Read Online If She Should Die by Carlene Thompson - Free Book Online Page A

anyone had ever seen on the Winston High School track team.
    “Where’s Jeremy?” she asked anxiously. “Is he all right?”
    Streak came to her and put his hands on her shoulders, gazing at her with his sad, hooded eyes. “He’s not hurt and he’s calming down some. I’m just glad I had my cell phone with me. I hate the damned thing, but Mom made me promise I’d carry it when I ran in case I ever got hurt in some desolate spot.” He smiled wryly. “Guess she knew best. It came in handy.”
    Streak was the son of Wilma Archer, who had been in the store earlier that day. Streak and Ames Prince had been friends since childhood, when a young, lonely Ames had found comfort in the Archers’ warm, noisy, openly loving home so unlike his own with his austere father and invalid mother. Wilma was like a mother to him and Streak like a brother.
    “Jeremy is upset about Dara, isn’t he?” Christine asked tensely.
    “Yes. Mom called and told me about their finding the body, then about Ames identifying it as Dara’s.”
    “Jeremy got very upset in the store when he found out about the body, but later this evening at my house he calmed down. Then Ames called. Jeremy seemed unnerved but under control. Maybe he was too calm whenhe went to bed. I should have known that was a bad sign.”
    “When I found him he was sobbing, throwing petals from silk flowers in the creek, saying he was sorry and talking about a dream with dark water and not being able to see or breathe.”
    Dread washed over Christine. “Apparently that’s a recurring nightmare. He’s mentioned the dream a couple of times since Dara disappeared, but he didn’t seem too distressed by it, and frankly, I didn’t pay much attention. Today he went into more detail about it. It’s awful.” She sighed. “Streak, sometimes it’s hard to know what’s bothering him. He’ll get upset over something trivial but not say a word about something that deeply troubles him like this dream. He must have had it again tonight and it set him off.”
    “I think you’re right.”
    “I need to see him.”
    “Sure you do.” Streak put his arm around her. “Watch your step. This gravel in the mud is treacherous.”
    “I’m surprised you’re out jogging tonight.”
    “I jog every night unless there’s pelting rain or a snowstorm. Helps keep my own nightmares away.”
    Nightmares of Vietnam, Christine knew. Streak had been only nineteen when news came from an exotic place called Qui Nhon that he’d been shot in the head and the bullet had lodged in his brain. He was sent from the field hospital to Saigon, and although he was alive, doctors warned there was next to no hope. Ames told Christine that a deeply religious Wilma had spent all her time in church and Streak’s father had put in compulsive eighteen-hour days working the farm while they waited for the inevitable news that their son had died. But Streak had hung on, although doctors again warned that if he survived, he would be brain-damaged, maybe little more than a living corpse.
    Streak was eventually sent to Hawaii, where he continued to astonish everyone by gradually recovering, struggling through an agonizing rehabilitation where he relearned to walk, to feed himself, and to talk. Fourteen months later he returned to Winston with the only visible signs of his experience being a couple of scars on his forehead and a mane of silver hair that had been black two years earlier. But he had changed in a way that was not immediately noticeable. He suffered memory lapses and was plagued by insomnia. He endured shattering migraines. Most shocking was that the once-gregarious Streak was now taciturn, growing distraught and suffering panic attacks in the crowds he’d once loved. During one boisterous surprise welcome home party thrown by some rowdy old friends, Streak had started to sweat and shake and ended the evening curled in a corner, whimpering. So people said he’d gotten strange and a little scary, and they