Read Online Fear the Darkness: A Thriller by Becky Masterman - Free Book Online Page B

be able to tell the story, and I wondered how many more times it would take before she could let it go for good. “I help out by being the youth group director. The kids get comfortable with me. Joe confided that he wanted to tell his father he was gay.”
    “Stepfather.”
    “But Joe was so little when they married it’s almost as if. I shouldn’t have encouraged him to come out. It wasn’t my business to do that.”
    “We have two kids, a boy and a girl, one in high school, one in college,” Elias said to us. “Amanda came out two years ago. It was nothing. You already know, you know?” Cocking his head in Lulu’s direction, he asked, “Why would she think the Neilsens would be any different?”
    Lulu said, “Tim and Jacquie, Tim especially, they were in serious denial about Joe being gay.”
    “This day and age?” I said. “I could see it maybe being an issue in Prescott or Yuma, but Tucson? It’s a university town, for Pete’s sake. Tucson is”—I lowered my voice the way people do when they say “herpes”—“liberal.”
    Mallory nodded. “Seems like everyone here is either LGBT or writing a book. Aren’t you writing a book, darling?” she asked Carlo.
    Carlo’s attention had been on a shnoodle that wandered up and sniffed his trousers, but he smiled his assent, not finding it necessary to express an opinion when there already seemed to be plenty about. That’s how Carlo is.
    “Doesn’t matter where he lives, or whether he’s Joe’s biological father, Tim’s a goddamn homophobe,” Elias repeated. “Jackass.”
    “Oh, you’re just upset because they withdrew their pledge,” Lulu said to Elias, with a sharpness in her tone that indicated she didn’t drink daily. Then to me, “Joe seemed to trust me enough to talk to me. I suggested he tell them, and he did.”
    I merely repeated, “This day and age?”
    Lulu nodded. “The Neilsens were so conservative they switched churches.”
    “St. Bede’s. I hope they’re happy there,” Elias said, but even those mild words came out sounding more like They should eat shit and die.
    I glanced at Mallory, who was sipping thoughtfully. She had tried to be a peacemaker between the Neilsens and the Manwarings the way that Lulu had tried to help Joe and his family. Everyone but me should mind their own business, was my opinion.
    “So you didn’t know this?” I asked her.
    Mallory shook her head. “We were friends through the church. You know how that is.”
    I handed the business card to Carlo, who said, “Brigid, you should call her. Maybe you can help somehow.”
    “Sounds to me like she needs therapy more than investigation,” I said, hoping to change the subject. “You must have a therapist to refer her to?” I asked Elias.
    Carlo said to me, “You would know how to explain things to Jacquie and help her find information. You know people.”
    Lulu thought that was a great idea. “You must call her.”
    Mallory, able to see my hesitation, looked amused and said blandly, “Oh yes, Brigid, you must, you absolutely must.”
    Elias started, “I don’t know if that’s—”
    Whereupon Lulu snapped, “You’re the one who said they threatened a lawsuit.”
    Ah, there you go. Not even a clergy wife’s motivation is entirely pure. Unfortunately for the conversation, which was beginning to take an interesting turn, Adrian Franklin showed up at the table with a black Labrador retriever and that grin that made twenty years disappear.
    “Look what I got!” he said like a boy with a new puppy.
    The dog threw his fifty pounds of glee at Mallory, accidentally hooking the nails of his front paw into her blouse like a canine bodice ripper. Some other time, some other man, she might have used the moment to advantage, but right now did not appear amused.
    Carlo was immobilized, Lulu was struck dumb, Elias overturned his chair jumping to help, and Adrian, rather than reaching anywhere near Mallory’s bosom in what might be considered an