Read Online Dark Lie (9781101607084) by Nancy; Springer - Free Book Online

Lewinski was a thoroughly nice young guy, kind of weedy-looking in a freckly redheaded way, thin, narrow-jawed, maybe just a trifle light in his loafers. That didn’t matter to Sam. Live and let live, and anyway, he liked Lewinski. The pastor’s Sunday messages generally spoke of love and joy within the comforting limits of God’s embrace. Funny how the same church could include all kinds of people, such as Dorrie’s gloom-and-doom parents, when the pastor wasn’t that way at all.
    â€œI seem to be missing a wife.” Sam tried to make it light. “Any idea where she could be?”
    But Pastor Lewinski couldn’t help. No, there was nothing involving Dorrie going on at the church. No, the pastor hadn’t seen her today. In a wry tone that indicated he realized the unlikeliness of his suggestion, he asked, “Is it at all possible that she’s gone to visit her parents?”
    Lewinski knew Dorrie’s parents, of course, because they were longtime members of the church. Old-school. They, not Dorrie or the pastor, had required Sam to join their church in order to marry their daughter. They, of course, were the first people Sam should have called regarding Dorrie’s whereabouts, and the last people on earth he wanted to call. Whenever Sam had to deal with Mother and Father Birch, he ended up shaking his head, wondering how in God’s name Dorrie—sweet, tolerant, patient Dorrie—had ever been born of such a narrow, negative woman and man. Dorrie excused them to him by saying they had gotten worse with age.
    â€œHello.” Dorrie’s mother. Her voice sounded just as usual: flat and comfortless, like her bosom.
    Sam found himself speaking too brightly. “Hello, Mother Birch, this is Sam. How are you?” Feeling like a hypocrite for asking.
    â€œThe same.”
    â€œBy any chance is Dorrie there?”
    â€œCandor? No. Why should she be?”
    â€œBecause she isn’t here.” Instantly Sam wished he’d bitten back the retort. If Dorrie’s parents got worried, he’d feel bad. If they didn’t get worried, he’d feel even worse.
    â€œI should have expected that.” Deep disapproval resonated in Mother Birch’s voice.
    â€œWhat? Why?”
    â€œBecause of the power of the devil in her.”
    The old witch, she didn’t sound the least bit concerned, only critical. But Mother Birch often said judgmental things about Dorrie. Up until now Sam had ignored them.
    This time he demanded, “How can you say such a thing? What has Dorrie ever done that was so bad?”
    He heard a mirthless snort. “Look under her mattress.”
    â€œWhat?”
The old meat cleaver was nuts.
    â€œLook under her mattress. That’s where she hid the filth she read—”
    Sam burst into nervous laughter. “Romance novels? Mother Birch, I know all about them.” Most evenings, while he watched TV, Dorrie read a novel—not just romances, sometimes pretty highbrow stuff—and it never ceased to amaze him how she entered into the novel the way she could enter into a Pre-Raphaelite painting, totally in another world, deaf to the voices of the news anchors and the new-car advertisements.
    â€œFilth,” repeated the old woman stonily. “Devil only knows what she keeps there now. You look.”
    Sam had no intention of looking under Dorrie’s mattress. He took a deep breath, then asked calmly, “Mother Birch, do you have any idea where Dorrie might have gone?”
    â€œIn that automobile you went and got her? To hell. Pray for her soul.”
    Sam preferred to worry about his wife’s physical safety. “You pray for her,” he said as gently as he could. “I’m going to call the police and the hospitals to see whether she’s been in an accident.”

FOUR
    T hings look very different when you’re a couple of decades older, the adult at the steering wheel, not the