Read The Calling for Free Online Page B

him.
    She asked to be dropped off at the station house.
They sat in the idling car. 'I can drive you home,'
Greene said. 'You should go home.'
    'My car's in back.'
    'I know you. You go in there and you won't come
out until tomorrow.'
    'I just want an hour to think,' she said.
    He stroked the wheel, looking out the wind-shield.
'There's nothing a CO would be able to tell
you right now that you don't already know.'
    'Don't read my mind, Ray. It's creepy.'
    'I'm just saying.'
    She twisted in her seat to face him. 'I should be
able to lead this investigation without worrying
there's no one in there to look after the shop.
That's what a commanding is supposed to do. Did
Central think this would never happen? That there
wouldn't come a day when something would
happen in this town that would need my full
attention?'
    'I wouldn't use the word think in connection
with Central.'
    'Six years, Ray. And counting. And if we guff
this, Mason will use it as proof that we should be
amalgamated.'
    'So let's not guff it, Skip. You have me and a dozen
good men and women in there who will put in the
time and effort. And, hey, you have Spere too.'
    'Don't remind me.' She opened the door. 'You
going home?'
    'Eventually.'
    'Uh-huh,' she said. 'Thanks for the pep talk.'
    She watched him drive south toward Main
Street. His house was north. South was the
Kilmartin Inn and the horse track.
    Back in her office, she put a call through to the
operator and asked her how to bypass a direct
connection to someone's line and get right into
their voicemail. She wrote down the method and
then dialled into Gord Sunderland's messages. 'Oh
hi, Gord,' she said. 'I'm sorry I missed you. In any
case, I'll be making a statement on the station
house steps Monday morning at nine. I'll see you
there.' She hung up and grinned at the silent
receiver.

4
    Sunday, 14 November, 7 a.m.
    He passed out of Westmuir and into Renfrew
County to the east. As the sun was coming up, he
was within fifty kilometres of the Linnet County
border, the last county before Quebec. The towns
in all of the province were much like the ones he'd
encountered in British Columbia and the Prairies –
outside of the cities, the villages appeared like
beads on a string along two-lane country roads, one
perhaps every fifteen or twenty kilometres, about
the distance between where you might have last
rested your horse and where you might want to stop
again. The villages were small, tiny even, some
with nothing more than a church, a store and a
Victorian post office long since converted to
another purpose: a pub now, a bed and breakfast, an
antique store. Here, in Humber Cottage, where he
pulled over after driving in a mainly easterly
direction for three hours, it was a small café. He
was tired and in need of something to eat.
    He'd sat with Delia until two in the morning,
doing his ministrations, cleaning up after himself,
and wandering around the house. Just before two,
when she was ready, he brushed her hair, sat her up
on the couch, and photographed her. He thanked
her then, blessing her, and took to the road. He
spent the rest of that day, Saturday, 13 November,
in a roadside forest, praying and resting. At 4 a.m.,
he'd got back into his car and started east again. At
6 a.m., he'd switched to smaller roads, and now, an
hour later, a predawn gloam was spreading a fan of
thick orange light over the few buildings that lined
this part of Highway 121 – the hamlet of Humber
Cottage – where he would breakfast.
    As he came to the door of the café, a pretty
woman in her mid-thirties unlocked it for him.
'Early riser?' she said.
    'Just passing through.'
    'Coffee isn't even on yet. Come in though.'
    He told her he didn't drink coffee, not to make
any on his account, that if she would bring him
some hot water, he would make his morning drink.
She brought him a little teapot, stained from years
of the hard water in this part of the province, and
watched him drop a pinch of grey leaf into the pot.
He swirled it