Read Online Cold Cold Heart by Tami Hoag - Free Book Online

that already too?”
    The forced little smile. “It’s okay.”
    Dana looked down at her phone and typed.
    3:26 PM Q: Y didn’t Rgr come 2 get me?
    â€œRoger wanted to come today,” her mother said, “but he had commitments.”
    ANSWER: He didn’t want to.
    â€œThen he didn’t really want to come, did he?” Dana said without emotion. “If he really wanted to come, he wouldn’t have made other plans, would he?”
    â€œThat’s not true, Dana,” her mother said. “Roger’s running for reelection, and he’s still running the business. He has a busy schedule that isn’t always under his control. That doesn’t mean you’re not important to him.”
    â€œJust that other people are
more
important,” Dana pointed out. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t like him anyway.”
    Her mother’s jaw dropped. “Dana! That’s not true!”
    â€œLynda! I’m pretty sure it is.”
    â€œYou and Roger have always gotten along!”
    â€œBut I don’t think I like him,” Dana insisted.
    â€œI don’t know why you’d think that. You just don’t remember; that’s all. He’s been like a father to you since you were fourteen. He’s been there for everything since your dad died—your school activities, graduation, college, moving you to Minneapolis. You don’t remember any of that?”
    Dana shrugged. Her memories of Roger Mercer were as adynamic as she was. They evoked no strong emotions in her. He was simply present in the pictures in her mind and the photographs on her phone. When she looked at those images, she couldn’t say what she felt about him. But she knew she didn’t like the man who had come to see her during her stay at the Weidman Center. He had shown up exactly once a month for a few hours on a Sunday. He had come out of duty and nothing else as far as Dana wasconcerned. He didn’t know what to say to her. He didn’t want to look at her. He grabbed any excuse to leave the room—a phone call, a coffee run, the men’s room, to check on the baseball game on the television in the visitors’ lounge. Maybe he had been close to Before Dana, but he wanted nothing to do with After Dana.
    She supposed she couldn’t blame him. She would have preferred Before Dana as well, but she didn’t have a choice.
    â€œYou’re just tired,” her mother declared.
    â€œAm I?”
    â€œLike Dr. Dewar said: Leaving the center is a big step. It’s a positive step, but it’s stressful, too. You have a lot of emotions swirling around inside of you—good and bad.”
    â€œNot really,” Dana lied. “I’m adynamic, remember? I don’t have emotions.”
    If her mother was going to say something, she swallowed the words back and kept her eyes on the road. One of the emotions Dana had just denied having bit her in the conscience. Guilt.
    She
was
tired, physically and mentally. She
did
feel the stress of taking this step. The Weidman Center was a safe place. Everybody knew her there. Everyone knew what to expect from her and of her. They were all used to looking at her. They didn’t know Before Dana. People back home
only
knew Before Dana. The idea of introducing them to After Dana made her sick to her stomach.
    What would people in the real world know about flooding or adynamia or any of the other strange storms that went on in the mind of someone who had been damaged the way she had been damaged? Nothing. The only people who could understand it were people who had gone through it—and the loved ones who had shared the experience.
    Like her mother.
    â€œI’m sorry,” Dana murmured.
    Her mother shook her head. Tears filled her eyes and choked her voice. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for.”
    Dana slid down in her seat and stared at the road ahead, uncomfortable with the notion of