Say You Love Me Read Online Free PDF

city. A mime plucked a coin from behind a little girl’s ear, while
     puppeteers drew the small kids in droves. Families littered the streets,
     carrying tired children with painted faces, cotton candy and tacky
     souvenirs, tugging at heart-strings she tried to ignore.
    She banished them quickly. She was
     not a family kind of girl.
    Instead her past mocked her. And the whisper of danger echoed in her
     ear….
    I know your secrets. And you know
     mine.
    No. It was impossible. She’d never told anyone about her childhood.
     Especially about that night.
    And her mother…. Surely she wouldn’t have
     confessed to anyone. That is, if she’d survived herself.
    Then again, her mother had done other
     unspeakable things.
    The washboard player took a break and an earthy-looking saxophone
     player claimed his spot, adding his own jazz flavor to old favorites. She
     glanced behind him, toward the edge of the street, and noticed a tall, bald
     man holding a camera. Her fork clattered to the table. Was he photographing
     her?
    She craned her
     neck to see more clearly and he lowered the camera. Shadows from the silvery
     Spanish moss shrouded his face as if he’d been cocooned in a giant
     spiderweb. Then he lifted his right hand and waved. Her breath caught in her
     chest.
    A series of
     flashes flickered like fireflies against the growing darkness. Once. Twice.
     A dozen times. She blinked and threw her hand over her forehead, spots
     dancing before her eyes.
    He was watching her. Taking
     pictures….
    For what
     reason?
    Panic and
     anger mushroomed inside her and she stepped forward to go confront him, but
     the waiter appeared with her check and blocked her path.
    â€œ Chere? You pay before you leave us? Qui? ”
    She sighed, removed her wallet and paid. But when
     she glanced across the street, the man had completely disappeared, lost in
     the darkness and the sins waging the city.
    * *
     *
    H OWARD K EITH STOOD nursing
     a Jax, a locally brewed beer, across the street, shielded by the exuberance
     of the Mardi Gras festivities. Britta Berger had actually noticed
     him.
    Of course he
     was at a distance and she couldn’t see his face.
    Howard’s right hand went to his prosthetic eyeball
     and he blinked, feeling it slip out of place. He popped it out, dusted it
     off, then slipped it back inside his eye pocket, blinking to create enough
     moisture to force the fake eye to settle.
    Of course, he tried not to handle the ocular
     prosthetic in public, at least not in front of women. They tended to balk at
     the empty eye socket.
    Although even with his eye in place, they were put off by his
     appearance. They never knew quite where to look, where to focus, so they
     averted their gazes and studied his feet, his stomach, his hands, anything
     but his face. And within seconds they rushed away, dismissing him as if he
     was a freak.
    He
     would show them. Prove them wrong.
    His fingers tightened on the camera. Even his
     interest in photography had garnered laughter and disbelief. How could he
     truly be an artist when he had no peripheral vision? No depth
     perception?
    The
     camera compensated. Its powerful lens enabled him to capture the planes and
     angles, the light and shadows, the depth he wanted, and record it in vivid
     detail. And New Orleans certainly provided enough colorful characters,
     scenery and entertainment to feed his camera-frenzied mind.
    Then he could do with it as he
     wished. Create masterpieces with his sketches, mold the faces into
     sculptures if he chose. Give the subjects life forever. Paint the
     eyes.
    The eyes were
     the windows to the soul.
    Did Britta Berger have any idea that he had seen into hers? That he
     had been watching her for months? That he knew her schedule. The food she
     chose for breakfast. The way she liked her coffee. The fact that she enjoyed
     a glass of wine on her patio at night before she retired. That she brushed
     her short red hair at