Read Prayers for Rain Online

Authors: Dennis Lehane

Tags: #Mystery, #Thriller, #Suspense, #Contemporary, #Politics

Prayers for Rain

BOOK: Prayers for Rain
2.4Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads
DENNIS LEHANE
 
 
PRAYERS FOR RAIN
 
 

For my friends
John Dempsey, Chris Mullen, and Susan Hayes,
who let me steal some
of their best lines
and don’t sue
.

 

And
Andre,
who is deeply missed
.

 
 

I heard the old, old men say,
“All that’s beautiful drifts away Like the waters.”

 

—W. B. Y
EATS

 
Contents
 
 
 
 

1

The first time I met Karen Nichols, she struck me…

 
 

2

Cody Falk drove a pearl-gray Audi Quattro, and at nine-thirty…

 
 

3

It would be six months before I gave any serious…

 
 

4

When I walked through his front door with Tony Traverna,…

 
 

5

What we presume about strangers when we first meet them…

 
 

6

The inside of Pickup on South Street, David Wetterau’s fledgling…

 
 

7

I called Devin again, woke him up.

 
 

8

Karen Nichols’s mother and stepfather, Carrie and Christopher Dawe, lived…

 
 

9

Dr. Christopher Dawe stood in his doorway and watched me…

 
 

10

Cody Falk rose at six-thirty the next morning and stood…

 
 

11

I did several quick squats to return blood to my…

 
 

12

The priest who presided over the noon mass at Saint…

 
 

13

The Holly Martens Inn sat fifty yards off an overgrown,…

 
 

14

There was a barn out back, about three hundred yards…

 
 

15

I had taken my work to a bar when Angie…

 
 

16

Dr. Diane Bourne’s office was housed on the second floor…

 
 

17

I called Bubba from the car. “What are you doing?”

 
 

18

Miles Lovell left his house shortly after sundown as the…

 
 

19

Three days after Miles Lovell was admitted to ICU, Dr. Diane Bourne…

 
 

20

Rain fell softly on sun-drenched streets the afternoon I met…

 
 

21

I turned in my chair, looked into the restaurant for…

 
 

22

The morning after I had my encounter with Wesley in…

 
 

23

Bubba can barely read or write. He has just enough…

 
 

24

On Monday we went to work in earnest. Angie planned…

 
 

25

“So where you parked, Wes?” I asked as we left…

 
 

26

“That’s her,” I said as Siobhan walked down the Dawes’…

 
 

27

Information about Wesley, or the man who called himself Wesley,…

 
 

28

“I want to burn him alive,” I said to Angie…

 
 

29

I spent the week sitting on Scott Pearse—following him to…

 
 

30

Angie woke me at five in the morning, warm palms…

 
 

31

“He keeps files on everyone,” Siobhan said. “He has a…

 
 

32

The next morning, as Scott Pearse loaded mail into a…

 
 

33

Last night, as soon as the police had passed him…

 
 

34

“We’re driving to Plymouth,” Angie said as we turned onto…

 
 

35

Christopher Dawe drove home to his wife with instructions to…

 
 

36

I was in the hospital for five weeks. The bullet…

 
 

37

“Mr. Kenzie,” Wesley said when I found him down by…

 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

In the dream, I have a son. He’s about five, but he speaks with the voice and intelligence of a fifteen-year-old. He sits in the seat beside me, buckled tightly, his legs just barely reaching the edge of the car seat. It’s a big car, old, with a steering wheel as large as the rim of a bicycle tire, and we drive it through a late December morning the color of dull chrome. We are somewhere rural, south of Massachusetts but north of the Mason-Dixon Line—Delaware, maybe, or southern New Jersey—and red-and-white-checkered silos peek up in the distance from furrowed harvest fields frosted the pale gray of newspaper with last week’s snow. There is nothing around us but the fields and the distant silos, a windmill frozen stiff and silent, miles of black telephone wire glistening with ice. No other cars, no people. Just my son and myself and the hard slate road carved through fields of frozen wheat
.

My son says, “Patrick
.”


Yeah?


It’s a good day
.”

I look out at the still gray morning, the sheer quiet. Beyond the farthest silo, a wisp of dusky smoke rises from a chimney. Though I can’t see the structure, I can imagine the warmth of the house. I can smell food roasting in an oven and see exposed cherry beams over a kitchen constructed of honey-colored wood. An apron
hangs from the handle of the oven door. I feel how good it is to be inside on a hushed December morning
.

I look at my son. I say, “Yeah, it is
.”

My son says, “We’ll drive all day. We’ll drive all night. We’ll drive forever
.”

I say, “Sure
.”

My son looks out his window. He says, “Dad
.”


Yeah
.”


We’ll never stop driving
.”

I turn my head and he is looking up at me with my own eyes
.

I say, “Okay. We’ll never stop driving
.”

He puts his hand on mine. “If we stop driving, we run out of air.


Yeah
.”


If we run out of air, we die
.”


We do
.”


I don’t want to die, Dad
.”

I run my hand over his smooth hair. “I don’t either
.”


So we’ll never stop driving
.”


No, buddy.” I smile at him. I can smell his skin, his hair, a newborn’s scent in a five-year-old’s body. “We’ll never stop driving
.”


Good
.”

He settles back in his seat, then falls asleep with his cheek pressed to the back of my hand
.

Ahead of me, the slate road stretches through the dusty white fields, and my hand on the wheel is light and sure. The road is straight and flat and lies ahead of me for a thousand miles. The old snow rustles as the wind picks it off the fields and swirls small tempests of it in the cracks of tar in front of my grille
.

I will never stop driving. I will never get out of the car. I will not run out of gas. I will not get hungry. It’s warm here. I have my son. He’s safe. I’m safe. I will never stop driving. I will not tire. I will never stop
.

The road lies open and endless before me
.

My son turns his head away from my hand and says, “Where’s Mom?


I don’t know,” I say
.


But it’s okay?” He looks up at me
.


It’s okay,” I say. “It’s fine. Go back to sleep
.”

My son goes back to sleep. I keep driving
.

And both of us vanish when I wake
.

BOOK: Prayers for Rain
2.4Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Good Hope Road by Lisa Wingate
Storm at the Edge of Time by Pamela F. Service
The Golden Circle by Lee Falk
Harry's Sacrifice by Bianca D'Arc
The Murder of Mary Russell by Laurie R. King
A Pretend Engagement by Jessica Steele
News From Elsewhere by Edmuind Cooper