Disturbed Mind (A Grace Ellery Romantic Suspense Series Book 2) Read Online Free PDF

I’m sure you’re right. Well, I have to go. The missus is impatiently glaring at me because she doesn’t like me doing business after hours. Have a good night.”
    “Good night.”
    As I hang up, my heart is pounding inside my chest. My plans have come to fruition better than I could have dreamed. I had broken the house lockbox, lifted the key and made a copy of it before putting it back, planning to lure Grace back to the house somehow. Now I have the means to do that. I’ll also have proper tools with me, because I’ll be driving one of Steve's well-stocked utility trucks. Bryce’s murder will look like child’s play in comparison to my plans for her.

Chapter Eight

Francis, 2003
    ( S eptember ; Christopher Tate’s House, Dayton, Ohio)
    AT ELEVEN YEARS OLD, everything about myself and my environment is changing. I’m now in middle school, where we get up two hours earlier to catch the bus. All of these new, complicated emotions are stirring in me—Mom calls them hormones, but it seems like they are more than that. When I imagine these emotions as sentient beings, they remind me of a movie I watched when I was six years old that had monsters that looked like shadows except they had long, sharp nails on each of their fingers. Girls look different to me—I watch them the same way I used to watch butterflies, except I can’t catch the girls in a net and the girls flee away from me more than the butterflies ever did. The other boys in my classes are becoming more muscular and they have these cocky grins like they understand everything that’s happening. I have no idea what’s happening. It’s like life is rushing past me and I could never run fast enough to catch up.
    I feel lost in a world that demands that I know all of its secrets.
    Dad has been angry with me all day. He’s the PE teacher at school and my ability to play sports is nonexistent. I was eliminated from dodgeball today within two seconds after he blew his whistle. For the second game, I lasted a total of six seconds. I’m fairly certain that this kid, Jeffrey Dowry, was aiming for me.
    Dad bounces a dodgeball against the asphalt of our driveway a few feet away from me. A mesh bag full of more rubber balls lies beside his feet. Mom sits on the porch stairs, watching us with quiet approval.
    “You need to catch the ball,” he tells me, anger making his words come out like bullets. I nod. Without a moment’s notice, he throws the ball straight at me. It hits me square in the chest. I stumble back as the ball rolls down the driveway. Dad takes a step toward me. “Get the ball, moron!”
    I race down the driveway, chasing the ball. I manage to get in front of it before it rolls into the road. I run back to Dad with the ball in my hands. He jerks it out of my grasp.
    “Get back where you were,” he spits out. As I step back into place, he throws the ball again. It slams into my eye. I don’t see where it goes because I’m clutching my face, pain pulsing around my eye. “Come on, Francis! Get the damn ball!”
    But I can’t. I begin to cry, my shoulders shaking and my hands catching my tears.
    “Jesus H. Christ, Danielle, what the fuck am I supposed to do with this kid?” Dad asks Mom. I quiet myself, waiting for her to defend me or at least tell him to calm down.
    “Just keep going,” she says. “He won’t stop acting like a baby if he thinks the world will stop for him because he’s crying. At some point, he’ll learn how to act like a man.”
    I lower my hands to see her walking back into the house. Hatred swirls inside my stomach. Even as Dad walks toward me and grabs me by my shirt collar, yelling about retrieving the ball, all I can feel is an anger and fury toward Mom. I know at this moment that these emotions, which are unknown and uncontrollable, will only grow stronger until they engulf me. And, for once, I have no problem with letting them take over.

Chapter Nine

Sam, 2015
    ( T hursday Night ; Neabsco Creek, Pearland,