Bloodfire Read Free Page A

also a sorta stay-at-home type. Loves to read.”
    Woman of contrasts. “Read what?”
    “Hey, I dunno. I’m not much of a reader myself. She’d usually have her nose in a magazine or a book, is all I know. Liked novels written by people I never heard of.”
    “She get them from the library or buy them?”
    “Bought them.”
    Carver said, “Okay, that’s something.”
    Ghostly rubbed the underside of his jaw with his thumb and forefinger, as if testing to see if he needed a shave. He suddenly seemed uncomfortable. Carver didn’t help him out, but instead sat staring at him. His move. His game, in fact.
    Finally Ghostly took a deep breath. “Okay, there’s some stuff I’m not telling you.”
    “You want me to find her,” Carver said, “it’ll be easier and faster if I know it all.”
    “All, huh?” Ghostly shifted his weight to his other leg. Then he stood more loosely. He seemed to have reached a decision about opening up to Carver, trusting him. “I wasn’t quite straight with you on a few of my answers, Carver.”
    “I got that impression.”
    “The big reason I came here instead of to the police is Beth’s habit.”
    “Drugs?” Well, what else—in Florida, with the wife of a medical supply salesman? Fingernail-chewing?
    Ghostly actually looked ready to sob. He blew out a long breath, flapping his lips the way horses do when they’re winded. “There’s doctors who use heroin to treat certain diseases, as a painkiller for patients sometimes in the final stages. Anyway, there are legal, medical uses for the stuff, if it’s prescribed by a physician. I sold it. And even with the careful controls kept on it, I found out about a year ago that Beth’s been pilfering it from my supplies. She confessed to me she was addicted.”
    “You get her any help?”
    “Treatment? I tried like hell, but she wouldn’t agree to it. She’s . . . well, she’s ashamed.”
    “So you’ve been supplying her on the sly.”
    “Yeah. Not much, though. And just before she left me, she’d agreed to use methadone, and if that didn’t work she’d check into a drug rehab clinic.”
    Now Carver understood how it might have gone. The wife knowing she was even more deeply hooked than her husband thought. Knowing, or believing, that she was on the long slide and there was no way off. Maybe she’d left him because he couldn’t understand. Maybe she didn’t want him to see her ride her habit all the way to the grave. She’d had reasons for running, had Beth Ghostly.
    There was little arrogance in Ghostly now. It had cost him, telling Carver this about his wife, and placed him in some jeopardy, too; supplying an addict, even a spouse, with a controlled substance was a crime. Technically, Carver was supposed to report it. Only the fact that Ghostly would deny their conversation kept him from even considering that ethical dilemma. The best thing all around would be for Beth to return to her husband and get treatment for her addiction, maybe have a chance. Some hell to live through, but a chance.
    Carver said, “She get narcotics anywhere except from you?”
    “Well, I guess I better be honest all the way. I think she did buy from someone else. I have no idea who, or where she got the stuff. My only reason for thinking it is that there’s no way she could have become so heavily addicted on what little I gave her. No way.” His eyes teared up. “I mean, Jesus, Carver, she’d beg for it! Do anything for it! It made me fucking sick!” He turned away for a moment to compose himself, then turned back slowly. His face was pale. “It still makes me ill to think about it,” he said.
    “And now she’s out there with only a few hundred dollars.”
    “Well, more than that. I lied about how much she left with. Last week I went to my bank and found she’d withdrawn exactly half our savings.”
    “Amounting to?”
    “Nearly ten thousand dollars.”
    “Enough to keep her in dope for a while, if she makes a connection and