Read Online Don't You Cry by Mary Kubica - Free Book Online

sure. Not anyone I know.
    Seems to me, anyway, that she wants to be seen.
    And there she stands in the wet sand, the water likely freezing to her bare skin in the cold, autumn air. She makes no attempt to dry herself off or to get dressed. Her back is to the lake now and she takes in what’s on the other side: the playground and carousel, the beach grass and a line of vacuous trees.
    And me.
    And that’s when she turns to me and waves.
    And I prove to the world that I really am a chickenshit when I turn and walk away, pretending I don’t see.

Quinn
    I rise to my feet and follow the ringing of the phone to the kitchen, fully expecting to see Esther’s cell stashed there on the countertop beside canisters of flour, sugar and cookies. But no such luck. I’m not one to answer her phone or even notice its ring, but now I’m worried. Perhaps Esther is in trouble; perhaps she needs my help. Perhaps it’s Esther on the other end of the line calling me for help on her phone. She’s lost, doesn’t have enough cash for a cab. Something along those lines.
    But she could just call me on my phone, then. Of course she could. That would make more sense. But still. Maybe...
    I flip on the stove light and continue to search, tracking the subdued ringtone as Hansel and Gretel tracked bread crumbs through the deep, dark woods. It sounds far away and hard to hear, as if there’s cotton in my ears. I open and close the stove, the refrigerator, the cabinets, though it seems utterly absurd to do so. To look for a phone inside a refrigerator. But I do, anyway.
    I continue on my search. The phone rings once, twice, three times. I’m nearly certain the call will go to voice mail and this will all be for naught, when I find it tucked away inside the pocket of a red zip-up hoodie that hangs from a hanger in our teeny-weeny coat closet.
    I snatch up the phone, ousting the hoodie from its hanger as I do, watching it fall to the floor as I answer the call, the caller ID reading Unknown.
    â€œHello?” I ask, pressing the phone to my ear.
    â€œIs this Esther Vaughan?” probes a voice on the other end of the line.
    And then I utter the three words that in about thirteen seconds I’ll regret having said. “No, it’s not,” I say, wishing instantly that I would have said, This is she . But then again, why would I when my interest has yet to be piqued? It takes much more than a blocked phone number to get my attention. I get blocked calls all the time, mainly debt collectors calling to collect unpaid bills. Old credit cards with cringe-worthy balances I haven’t made payments to in years. Student loans.
    â€œIs she there?” asks the voice. It’s a gruff voice, a male voice, that isn’t going to fool around with any pleasantries or wisecracks or banter.
    â€œNo,” I say, and then, “Can I take a message?” I ask as my hand fumbles through the near-darkness for the dry-erase board and a marker. I drift across the room to the board that hangs aslant from a wall, fully prepared to jot down a name and phone number below the arcane message: Ran out. Be home soon ,a phrase that suddenly takes on an abundance of meaning.
    Ran out. Be home soon.
    Esther wrote that. I know she did. It’s not my handwriting; it’s hers. The fusion of cursive and print, upper-and lowercase words. Both feminine and masculine all at the same time.
    But when did she leave the message, I wonder, and why?
    Was it last week when she ran back to the bookshop to find her forgotten faux glasses? Or just a couple days ago when she hurried to the Edgewater branch of the Chicago Public Library on Broadway to return a book before closing time, so that it wouldn’t be late? Esther is a stickler for returning books on time.
    Or, I wonder then while waiting for the guy on the other end of the cell phone to decide whether or not he’s going to leave a message, did she leave the annotation