Read Over the Line for Free Online Page A

streetlight on the corner—the only one I’ve seen since we crossed the bridge. On one side, there’s a diner sandwiched between a random white church on the corner and a decrepit auto shop with a rusty sign that says MURDOCK & SON. Across the street is the police station and a grocery store. The town passes in a blink, then we’re plunged into darkness again. Not long later, Delgado takes a right and heads up a narrow dirt road. I wait until I can hardly see the glow of his taillights to follow. But just as I turn in, they fade out altogether. I stop in my tracks and cut my engine, killing my headlights. I roll down the window and listen for several beats of my hammering heart.
    Nothing but the distant roll of waves.
    At this time of night, there’s nowhere he’d be going except to wherever he intends to sleep. That might not be his house, but wherever it is, it can’t be too far up this road. I climb out of the car and proceed on foot.
    It turns out to be maybe three hundred yards to where the sandy street dead-ends. There are only two driveways, both on the left, and I’m sure I tracked his taillights past the first. The second winds up a gradual slope toward a house that stands silhouetted against the moonlight.
    I start up the hill, staying to any shadows I can find, which aren’t many. The drive curves around the weathered shingled house toward the front, which faces away from the road, toward a bluff that looks out over the dark ocean. Up top, the blue Chevy is parked between a green VW Beetle and a Harley Davidson Low Rider near a covered front porch that runs the length of the house.
    The house is dark except for a faint glow in a second-story window that overlooks the driveway. As I stand watch in the shadow of a scrub oak, a bare-chested Robert Delgado fills the window. He gives the window a tug, opening it, then braces his hands on the frame and stares out toward where I can distinctly hear the roll of waves beyond a bluff thirty feet or so past where I am. He steps away, and a moment later the window goes dark.
    I head down the driveway and jog up the road to my car. I spend the next hour as the sun rises driving the island of Port St. Mary to get the lay of the land. I’m going to get one crack at this. I can’t blow it. The more I know, the better my chances.
    A quarter mile from the center of the sorry excuse for a town I passed on the way in, there’s what looks like an elementary school, and closer to the bridge I crossed to get here is a fire department and post office. Other than that, it’s homes and marshland. The houses on the north end of the island, closer to town and Delgado’s house, are older and more weather-beaten, but the south side of the island is where the money is. There are what look like vacation homes, many of which have security gates and stretches of private beach.
    When the adrenaline spike finally starts to ebb, I head toward the mainland and find a fleabag hotel in Loveland. I check the room over and, though the walls are thin enough I can hear my neighbor’s TV, the headboard is bolted to the wall and seems sturdy enough. That might come in handy if Lee decides to make this difficult. As I drift into sleep for the first time in days, I formulate my plan.
    ***
    The next morning, as I’m waiting at the end of a driveway on the main street near the turnoff to Delgado’s road, I hit pay dirt. The green Beetle that was parked in the driveway next to Delgado’s Chevy sputters past. In the light of day, there’s no mistaking the driver.
    Lee.
    I’m totally unprepared for my body’s reaction. My heart pounds against my ribs, my palms slick, and spots flash in my eyes.
    When I finally remember to breathe, I crank the engine and follow her, much less concerned about being spotted this morning. She drives to the center of town and pulls into the lot in front of the diner I noticed last night.
    I need her alone for this to work. The plan is to grab her, get her back to the