Read Online The Second Lie by Tara Taylor Quinn - Free Book Online

could afford to fly in an expert witness from Ohio--who'd come up with a way to beat his wife and get away with it.
    I could be morally responsible if my testimony set a wife beater free and he eventually killed the woman.
    But the thing that got me was that the woman didn't have a single injury on her back--a place she couldn't reach. If she were being attacked, wouldn't she have turned her back on her assailant? Just to deflect the blows?

I--
    "Boss?" My ancient intercom system buzzed.
    "Yeah?"
    "That WT woman's on line one."
    WT? What was with Deb lately? "Excuse me?" I knew what the acronym stood for--white trash. You couldn't grow up in a redneck county without hearing the terminology. But that didn't mean it was or had ever been acceptable. And certainly not in my office.
    "Lori Winston."
    Maggie's mom.
    "Okay, I'll take it... And...Deb?"
    "Yeah?"
    "I don't ever want to hear WT again. Ever."
    "Sorry."
    I should have hung up. But, come on, this was me. And my receptionist had just acted out of character.
    "Is everything okay with you?"
    "I'm not sure."
    "You want to talk about it?"
    "Maybe. Not today."
    "I'm here, you know that. Any time of the day or night..."
    "I know. Now get the phone before that woman hangs up and comes down here and I have to tell her that you're with a client."
    I picked up the phone.
    Lori Winston was--how had Maggie put it-- cranky. It was the way she got when she didn't understand things, her daughter had explained.
    I was leaning more toward the idea that fear prompted Ms. Winston's raised voice.
    "Calm down," I said softly. "I want to help."
    "Don't tell me what to do. I'll calm down when I'm good and ready."
    "Okay." I could live with that.
    "I want to know why there's a different condom in my daughter's purse."
    I didn't ask why she'd been in her daughter's purse. Or if Maggie knew. The answer to both questions was pretty obvious. Lori Winston was a mother worried about her only child.
    And no, Maggie didn't know. Otherwise, she would have been on the receiving end of this tirade instead of me.
    "Maggie went for her high school orientation this week, right?"
    "Yes."
    "It's a new school year. Maybe they give the girls an opportunity to pick up a condom to protect themselves. Just in case."
    I knew they did. Though I didn't agree with the practice. But that was another issue. One I didn't have time for today.
    The outer bell sounded. My nine o'clock was here.
    "I just want to know what you know." I didn't appreciate Lori's tone, but recognized the panic underlying it. The woman was a single working mom who was afraid she was losing control of her teenager.
    I could hear Deb speaking with Marc Snyder. A young man who'd done two tours in Iraq and was having trouble finding a place for himself back home in Chandler. Chances were, he wouldn't wait long. Marc couldn't stand to be anywhere for very long right now.
    "What I know is that Maggie's a good kid," I assured Ms. Winston. She'd called me to speak about her child. She was Maggie's legal guardian. I could, ethically, tell her anything I knew. "Like you, I worry about her, not because of Maggie, but because of her age and society...." And her home life, which was the best Lori Winston could make it, but still not great. "Just to be safe, I had a friend of mine check up on her and--"
    "A friend? Who?"
    "A female deputy with the county who--"
    "You had the cops watching Maggie?" I had to hold the phone away from my ear. Even at arm's length, I could make out every word. "I didn't say you could do that. You put watchdogs on my house? How could you?"
    "That's not what I said." I had no idea if Sam had checked out Maggie's trailer park, but I suspected she had. Sam was thorough.
    "Just call them off, you hear?" the woman screamed. "Great. This is just great. Next thing you know, somethin's gonna go wrong out here, or somewhere, and Maggie'll be blamed. I can't believe you did this."
    "Ms. Winston, I assure you, I didn't do anything." I got firm,