Flirting With Pete: A Novel Read Free Page A

and in none of those had a body ever appeared. According to popular lore, what the quarry swallowed never came back up.
    Seeing nothing in the water, Dan ran his eye slowly around the rim of the bowl and into the edge of the woods. The fog played games with him now, creating the semblance of something alive, something human, before clearing and leaving nothing but stone, trees, moss.
    Suicide was a sin. Dan couldn’t condone what Jenny had done. But he knew how narrow her world had been. Within that narrow world, she had chosen what she had seen to be the lesser of two evils. He couldn’t find it in himself to condemn her for that.
    Darden Clyde was another matter. It struck Dan that Jenny had exacted the purest form of justice. In killing herself, she had robbed Darden of what he had most perversely wanted. She had left him alone in a hell of his own making.
    That pleased Dan. He wanted Darden tormented, and he wanted Jenny free. Though he grieved for her, he felt content. He guessed that was why the ache in his shoulder was gone.
    Suddenly tired, he drew in a deep breath. Exhaling, he hooked his hands on the waistband of his trousers. There was work to do. He should call in the report and get help here for the more focused search that would have to be done. But not yet. Not for another minute. There was something about this place, something peaceful, something at odds with the idea that a life had been lost here last night. Dan wanted to think that it was the spirit of Jenny Clyde wafting through the woods— Jenny Clyde free at last, and happy.
    Then the fog shifted. A flash of red, far below, caught his eye. He grew alert. The flash of red moved only the smallest bit, but it was enough to get him going.
    Unexpectedly, as he hurried back down, he felt a stab of disappointment. He had wanted Jenny to escape. There was no life for her here, not with Darden back.
    On the heels of that thought, the germ of another took root. If doing good was what mattered, there was possibility here.
    He raced down the boulder trail, sliding part of the way in his rush and not minding the sting in the least. At the bottom, he jogged into the woods toward the spot where the flash of red had appeared. He slowed as he neared, fearing that she would be spooked and would run away. But Jenny Clyde wasn’t moving. She was huddled over herself, a pitiful little bundle of shivering flesh with her face buried in her knees and her red hair shockingly vivid against all that pale skin.
    As he trotted the last few steps, he removed his jacket. He knelt by her side, covered her, and scooped her up. Without a word, he headed back to the Jeep. Once there, he tucked her inside, curled low enough in the passenger’s seat that she would not be seen. Then he slid behind the wheel and drove off.
    He took the back road out of town, the one he knew he would have to himself. When Jenny continued to shiver, he turned up the heat. She kept her head buried and didn’t say a word. He drove on.
    When he was well past the town limits and into a zone where his car phone reception was strong, he called information, got the number he wanted, and spent three minutes talking with an old college friend, who was perfectly happy to take two hours from work and meet him halfway.
    His father would have been livid. “Obstruction of justice!” he would bellow, ever the stickler about following the letter of the law. “You’re in big trouble, Dan-O, and so’s your friend. Is this what I sent you to college for?”
    But his father would never know. Nor would anyone else in town. The quarry would be dredged and the streambed searched. The consensus would be that her body had either been carried into the deeper, rougher whitewater of the river and wedged under a bed of rock, or lost to whatever mysterious force ruled the quarry.
    The cause didn’t matter, only the effect. For all practical purposes, Jenny Clyde was dead.

Chapter One
    Boston
    The memorial service was held in a