Read Online A Stranger Lies There by Stephen Santogrossi - Free Book Online

find the killer and then it’ll be over. We just have to keep it together until then.”
    â€œI don’t think I’ll get that scene out of my head any time soon,” I answered.
    â€œYou mean … when you found him?”
    I nodded, my eyes sliding away from her.
    â€œFucking Branson,” she muttered. “He had no right—”
    â€œI would have gotten to this point whether he’d unloaded on me or not. This is what happens when you screw up as bad as I did. It just keeps coming back. In different ways. Under different circumstances. Doesn’t matter if Turret’s been in prison all this time. In my mind he’s right here.”
    â€œHe doesn’t have anything to do with it, Tim.”
    â€œI know. I just wish my heart—and my gut—agreed.”
    Deirdre reached out and ran her hand through my hair, her voice close to a whisper. “There’s no way you can undo the mistake you made. I thought you’d come to terms with that.”
    â€œI thought so too. Maybe I was just fooling myself.”
    â€œBut it was so long ago. Why do you keep going back?”
    Because I haven’t found a way to fix it yet .
    Deirdre studied me for a moment. Then a look of defeat spread over her features. Maybe she recognized in me the same determination she drew on to guide her clients through their pain.
    â€œPlease leave it alone,” she said, knowing it wouldn’t change my mind.
    â€œI’m already involved, Deirdre. Whether I like it or not. At the very least, he died on our property. I can’t just let it go.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    I flashed on the image of the boy’s hand falling out of the body bag just before the door of the coroner’s van had shut, hanging over the stretcher in a silent entreaty. Nobody had noticed it but me.
    â€œYou know what it’s like being somebody’s last resort.”
    Deirdre looked away, unable to argue. “I don’t want to lose you. Sometimes it feels like you’re barely with me. That your only true companion is the guilt you’ve harbored for thirty years.” She put her head in her hands and when they came away, her voice was trembling. “The only person who can forgive you is yourself, Tim. It will come from here,” she said, tapping her chest, “but only when you let it all go. Don’t you see that?”
    I looked into the darkened hallway behind Deirdre, clawing at shadows. Deirdre stood up to leave, then turned back to me. “Aren’t I enough? Haven’t I filled up the dead spaces inside?”

CHAPTER FIVE
    Later I found myself in the workshop, which I’d converted from the two-car garage after I bought the place. It was quiet as a church, the extra sound-damping insulation I’d installed when Deirdre moved in working all too well tonight. None of the outside noises of traffic or wind were able to intrude, and the silence became oppressive and intimidating. Usually I could come out here and not have to think about anything—occupy my attention by working on some small, intricate item. Or use the noise of the power tools to drown out everything else.
    Now I wandered aimlessly between the benches and machinery, idly inspecting various pieces of unfinished work, turning them over in my hands without really seeing them. The polished metal equipment gleamed under the soft fluorescent light, and I could smell the sawdust I’d neglected to sweep up. One of the fixtures began to buzz and flicker randomly; the ballast would probably have to be replaced.
    I drifted toward the blinking bulb, thinking about everything Deirdre had said a few minutes earlier. She was in the shower now, washing off the day’s dirt while I brooded out here, sticky with sweat. In the solitude of the shop, the right thing to do became less clear-cut. Who was I really serving by not staying out of it? If I answered honestly, I knew it was only myself, not