Sentinels (Harbingers) , livre ebook

Baker Publishing Group - Angela Hunt

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38 pages

English

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Description

Andi, Professor McKinney's brilliant-but-geeky assistant, begins to have troubling dreams of thousands of animals around the world mysteriously dying. What could it mean? When her dreams become a reality, Andi discovers a pattern in the mass deaths. But her theory doesn't bode well for humankind--and the team could soon face an even greater disaster.

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Thriller

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Publié par	Baker Publishing Group
Date de parution	11 avril 2017
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781441231338
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0086€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
© 2017 Angela Hunt
Published by Bethany House Publishers
11400 Hampshire Avenue South
Bloomington, Minnesota 55438
www.bethanyhouse.com
Bethany House Publishers is a division of
Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan
www.bakerpublishinggroup.com
Ebook edition created 2017
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
ISBN 978-1-4412-3133-8
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the authors’ imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Cover design by Gearbox
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
Epilogue
Selected Books by Angela Hunt
CHAPTER 1
I was sitting on the edge of my grandparents’ deck, bare legs swinging in the sun, when Abby trotted out of the house and sat beside me. “Abs!” I slipped my arm around her back and gave her a hug; she returned my affection by licking my cheek. “Stop that, silly. You know I’m ticklish.”
As if she understood, Abby straightened and joined me in staring at the sea oats and the white sandy beaches of the Gulf of Mexico. We had sat in this same spot hundreds of times in our growing-up years . . . me, the geeky high-schooler, and Abby, the ungainly Labrador pup. Somehow we had both outgrown our awkwardness.
I ran my hand over the back of her head, then scratched between her ears. My heart welled with nostalgia as tears stung my eyes. “I’ve missed you, Abs,” I whispered. “All that time away at college . . . I wish you could have been with me. Maybe I wouldn’t have been so homesick if you were there.”
She whimpered in commiseration, then gave me another kiss.
My throat tightened at the thought of eventually losing her. Big dogs tend to have shorter lifespans, and all the books said Labs lived an average of twelve to fourteen years. Which meant I’d only have my girl for another five or so years. . . . I had to get home more often.
Abby pricked up her ears, pulled away from me, then jogged down the deck steps.
“Abs! You know you’re not supposed to go down to the beach.”
When it suited her, Abby had selective hearing. She dove into the bed of sea oats. I couldn’t see her in the thick undergrowth, but the tasseled heads of the stalks bent and trembled as she passed by.
“You’re going to get sand spurs in your coat!”
No answer except the rustle and crunch of dry vegetation. Then a warning bark, followed by a throaty growl.
She had probably found a rat, but for some reason her growl lifted the hairs on my arm. I stood and walked to a better vantage point, hoping to spot her. “Abby!” I brightened my voice. “Want a treat? A cookie?”
Another bark, and then a sharp yelp, followed by a frenzy of rustling and crunching. Then Abby began to cry in a constant whine as she retraced her steps, moving faster this time. Had she found a snake? Venomous snakes were not common on the beach, but this was Florida. . . .
I flew down the stairs, drawn by the urgency in her tone. “Abs! Come here, honey. Come on, baby, come on out.”
If she’d been bitten, I had only minutes to get her to a vet. My grandparents had left a car in the garage, keys on the ring by the door . . .
Abby appeared in the pathway. She lifted her head for an instant and wriggled her nose, parsing the air for my scent. Then she ran to me, barreling into my legs and knocking me onto the sand.
“Abs?” She was on top of me, thrashing her head while she whined, and with great difficulty I managed to catch her jowls. “Abs, honey, let me look—”
My breath caught in my throat. Abby’s panicked breaths fluttered over my face as I stared into what had once been gentle brown eyes but were now empty, blood-encrusted caverns.
Everything went silent within me, and I screamed.

