Repo Madness Read Online Free PDF Page B

fight!”
    â€œNo. No, no, no,” I protested. “It wasn’t like that. I just met her.”
    â€œYou did not just meet her,” Katie remonstrated, shaking her head. “You are lying to me.”
    â€œI swear, it’s true.”
    â€œSo you just met her? You were holding her.”
    â€œYeah, but not … It wasn’t like a hug.”
    â€œI could see it wasn’t a hug! Ruddy, what’s going on here? Can you imagine how it felt to see the two of you together?”
    â€œOkay. Okay. I see how this could look. But you have to trust me.”
    â€œTrust you?” she repeated. “You said you would be working a repo. You lied to me, but you say to trust you?”
    â€œI know.”
    Her shoulders slumped in defeat, and that alarmed me more than anything else she could have done. “I’ve been trying so hard to make things work lately, and now this—,” she began mournfully.
    â€œBut there is no ‘this’!” I interrupted. “I was just reacting to what she told me. That’s all. I swear that’s all you were seeing.”
    â€œWhat? What did she tell you?” Katie pleaded. “I want to believe you, but you’re not telling me anything.”
    I took a deep breath. “She said Lisa Marie Walker wasn’t in the car the night I crashed into the lake. When it sank, she wasn’t in the car.”
    Katie blinked, caught off guard. “What?”
    â€œThat’s what she said.”
    â€œHow…?”
    â€œShe told me she was a medium, but I don’t believe her. I mean, she didn’t act like any medium I’ve ever spoken to.”
    Katie frowned at me, confused. “You’ve spoken to mediums?” she asked after a pause.
    I sighed. “Yeah, it’s why I came here tonight.” I gestured at Madame Revard’s tent down the street, and Katie looked over at it without comprehension.
    â€œTo talk to a medium,” she said.
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œWhy would you do that?”
    I was not going to tell her why. I could just imagine her reaction if I told her I was trying to reach her dead father. “The medium, Madame Revard, told me my father was sorry he was so stern with me, so judgmental. I think she means after what I did to Lisa Marie Walker. He was very … He felt I had really let him down, let the family down. The town, even. The only thing he approved of after the crash was when I pleaded guilty.”
    â€œOh, Ruddy.” Katie’s expression softened. “I didn’t know you were so … You never talk about that.”
    â€œI didn’t want to tell you what I was doing tonight, so I said I was on a repo.” That much was certainly true.
    â€œBut can’t you see? That’s the kind of thing I’ve been talking about. I wish you would tell me. I wish you would let me in, to trust me. You used to trust me!”
    â€œOkay. You’re right. Anyway, then this woman, her name is Amy Jo, came up out of the blue and said she saw me go into the medium’s tent and that she had a message from beyond for me. From Lisa Marie. That Lisa Marie says she wasn’t in my car.”
    Katie processed this. Of all the people in the world, only she knew the full story. How I’d met Lisa at a party. She’d been drinking and wanted to go for a ride. I was the college football jock, and she was a high school senior. After she drowned, everyone assumed I’d taken her out for sex, but actually, that never came up. I had just met her and was flattered by her attentions. Soon after we got into the car, she felt ill and crawled under a blanket in the backseat. I stopped for beer in Charlevoix because that had been the original destination, but she never moved when I parked the car, and didn’t answer when I asked her if she wanted anything. Driving back home, I made a fatal wrong turn, mistaking the steep drive down to the ferry