Chapter One
How It Ends
She woke naked on the bed, in a room she didn’t
recognize, her mind as clear of memory as the
sky outside her window was of clouds. A huge
pillow that smelled faintly of lavender cradled
her head. She was too warm and drew back the
covers so that she lay exposed on the white
sheet like a delicacy on a china plate.
She tried to sit up, far too quickly, and the
room spun. A minute later, she tried again, this
time rising gradually until she could see the
whole of the great bedroom. The bed itself was a
four-poster with a canopy. The armoire a few
feet distant was the color of maple syrup and
carved with ornate scrolling. On the walls, in
elegant, gilt-edged frames, hung oil paintings
of Mediterranean scenes, mostly with boats and
angry, blue-black seas. The magnificent red of
the Persian rug matched the thick drapes drawn
back to let in the morning light. None of this
was familiar to her. But there was one detail
that struck a welcome chord: an explosion of
daisies in a yellow vase on the vanity. Daisies,
she remembered, had always been her favorite
flowers.
A clean, white terry cloth robe had been neatly
laid out at the foot of the bed, but she ignored
it. She walked to the daisies and touched one of
the blossoms. Something about the fragility of
the petals touched her in return and made her
sad in a way that felt like grieving.
For whom? she wondered, trying to nudge aside
the veil that, at the moment, hung between her
perception and all her understanding. Then a
thought occurred to her. The birds. Maybe that
was it. She was grieving for all the dead birds.
Her eyes lifted to the vanity mirror. In the
reflection there, she saw the bruises on her
body. One on her left breast above her nipple,
another on the inside of her right thigh,
oval-shaped, both of them, looking very much
like the blue ghosts of tooth marks.
As she reached down and gingerly touched the
tender skin, she heard firecrackers go off
outside her window, two of them. Only two? she
thought. What kind of celebration was that?
She put on the robe, went to the door, and
opened it. Stepping out, she found herself in a
long hallway with closed doors on either side,
her only companions several tall standing plants
that were spaced between the rooms like mute
guardians. At each end of the hall, leaded
windows with beveled glass let in enough
daylight to give the emptiness a sense of benign
well-being that she somehow knew was false. She
crept down the hallway, listening for the
slightest sound, feeling the deep nap of the
carpet crush under the soles of her bare feet.
At last she reached a staircase that wound to
the lower level. She followed the lazy spiral
unsteadily, her hand holding to the railing for
balance, leaving moist fingerprints on the
polished wood that vanished a moment after her
passing.
She stood at the bottom of the stairway,
uncertain which way to turn. To her right, a
large room with a baby grand piano at its
center, a brick fireplace, a sofa and loveseat
of chocolate brown leather. To her left, a
dining room with a huge crystal chandelier and a
table large enough for a banquet. Sunlight from
a long window cleaved the table, and in the
bright gleam sat another vase full of daisies.
Drawn by the smell of freshly brewed coffee, she
moved through the dining room to the opened door
of the kitchen beyond.
A carafe of orange juice sat on the counter near
the sink, and next to it a glass, poured and
waiting. The smell of the coffee came from a
French-press coffeemaker that sat on a large
butcher-block island. An empty cup and saucer
had been placed on the block, as if she were
expected. A book lay there, too, opened to a
page that began, I couldn’t sleep all night; a
fog-horn was groaning incessantly in the Sound,
and I tossed half-sick between grotesque reality
and savage, frightening dreams.
The sliding glass door that overlooked the
veranda was drawn back, letting in the morning
air, and she walked across the cool black and
white kitchen tiles to the doorway. From there,
she could see the back of the estate with its
pool set into the lawn like a piece of cut
turquoise. Beyond was the blue-gray sweep of a
great body of water that collided at the horizon
with a cornflower sky. Beside the pool stood a
man in a yellow windbreaker with the hood pulled
up. Although she couldn’t see his face, there
was something familiar in his stance. She
stepped outside, not bothering to slide the door
closed behind her.
It was a chilly morning. The cold marble of the
veranda made her feet ache, but she paid no
attention, because something else had caught her
eye. A crimson billow staining the blue water.
She descended the steps and followed a limestone
walk to the apron of the pool.
The body lay on the bottom, except for the arms,
which floated free, lifted slightly as if in
supplication. The swimming trunks were white,
the skin tanned. She couldn’t see the wounds,
only the blood that leaked from somewhere
underneath, gradually tinting the turquoise
water a deep rose.
The standing man turned his head slowly, as if
it were difficult, painful even, for him to look
away from death. The sun was at his back, his
face shadowed, a gun in his hand.
She recognized him, and the thought of what he’d
just done pulled her heart out of her chest.
“Oh, Cork, no,” she whispered.
When he heard his name, his hard, dark eyes grew
soft. Corcoran O’Connor stared at his wife, at
her clean robe, her bare feet, her hair still
mussed from a night she barely remembered.
“Jo,” he said, “I came to bring you home.”
(Continues…)
Excerpted from Mercy Falls
by William Kent Krueger
Copyright © 2005 by William Kent Krueger.
Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Atria
Copyright © 2005
William Kent Krueger
All right reserved.
ISBN: 0-7434-4588-0