My grandmother’s expensive sofa had a flaw in its fabric, but I didn’t think Safta had noticed. The tiny dotted pattern wasn’t arranged in perfectly straight lines, resulting in a slight variation that must have caused a problem for the upholsterer. Then again, perhaps a machine assembled this piece, and most machines had no feelings.
Lucky machines. Apparently the deviation in this upholstery pattern had been enough to evoke a horrific nightmare in my afternoon nap. My heart pounded for ten minutes after I woke up, then I bent down and gave Abby a huge hug, relieved to find her alive and well. But the minute I put my head back on the sofa pillow, a lingering sense of dread enveloped me.
I released a pent-up sigh. I’d been at my grandparents’ beach house for a full twenty-four hours, but being home hadn’t helped me relax as much as I’d hoped. Being with family usually took my mind off my work, but my grandparents had taken their jet to Miami to attend a wedding, leaving me to examine patterns on the couch, watch the professor read, and suffer quiet nightmares.
“Andi?” As if he’d overheard my thoughts, the professor lowered his book and waggled a brow. “Your grandparents have anything to snack on around here?”
“I’m sure they do. Let’s go to the kitchen.”
I rolled off the sofa and led the way to the ultra-modern kitchen Safta rarely used. Because she and Sabba now lived alone in this big house, they tended to eat out a lot. But my grandfather liked to snack, so the pantry was usually stocked with goodies.
Like a hungry puppy, the professor followed me to the kitchen, then craned his neck forward as I opened the pantry door. “Almonds,” I said, reading the labels on cans and boxes. “Matzo crackers, cheese crackers, chocolate cookies, Oreos, and pretzel sticks. Yum, and these.” I reached for a bag of jalapeño chips, my personal favorite. “If you like hot and spicy—”
“I like almonds.” The professor reached past me and grabbed a can from the shelf, then popped the top. Then he hopped on a barstool, picked up the book he’d been reading, and tossed a handful of nuts into his mouth.
I understood why he was hanging around—just as I understood why he’d been reading in the living room instead of the guest room. We were both still recovering from a harrowing experience in Port Avalon, and neither of us wanted to be alone.
“Nice place your grandparents have here,” the professor said, his gaze moving to the wide sliding glass door with the ocean view. “Nice of them to let us hang out here for a couple of days.”
“I know.”
I crossed my arms and wished I could think of some way to dispel the creepy memories of Port Avalon. When I learned that the next stop on the professor’s speaking circuit was the University of Tampa, I had invited my grandparents to come hear him, since they lived only a few miles away. They passed up the opportunity to hear the professor speak on the toxicity of believing in God in a postmodern culture, but insisted that the professor and I drive over to spend the next few days with them. Of course I’d said yes—how could I refuse the people who raised me?—but my dreams of lying in warm sand vanished when I woke up this morning and spotted the cloudy horizon. Rain began to fall shortly thereafter, and the day had been melancholy, wet, and dismal ever since.
The professor didn’t seem to notice the weather. This morning I found him reading one of my books on chaos theory, and even though I knew he disagreed with the premise, he seemed entranced by the topic. Occasionally he snorted as he read, sometimes he laughed aloud, and more than once I watched him scribble a note in the margin. When he finished, he’d probably quiz me on the topic, asking how I could possibly believe that the laws of science and order held room for any variation or exception.
I could answer him easily enough. All I had to do was remind him about Port Avalon, where few things had operated according to natural laws.
I walked to the fridge and dug around in the produce drawer, hoping to find something crunchy. I came up with a single scrawny carrot, which I carried to the sink. I’d no sooner finished washing it when Abby ran to my side, sat politely, and looked at me, her eyes plaintively asking for a treat.
Caught by the powerful undertow of memory, I had to resist a strong impulse to bend down and kiss those beautiful brown eyes.
I looked around for the old doggie cookie jar, but Safta’s counters were now clean and bare.
“What do you want, Abs?”
The dog lifted a paw, politely asking for—what?
I followed her gaze and realized she was staring at the carrot. “You want a carrot?”
She whined.
“Okay, then.” I pulled a knife from the cutlery drawer, chopped off the stub, and held out the rest. “Enjoy your vegetable.”
Abby took the carrot between her teeth, then stood, wagged her tail in a polite thank-you, and trotted off to enjoy her prize.
“Well-trained dog,” the professor remarked. “Probably heard the sound of the refrigerator drawer.”
I shrugged. “She’s always been smart. Maybe she knew that carrots were the only decent snack in the fridge.”
The professor cast me a reproachful glance. “You shouldn’t indulge in anthropomorphism, Andi. Assigning human qualities to animals is the stuff of children’s tales and fables.”
“But you’re always telling me that humans are animals,” I countered. “And in your speech yesterday you pointed out that human DNA is 98 percent identical to that of a gorilla.”
“Another proof of our evolutionary history,” the professor answered. “But though there is very little difference between man and the primates, what little there is, is very important. Man evolved in ways the gorilla did not, in language, social and emotional developmen