Even In Darkness--An American Murder Mystery Thriller Read Online Free PDF Page B

away. There is no point to my life anymore. No point to me.
    Someone is calling my name.
Joy. Joy Miller.
I am not sure I am standing up, but I’m not on the floor. Deputy Collins stands at my back, one arm around my waist, the terrible Agent Mavis Jones is talking talking talking and now I am sitting on the couch, and someone bends my head over my knees which makes my stomach jump and my vision go dark. It’s like having fizz in your head. My nerve endings tingle like a toothache, and I take slow deep breaths like the voice tells me. Someone wraps me in something warm, a fringe of some material caresses my cheek. It is my fuzzy little pink throw that I bought myself for Christmas last year and keep on the couch even though it clashes with the maroon plaid loveseat my husband picked out years and years ago. I don’t like the couch any more than I like the house, any more than I like the curtains, but the pink throw is soft, and that I do like. Especially now, because I am weirdly cold. Someone is rubbing my hands, and saying that they feel like ice.
    It’s OK to sit still, the voice says so, and I do for the longest time. After a while I smell coffee, the scent streaming in from my kitchen, and the female I don’t like, she is beside me now. She hands me a mug of coffee. She’s put it in the yellow mug, which used to be my favorite, but that was before I found the tall skinny lavender mugs on clearance at Target.
    Mavis Jones’ hands are trembling and she makes sure I have the mug safe in my grip before she lets it go. She is different now. Kindness under the hard edges. It’s just a feeling I get, a connection from her to me. She has put half and half in my coffee, good for her, and sugar, lots of it, which I don’t take but seems maybe like not such a bad idea. I have done that myself more times than I can count, gone into a strange kitchen and made hot coffee, filled the cup with hot liquid, sugar and cream. It is what you do when you are ministering to people who are going through a terrible trauma. Like a death in the family.
    I take a sip. It is so hot, the coffee, but I am thirsty, my mouth is so dry it is painful, which I know is a sign of shock. So that’s it, then. I’m in shock. I know all about shock from my previous life, helping people through the dark times that always seem to come up.
    The coffee is good. Henry’s Blend, Seattle’s Best, the price will make you do a double take, I buy it at Kroger. Marsha leaves great battleship cans of Wal-Mart coffee on my kitchen counter tops, and I donate the Marsha-coffee to some lawyer friends downtown. They’ll drink anything. I am a coffee snob. I can do a blind taste test and tell you the religious affiliation of the person who brewed the cup. God save us all from the Methodists.
    My hand trembles and I put the yellow mug on the coffee table. There’s a reason I shouldn’t put it there. Something to do with Leo. But I don’t see Leo, so I guess it’s OK.
    â€˜Tell me what happened,’ I say. My voice sounds tinny and weird. I catch a glimpse of my face in the ornate, gold leaf mirror that hangs on the wall across from the sofa. I look the way I used to when I was a little girl and carsick, and could see my weirdly blanched skin in the rearview mirror. The décor in this living room is so Holiday Inn – every item the result of a long drawn out argument with my husband, who is now dead. He should have taken it with him. All the furniture. This house.
    Caroline now. She knows how to make a room work. She doesn’t see what’s actually in a room. She sees what a room can be. Did I mention that she makes buttermilk pancakes from scratch? In spite of all the health stuff and organics, she’s still a lot of fun.
    I feel talky all of a sudden.
    â€˜I’m sure you know that Caroline Miller is my daughter-in-law. I call her my DIL. She is an artist when it comes to decorating.