you can get custody of your son back. If you’re here to apologize as part of some bullshit twelve-step circle-jerk then do it and get out.”

“It’s not about any of those things.”

“Then what the hell do you want?”

Blair looked around for somewhere to sit or lean, but there was nothing available, only a kitchen bench that would have left her standing far too close to the cop who had arrested her. So she stood in the empty space, alone. The detective didn’t answer when Blair