Crossing Lines: A gripping psychological thriller (Behind Closed Doors Book 3) Read Online Free PDF Page B

despite the persistent rain this weekend, she’s dry. And she's wearing different clothes from the ones she'd been wearing at school. “Answer me, goddamn it, Lisa, where were you?”
    She drops her backpack at the door. “Jeez, I'm only five minutes late. Anyone would think you cared.”
    “You're forty-eight hours fucking late, Lisa! Where have you been?”
    “What?” She looks genuinely puzzled. “I don't have a curfew on weekends.”
    Suddenly I see red. My temper blows so fast I don't have time to breathe before I yell, “You still have to fucking come home!” My heartbeat pounds in my ears. “I haven't heard from you since you stormed out of school, and I've been going out of my mind, worrying that something had happened to you!”
    “You sound disappointed that I'm not dying in an overgrown ditch somewhere I’ll never be found.”
    “What?” I splutter. I know she’s mad, but is there any need for the attitude? "Caleb's here. Georgia's here. Patrick has half the police force looking for you and they've been wandering the streets, the parks. They’ve been showing your picture to everyone they've passed. And you just saunter in, two days and five minutes after curfew, like it’s no big deal.”
    “Well, it isn't a big deal.” She shrugs, “You're the one overreacting."
    “You didn't answer your cell.”
    “I was mad at you,” she replies, confirming my first suspicions. “I’m still mad at you.”
    “You’re punishing me?”
    “I didn't do anything wrong.” She cries, “You’re blaming me because you overreacted. You're playing mind games and twisting the situation so that this is my fault. You know, Calvin would be very proud. You turned out to be just like him .”
    Her words strike like a physical blow. I stumble backwards. “What?”
    “You treat me exactly the same way Cat said her dad treated her.” I shake my head in denial. Before Faith died, Caitlyn had said she didn’t want to see Calvin anymore, because he treated her like she was invisible. I don’t ignore Lisa. Yes, I’m a busy man but— she cuts me off. "And you treated Izzy exactly the same way Calvin treated Faith. No wonder she left you.”
    “No,” I gasp. I back against the wall. “I didn't.”
    “Yes, you did!” she yells even louder. Both Caleb and Georgia enter the hallway, one from out back and the other from upstairs. “I saw you push her, Darryl. I saw you take her into the bedroom. So don't pretend you care anymore than he does, because you don’t!”
    “No!” Again my head shakes. She was twelve, and it was late that night. She was asleep. She’d been in bed for hours. “You can’t have seen that!”
    “Well, I did.” She sticks out a stubborn chin. “You care about no one but yourself, and I hate you.” She swoops down and grabs her backpack. “I'm going to bed.”
    She stamps her feet hard against every step until she’s out of sight. Moments later, a door bangs shut. Georgia looks like she’s just been handed the keys to the candy store, but Caleb stares at me like the bottom has just fallen out of his world.
    How the hell do I explain what Lisa claims she saw?

Chapter Four
     
    MEMORIES FLOOD MY SENSES from all directions. The lies Faith told, each and every one of them looping through my mind. She fell. She bumped into something. She cut herself preparing dinner. Pushed herself too hard during a workout, and was a little sore today. It had all been lies. Faith had lied and I had believed her. I'd trusted her word was the truth, because why would she lie to me?
    I hadn't suspected anything. Not even after the day I’d found her sitting in the bathtub sobbing, and with a bloodied nose. She’d said she’d fallen taking a shower, when in truth Calvin had hit her. So I’d gone off to college, and left her alone, when the worst of her abuse was still to come.
    It was abuse that had only begun because of me, because Calvin hadn’t wanted me, and she wouldn’t let me go back to social