Fear Has a Name: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

my own money.”
    “Okay, listen, honey. If we’re really going to consider it, we need to ask ourselves if it’s safe for us. What about when the girls get older and have friends over?”
    “We can get rid of it when this passes.”
    She couldn’t believe Jack wasn’t right on the bandwagon with her.
    “Your dad had a gun,” Pamela said. “Mine has one.”
    “Does that make it safe?”
    “Safe? Let’s talk about safe! There’ll be nothing left to keep safe if he comes back and hurts us!”
    That too struck home. For a flash, Pamela felt like the devil’s advocate for riling up the old Jack. But that’s what she was trying to do. She steamed to the window near the kitchen table and stared out blankly, the stress blurring the outdoor landscape into a foggy mix of bright greens and yellows.
    “He came back, Jack.” Her voice quieted. “You said he’d never remember where we lived.” She turned to face him. “He was here , this morning, and you weren’t! I am here alone with the girls much of the day. I need protection. Period. ”
    The way he looked at her with his mouth locked shut, it was as if he was forcing himself not to speak, not to say something he would regret.
    Pamela waited, resolute.
    “Look,” he finally said, “his coming back today raises the stakes, I admit it. I just think that before we buy a gun and learn to use it—which we can certainly do—we need to ask ourselves if that’s the best choice, the wisest choice. Is it what God wants? If it is, great; we’ll do it.”
    Pamela’s head dropped into her hands. She didn’t want to talk about what God wanted. Not now. She knew what she needed , and that was all there was to it. Her mind and body and spirit felt utterly spent, and the day was only half over.
    “I’m not trying to belittle you,” Jack said. “I understand you felt helpless. We just need to make sure we both agree completely before we decide to keep a weapon in this house that can take someone’s life …”

6
    As Jack sat on the flowery couch in the McDaniels’ dark, cool living room while Wendy McDaniel went to the kitchen to get him some water, he found it difficult to believe anything could be as wrong as it was within this household, because everything seemed so right.
    A smooth blacktop driveway sloped down, then led up to the small white ranch house perched on a hill about seventy-five yards off Iradale Drive. It was a quiet residential street in Cool Springs, just outside Trenton City. The home was surrounded by towering trees that swayed and rustled in the breeze, blocked out the hot Ohio sun, and smothered the acre-or-so lot in pleasant shade.
    Jack looked around, guessing the house was forty or fifty years old. It had hardwood floors and thick, soft rugs. The interior wood trim was dark gray, and the walls were done in rich sage green and cocoa brown, giving it an early-American look. Rustic abstracts of doors and windows hung in just the right spots on the walls, and pretty colored glass bottles of all sizes sat along each window.
    “I feel bad about getting so upset with the other reporter on the phone,” Wendy said. She handed Jack a bottled water. “But I was absolutely shocked that his story talked about suicide. To see it on the front page …”
    “I completely understand.” Jack opened the bottle. “If it had been up to me … well, listen, let’s just start from scratch. Can we do that?”
    “Yes.” She sat near him on the edge of a leather recliner. She had short, spiky brown hair and was slight and youthful looking in jean shorts and Crocs. “I’m ready.”
    “First of all,” Jack said, “you saw the blurb from Faith Line ?”
    Wendy nodded. “I got it in a blanket email, like everyone else. That was the first I’d heard anything public about suicide. I couldn’t believe they put it in there. When I called, they told me they hoped it would lend urgency and generate some leads to help find Evan, but again—to make public