Read Online Don't Cry Now by Joy Fielding - Free Book Online Page A

the child standing wistfully in front of a giant stuffed kangaroo, one hand at her mouth, her thumb lost between her lips, the other hand in the paw of the huge stuffed marsupial. The photograph had made the front page of the Life section of the Globe . Bonnie had a large framed copy of it sitting on her desk at home.
    â€œI don’t understand,” Bonnie said again, her voice echoing the numbness she was feeling. She looked over at Sam and Lauren. “Why would your mother keep a scrapbook like this?”
    But Sam and Lauren said nothing, their silence underlining either ignorance or disinterest, perhaps a combination of both.
    â€œThere’s a Nick Lonergan listed in here,” Detective Kritzic announced, holding Joan’s address book into the air, as if it were a Bible.
    Bonnie was conscious of her heart starting to race. “That can’t be,” she protested, feeling that she was sinking into quicksand and grabbing for Rod’s arm for support. “They didn’t even know each other.”
    Detective Kritzic read the number aloud.
    Bonnie nodded recognition. “That’s my father’s number,” she said, then lapsed into silence. How many times could she say, “I don’t understand”?
    â€œDid your mother own a gun?” Captain Mahoney asked, switching the focus of his questioning to Sam and Lauren. If he had any more questions about what her brother’s name might be doing in Joan’s address book, he was keeping them to himself.
    â€œYes,” Lauren said.
    â€œShe kept it in the top drawer of her dresser,” Sam added, pointing to the tall walnut armoire that stood beside the window on the wall opposite the bedroom door, its bottom drawers open, several bright-colored blouses hanging over the sides.
    Two large strides brought Captain Mahoney to the armoire. He pulled open the top drawer, sweeping his hand across Joan’s more intimate belongings, several pairs of panty hose escaping his grasp to float aimlessly to the floor and land gently across the top of his black shoes. “What kind of gun was it, do you know?”
    â€œI don’t know anything about guns,” Sam said.
    â€œAsk my dad,” Lauren told him. “It was his gun.”
    All eyes turned to Rod, who looked as stunned as Bonnie had felt only moments ago.
    â€œI thought you said you didn’t own a gun, Mr. Wheeler,” Captain Mahoney reminded him.
    â€œI used to have a thirty-eight revolver,” Rod stammered, after a pause. “Frankly, I’d forgotten all about it. Joan kept it after we separated. She claimed she was afraid to be alone.”
    â€œThere’s no gun here,” Captain Mahoney stated, after checking each drawer in turn. “But we’ll do a more thorough search after you leave.”
    â€œWhere are we going?” Sam asked.
    â€œYou’ll come home with us,” Bonnie told him, looking to Rod for confirmation, receiving only a blank starein reply. “Why don’t you throw a few things into a suitcase. We can come back later in the week for the rest.”
    â€œWhat if we don’t want to go with you?” Lauren asked, panic evident in her voice.
    â€œYou can go with your father or I can take you to Juvenile Hall,” Captain Mahoney intervened. “I think you might prefer going with your father.”
    Bonnie nodded gratefully. Surely the fact that he was encouraging Sam and Lauren to go home with them meant that he didn’t seriously consider either one a suspect.
    Sam and Lauren took several seconds to consider their options, then turned and walked silently from the room, Bonnie and Rod following numbly after them.
    Sam’s bedroom was immediately across the hall from his mother’s, his bed unmade, the top of his dresser covered with books and paper and what looked like hundreds of loose pennies. There was a poster of Guns N’ Roses’s star Axl Rose in his underwear beside