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Carrie Nadeau


by David Ackley


As from anywhere on the hillside, Gary could look down and see inescapably the rooftops of the mill with pipes snaking from one building to the next. To this side was the black twisting stripe of the river, glinting orange here and there on ripples reflecting the halide lights over the millyard. After the silence,

Biscuit said, “ I heard they found Carrie Nadeau.”

Once she'd been gone for a week or so, some, most perhaps, assumed she'd jumped off the downtown bridge into the river. She wouldn't have been the first. Far from it, the bridge, with low rails and a long drop to the water, almost seemed to invite it. Numbers over the years had accepted—their easiest ticket out of a place they couldn't live in and couldn't seem to escape.

 

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