Lying With Strangers Read Online Free PDF

icebox. Cold was something he couldn’t get used to. Kevin was a native of the Conch Republic, better known as Key West, Florida. He had grown up in T-shirts and shorts on a balmy island, lived his first eighteen years in a veritable paradise, where it was front-page news if either the air or surf dipped below seventy-two degrees. Winter had been unbearable for him even in Tallahassee, where he’d gone to college and then law school at Florida State University. It was during his second year of law school that he’d fallen for a beautiful and downright brilliant undergraduate whose heart was set more on a career than marriage. She’d married him only on the condition that they move to Boston after graduation so she could attend Harvard Medical School. At the time he would have taken an igloo on the Yukon to complete the nuptials. He was top-ten percent and law review at FSU, credentials good enough to have landed him with the finest law firms in Miami or Atlanta. He sent résumés to all the blue-chip firms in Boston but soon discoveredthat the big northeastern firms weren’t overly impressed by southern law schools, at least not the ones that didn’t count Thomas Jefferson among their alumni. Not a single job offer. He could have lowered his sights and landed with some fine smaller firms, but with Peyton’s success that would have seemed like failure.
    It was autumn, five years ago, when he and his new wife had first come up to look for an apartment, Kevin still without a job. For kicks, they attended a Harvard football game, some pathetic matchup between two Ivy League teams that would have lost to the FSU Seminoles’ second-string cheerleaders. Harvard got pounded 42–0, a score he remembered for reasons that any right-minded sports fan might think ridiculous. Forty-two points meant six touchdowns and six extra points. A dozen scores by the opposing team, and with each one the Harvard student section responded in unison with the same loud cheer, an arrogant celebration that, for Kevin, summed up his job-hunting difficulties.
    That’s all right, that’s okay,
you’re gonna work for US someday!
    It hadn’t helped matters that, by the fifth touchdown, his own wife was caught up in the excitement and joining in the chant.
    With the help of one of his Harvard-educated law professors, he did finally land an interview with a prestigious two-hundred-lawyer firm, Marston & Wheeler. He impressed them enough to earn the chance to bill more than 3,000 hours a year in pursuit of the elusive brass ring, though he realized that making partner without the Ivy League pedigree would be an uphill battle. Kevin figured that if he worked hard and showed them what he could do, he’d get a fair shot. But the last five years had only proven that the firm’s caste system was based almost entirely on sheepskin. Clients hired Marston & Wheeler and paid the big bucks to be represented by Ivy League lawyers—end of story. It didn’t matter how good he was; Kevin was not on partnership track.
    God, I hate Boston.
    The bedroom chill was getting unbearable. The one-inch crack Sandra had raised the window at bedtime was now an Arctic pipeline. He slid from beneath the covers, taking care not to disturb the kick boxer beside him. The tile floor beneath his feet felt like a hockey rink. He tiptoed quickly toward the open window and, in the darkness, promptly smashed his toes into a chair leg. He grunted but didn’t shout, hopping on one foot, doing his best not to wake Sandra. The phone rang. Not the phone on the nightstand. It was a higher-pitched ring, barely audible, seemingly muffled. It was coming from the pocket of his suit coat, the coat that was draped over that chair—that damn chair.
    He fumbled for the phone, hurried to the far side of the room away from Sandra, and answered as quietly as he could. “Hello.”
    “Is this Kevin Stokes?” the woman asked.
    He whispered through clenched teeth, still in pain. “Yes. Who is