Authors: Georgia Le Carre

Beauty and the Dark (25 page)

BOOK: Beauty and the Dark

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BLIND READER WANTED

(Only Females Need Apply)

Georgia Le Carre

One

Lara

I
push open the heavy wooden door of Durango Fall’s library and step into the still, hushed space. Other than my sculpting studio this is without a doubt my favorite place. I come here almost every day. I think I love the smell of old books mixed with pine floor cleaner and the lovely echo inside mostly empty, large stone buildings.

At this time of day there is usually no one around. I hear the water cooler gurgle in the left-hand corner of the room, and the lazy whirling sound the machinery inside the old heaters make. I shake the snow off my cap, take my thick gloves off and stuff them into my coat pockets. Swiping my white cane in smooth arcs in front of me, I take the twelve steps to the front desk.

Hannah Heinberger is usually on duty on Wednesday afternoons, but from her perfume, sage and roses, I know that Elaine is manning the desk today. They must have swapped shifts.

“Hey, Elaine,” I greet as I reach her.

“Ooo … just the person I wanted to see,” she says.

I can tell immediately that she is bursting to tell me some piece of juicy gossip. It’s funny how Elaine can always find salacious rumors in a town with a population of less than a thousand inhabitants. Notorious gossip or not she has a heart of gold and I cannot remember a time when we were not best friends.

I lay my left hand at the edge of the counter. Whatever the news is it has Elaine all fired up. She’s almost bubbling over with excitement.

“What is it?” I ask curiously.

She leans forward, disturbing the air. Her breath warm on my cold cheeks. “You’ll never guess who came in here this morning,” she cries triumphantly.

I keep my face straight. “Beyonce?”

“Fine. I just won’t tell you, and you’ll just miss the juiciest piece of information this town has heard in twenty years,” she huffs, irritated that I’ve spoilt her surprise. I mean, who can she come up with who’s better than Beyonce?

I grin. “Fine. I’m sure I’ll hear from Emma Jean.”

“I haven’t told her yet,” she says with great satisfaction.

“Elaine Crockett, I might miss the juiciest piece of information this town has heard in twenty years if you don’t tell me, but you’re going to burst if you don’t spill the beans.”

“Kit Carson,” she blurts out instantly.

“Kit Carson,” I echo, surprised. Well, well, this time she does have a juicy bit between her teeth.

Every small town has a loner, a mysterious, gruff, elusive, anti-social person who refuses to be part of the community. Kit Carson is this town’s ghost. He lives on a large track of wooded land that he has converted into some kind of wolf sanctuary. Occasionally, he will drive into town in his pickup truck, but he won’t make eye-contact, or speak to anyone other than to grunt.

I’ve heard he’s a hulk: six feet seven inches tall and broad as a brick house, but he walks with a slight limp, and has a scarred face that nobody has actually got a good look at.

Funny thing about Kit Carson is he’s turned the tables on our tiny town. We don’t take kindly to outside folk. You can live within our midst for fifty years and still be considered an outsider. Kit Carson was not born and raised local, and coming on his own like that without knowing a soul in our town, he was just plain asking for trouble.

He came to Durango Falls when I was about seventeen years old. I’ll be twenty-two in July. So he’s been around for five years now, and even though our men folk have tried to extend the hand of friendship to him, he outright refuses to have anything to do with us except of the commercial kind.

Two years ago Casey Goodnight said she saw dog tags peep out of his shirt while he was paying for steel cables at the hardware store. Yessir, that gave the whole town something to gossip about for many mornings after.

With falsely sweet voices the good townfolk picked apart the man’s “secret”. He must have been dishonorably discharged from the army. It’s pure shame that makes him avoid contact with the rest of humanity. He has no wife because what God fearing woman would want such a questionable man.

With time that particular piece of gossip morphed to -- he’s murdered her. People say they have heard the wolves howling on full moon nights while they were passing at the edge of his land.

The stories about him got weirder and weirder. Some of them are downright crazy. Serial killer stuff.

“Yup,” Elaine says, “the man strode in here this morning bigger than a tree, stuck up a piece of paper on the Job’s Board, and left. Not a word to anyone.”

“Wow,” I whisper. “What’s he looking for?” I thought she would say foreman, or housekeeper.

She takes a deep breath. “Are you ready for this?”

“What?” I ask, inexplicably intrigued by the mystery of it all.

“Maybe it’s better if I read it to you.” I hear her rustling a bit with the paper. “Right. Here we are you.” She pauses. “Blind Reader Wanted. Twice a week. Only females need apply. Kit Carson. And there is a phone number underneath.”

I shut my open mouth. I couldn’t have heard right.

“Did you say blind reader?”

“That’s what it says here.”

“What the hell is a blind reader?”

“A blind person who reads, I reckon.”

I frown. “What on earth would he want a blind reader for?”

“Here’s what I think,” Elaine whispers. “I think he’s ashamed of his scars. I think he doesn’t want anybody seeing them.” She catches a breath. “I think you should apply.”

“What? No. Are you mad? That advert is just weird.”

“Don’t be silly. The man’s not dangerous. He’s just anti-social.”

“Not dangerous! Aren’t you the one who said, he killed his wife and buried her in the woods and the wolves are there so no one goes looking for her bones?”

She giggles. “Well, I was bored that afternoon. Don’t you think it’ll be fun?”

“You just want me to apply so you’d have all kinds of new gossip to spread around.”

“What a thing to say? As if I’d do that to you. I’d apply if I were blind.”

“No you wouldn’t.

“Yes, I would,” she insists.

“Since when?” I demand.

“If he’d only look at me, I’d do him. The body on the man. He’s so hot I don’t mind melting on him.”

“Jesus, Elaine.”

“Anyway, you should totally apply, Lara. I mean, I’ll drive you there and sit in his living room and wait while you read for the man. So you’ll be totally safe. It’ll be fun. At the very least it’ll be interesting. Please, Lara. Have a heart. I’m dying of boredom here.”

“I knew it. You just want new gossip.”

“Besides it’ll do my eyes good. Man candy always does, especially the mysterious brooding kind.”

I laugh. “I didn’t know you were perving on him.”

“So are you going to do it or not?”

“I don’t know, Elaine. It’s awkward.”

“Look, if you don’t apply. I’m going to poke my eyes out and apply myself,” she growls.

I laugh. “I’ll think about it.”

“Call him now.”

“Oh, hell.”

Fast as lightning she dips her hand into my purse and extracts my mobile phone. Before I can protest I can hear her dialing.

“Elaine,” I cry out as a ringing tone sounds. It echoes in the silence of the library.

Weird. I feel my heart suddenly become still. As if something important is about to happen. Elaine thrusts the phone into my hand. I take it and bring it to my ear and it feels as if I have waited my whole life for this moment, and finally it is here. I exhale the breath I’m holding.

“Mr. Carson?” I croak.

“Speaking.” His voice is deep and smooth, but wary.

“My name is Lara Young and I’m … um … calling about the … uh … reading job. Can you tell me a bit more about it?”

“Are you blind?”

I blink with the directness of his question. “Well, I don’t carry a white cane for fun.”

“Fine. I’ll go through the job spec when I see you. When are you able to come to my home?”

“Er ...”

“Tomorrow at two o’clock,” Elaine whispers in my other ear.

“Tomorrow at two o’clock,” I tell him.

“Do you know the address,” he asks abruptly.

Elaine taps on my hand to indicate that she does. “Yes.”

“Two o’clock,” he says and rings off.