Read Online Sliver of Truth by Lisa Unger - Free Book Online Page A

decided to close the file and go to bed. As I flipped the folder closed, a single article floated out. I picked it up off the floor, registered the date and region.
    I opened the file again and saw that it came from a grouping of Detroit Register articles obviously printed from microfiche. They were the articles written about Max’s mother’s murder and the trial of his father. There were some grisly crime-scene photos that I would have rather not seen; I couldn’t believe that they’d actually been published in a newspaper.
    I looked at the article in my hand. The headline read VICTIM’S NEPHEW PROTESTS GUILTY VERDICT .
    I sat in the rental car for a few minutes until I saw a light snow start to fall. I turned off the engine and stepped out into the bitter cold. I watched my breath cloud and I pulled my coat close around me. Then I walked up the short drive toward the stout brown house, listening to the gravel crunch beneath my feet. No interior lights burned that I could see. I glanced at my watch and realized that anyone who might live there was probably still at work.
    According to the Register, Max’s cousin had come forward after Race Smiley’s conviction to say that he’d seen another man there the night of Lana’s murder. He claimed not to have come forward earlier because he thought he’d been spotted and he was afraid for himself and his family. The police disbelieved the boy and found no evidence to corroborate the story. They said he might just be trying to help his uncle. The article had fired me up for a couple of reasons. First of all, no one had ever mentioned this cousin of Max’s, though he’d apparently grown up on the same street as Max and Ben. I found that odd and intriguing. And the idea that maybe my grandfather wasn’t a murderer after all, that he had been wrongly accused and convicted, gave me some weird kind of hope. Maybe the place from which I’d come wasn’t as dark and joyless as a tar pit.
    I’d used the Internet to search for Nick Smiley and found that he was still living in his childhood home. The phone number was listed but I couldn’t bring myself to call. What would I say? Hi, I’m Ridley, your second cousin. How’s it going? So, about the night my grandmother was beaten into a coma . . .
    My father always says that people get into trouble when they have too much money and too much time on their hands. If I had a nine-to-five job where I was accountable to someone for my days or if I struggled to make ends meet, I might not have been able to do what I did. But maybe it was more than just opportunity, a lack of anything better to do. There was and always had been a drive within me to know the truth of things. That’s what had caused all the trouble in my recent life. I thought about that as I booked myself on the next flight to Detroit.
    “What do you want?”
    A bulky, bearded man had appeared from the side of the house. One word summed him up: menacing. He had a heavy brow and deep-set dark eyes. His thin line of a mouth seemed as though it had never smiled or spoken a kind word. Clad in a thickly lined flannel shirt and brown corduroy pants, he looked squared-off, ready for a fight.
    “I’m looking for Nicholas Smiley,” I said, fighting an urge I had to run back to the Land Rover and drive away as fast as possible, tires screeching up the street.
    “What do you want?” he repeated.
    What did I want? A good question.
    I figured there was no use softening the blow with a guy like this; he looked as if he could take a punch and might even like it. “I want to talk about the night Lana Smiley died.”
    He jerked and stepped back as if I’d thrown a stone at him.
    “Get off my property,” he said. He didn’t advance or retreat farther, so I held my ground. We stared at each other while I tried to think of something to say that might convince him to talk to me. I didn’t come up with anything.
    “I can’t,” I said finally. “I need to know what you saw