Read Online Stone Shadow by Rex Miller - Free Book Online

playing the Gypsy Queen today. What was it with this woman?
    “Do you have a boyfriend or steady, uh, relationship?” he heard himself asking her.
    “I had somebody I was seeing a lot before this but...” She trailed off and shook her head. “It was hard for him to deal with and it looks like it has ended. Why?"
    Why, indeed. “I was wondering if this had harmed you in your personal life. Very often a terrible thing like this reaches out and hurts those close to the victim. Family, friends, a husband or boyfriend. They have their own feelings of confusion, and anger, and the utter helplessness of thinking about someone they care for put in the kind of a situation you were subjected to ... and it's tough to handle."
    “Yeah,” she said wryly, “that's life, eh?” He nodded as she said, “Has this hurt me in my personal life? What personal life? Between the press and you cops and a shrink—that's it."
    “When you were first chained up, you told earlier that you'd had a blindfold on, and when you felt the thing being fastened to you and then when he removed the blindfold and you first saw the room, what did you think? Try to remember your reactions to what you saw and what he said to you at that time."
    “Horror. Incredible horror. I knew from the pictures he hadn't brought me there for a Sunday picnic. All I could think of was I wished I had screamed back when I had the chance or just fallen down on the floor of the car and hoped he couldn't shoot through the windshield, a dozen different things I thought of after it was too late. And there was just the awful horror of it. I figured I was in deep trouble. And he didn't say much. I started pleading with him to please let me go, that I wouldn't say anything about it and stuff and he just said, ‘Shut up’ and called me a name. And he said I had one chance. Put out when he wanted some, do what he said and be a good sex slave, and he wouldn't kill me."
    He could feel he was not getting through to Donna Scannapieco the way he often was able to. Eichord was usually good with people. His innate kindness and caring would communicate itself. Everything was screwed up lately. Even his ability to convey a sense of understanding to a crime victim. He knew just how much this barrier between himself and the woman could hinder the progress of the investigation, yet he felt himself powerless to remove it. He could sense, or thought he could sense in her the intuitive ability to pick up on his bad vibes and it was absurd that he couldn't do anything about it.
    Inside the swamp of Donna Scannapieco's head there was only icy resolve. She thought nothing of Jack Eichord the cop. Just another face in the crowd. Her inner being was too full of cold, unyielding hatred for the dirty, no good son of a bitch who had taken her and ruined her life, and for the unfairness of a world in which an awful thing like this could happen. She hadn't done anything to deserve such a fate. And now she wanted only vengeance, and the bitter taste of it was filling her with alienation and lonely isolation and it was draining her of the warmth and softness and femininity and decency that had given her life meaning and value. And, like Eichord, she felt herself powerless in the awesome ebb and flow of forces much stronger than her own sense of self.
    Eichord tried to phone the lawyer again. Wally Michaels had told him there were some negotiations going on between a prestigious Texas law firm and Mr. Hackabee. There was something off-key about it. Hackabee was apparently being offered representation by the famous Noel Collier, arguably the most famous woman defense counsel in the country and second only to Racehorse in the ranks of famed Texas criminal lawyers. Jack had been trying to get hold of her for two days and she hadn't returned his calls. He finally got her on the line and made an appointment to come see her. One of Eichord's techniques involved catering to egos, and clearly Ms. Collier would be a