A Field of Red Read Online Free PDF

drunk guys. Frank felt impotent, a caged animal straining to get out, but knowing that he should do the right thing and just stay in his cage. The cold cases weren’t as interesting as his old work, and conversations with his old cop friends were few and far between. And the drinking wasn’t helping as much as it used to.
    It was all Trudy’s fault. She should have stuck with him, after St. Bart’s, instead of taking Laura and leaving. He’d needed help, and she’d bolted. Of course, it was hard to blame her. He’d been a class “A” prick to her.
    Frank shook his head and decided to run through an abbreviated workout to loosen up the kinks. Maybe it would work some of the alcohol out of his system.
    He turned and sat on the edge of the hotel bed, turning on the TV and flipping through the channels. There was nothing on but the “Today” show, so Frank tossed the remote on the bed and got down on the floor in front of the TV to do crunches. The room swam when he moved too fast, so he slowed, rocking up and down, counting methodically. Frank concentrated on the crunches, trying to push everything else out of his mind. He willed the alcohol to burn through his system and evaporate out through his pores.
    He hated the “Today” show. He hated all the morning shows, full of dumb news segments and canned interviews and staged interactions. He always felt sorry for the guests, who seemed rushed through their segments. Why invite people onto your show, fly them all the way to New York, clean them up, and put them on TV, and then just talk over them and interrupt them for the whole segment? Why invite them on and then hurriedly kick them out the door? Some smart producer should come along and tell the folks on these morning shows to just slow down and breathe.
    The “Today” show covered a little bit of news, leading into an interview with some teeny-bopper celebrity—the young woman on the TV was a movie star and had had multiple run-ins with the law. She had once had a promising career, but now in her twenties, she was caught up in a downward spiral of bad career moves, embarrassing paparazzi photos, and too many bad choices.
    To Frank, doing crunches on the floor, it sounded like she needed rehab. Or maybe just someone in her life that wasn’t always enabling her every stupid move. These people were usually surrounded by “yes” men, all part of an enabling entourage working hard to keep the gravy train on track.
    Sometimes, all you needed to pull your shit together was someone in your life who was willing to say “no.”
    The show broke for commercials, then cut over to the local Dayton news. Dayton was interesting. It wasn’t the kind of place he would choose to live, but it wasn’t as “Midwestern” as he’d been led to believe. The people were nice, so far, and they had Starbucks and Target, just like anywhere else.
    The anchor came on, a woman with large hair and a chipper, coffee-fueled attitude that made Frank’s beer headache kick back in.
    “Welcome back,” the woman said on the TV, grinning. “Coming up is an update on our top story, the two missing girls in Cooper’s Mill, along with Scott Bumpers for the forecast. But first, an update on the news. A fire broke out in the 400 block of Tipper Avenue in Dayton last night, and investigators on the scene are suspecting arson. Let’s go to Dale Scott for the report…”
    The TV station cut to an impossibly fat man standing in front of a smoldering home in what looked like a rundown part of Dayton. The home had been reduced to rubble, and, as the fat guy fidgeted, he explained what had happened. The guy was so large, it looked like he was trapped in one of those puffy sumo wrestling suits.  A few seconds into the story, the station cut away from the man to taped footage, filmed earlier, of the house still burning.
    Frank stood up and started doing arm curls. He didn’t have any weights, so he used the ice bucket. All the ice was melted, and