Mommy, May I? Read Online Free PDF

meet her maker. Tyler’s nightmare was that he couldn’t pinpoint who or where. He wasn’t into this asshole’s head yet, but like a reel of film, the images had already begun.
    Tyler divined through profiling, and his gut told him that the killer felt his motives justified his actions. He was Tyler’s latest nightmare—one that would consume him until he saw it to the end.

CHAPTER FIVE

    June 1970
    Before . . .
    “‘Villain!’ I shrieked, ‘Dissemble no more! I admit the deed!—tear up the planks! Here, here!—It is the beating of his hideous heart!’” Uncle James emphasized each word as he read The Tell-Tale Heart to Richard for the second time that evening. Richard applauded, and his uncle bowed.
    “I don’t know why you have to read that garbage to the boy,” Aunt Valerie shouted from the other room.
    Uncle James winked at him. “He likes it, Mother.”
    “Well, then he’s as nuts as you are. I can tell you this much, the Lord don’t like that filthy stuff. He’s condemning your souls to hell, right now.”
    “So be it,” whispered Richard’s uncle.
    “You should be reading Bible verses to him.” Uncle Richard winked at Richard in a conspiratorial kind of way.
    Aunt Valerie rarely referred to Richard by his name, always “him” or “he,” but if she really wanted to anger Richard, she’d call him Ricky. He found that insulting. Richard also knew that later, when his uncle wasn’t around, his aunt would make him pay for sharing this time with his uncle. She believed that sparing the rod spoiled the child. But Richard didn’t care. It was worth it to spend time with Uncle James.
    “Let’s take a walk, son.”
    “Sure.” Richard knew that his uncle wanted to escape his aunt’s preaching, too.
    “We’re going for a walk, dear.”
    They grabbed their coats and walked into the late night. As much as Richard loved his uncle, he hated his aunt. Not only for the beatings and mean words, but also for the way she treated his uncle. Aunt Valerie ruled their home.
    “I know she’s a horrible woman, Richard. And I know sometimes she’s awful hard on you. But we’ve been married for so long now.”
    “So? Why don’t you leave her? You don’t need her.”
    “I can’t.”
    “Why?”
    Uncle James put his arm around Richard as they walked next to the man-made pond Uncle James had built on his five-acre ranch. He sighed and said, “Sometimes people know things about one another, things that they don’t want others to know.”
    The crickets and night bugs reminded Richard of a symphony his mother had taken him to long ago in Portland. The mountain air smelled of pine. “What could be so bad that you’d have to stay with her? What terrible thing could she possibly know about you? I can’t believe you’d ever do anything wrong.”
    “Let’s just say it is, and leave it at that. We all make mistakes.” Uncle James rolled and lit a cigarette. He let Richard have a drag off it.
    Richard couldn’t imagine his uncle having any secret so horrible that he was forced to remain married to the thing back at the house. Uncle James couldn’t hurt a fly. Heck, when he found spiders inside the house, he carefully removed them and set them out in the yard. He was also conscientious about his work: Making the bodies he worked on look peaceful and happy in death and soothing the families of the dead.
    “I’d like to work with you this summer,” Richard said. It had been two summers since his mother died, and he felt ready to see another dead person again. In fact, the idea captivated him.
    “You sure about that? Funeral homes can be sad, dark places at times.”
    “I’m sure. I want to learn the business. You never seem sad or dark.”
    “Of course I am. Why do you think we read from Edgar Allan Poe every night? I’m as macabre as the old horror master himself,” James replied, chuckling.
    Richard wasn’t quite sure what he meant, but he laughed along anyway. Uncle James’s laughter was