Seeing Red Read Online Free PDF Page B

pulled out her one and only junk food—brown sugar cinnamon Pop-Tarts. After ripping open the silver bag and dropping two into the toaster, he turned to her. “Maybe the Web site was wrong. They’ve always notified us before.”
    “Let’s hope. I mean, Prosecutor Buckley seemed pretty sure Alexander wouldn’t get parole—ever.”
    “Well, one thing I’ve learned is that this world ain’t what it used to be. All you hear about are overcrowded jails and criminals’ rights and how they deserve a second chance, that they can’t help the way they are, that they’re all victims of their upbringing. I say big flippin’ deal. Let ’em suffer a little for all the suffering they’ve caused.”
    Her father was firmly of the biblical eye-for-an-eye mind-set. And Ellis had to admit that what her mind said was right and humane, her heart thought was a bunch of bullshit. Laura was dead, having never awakened from her coma. Uncle Greg and Aunt Jodi were ruined people. Nate Vance’s life had been marked by the shadow of this crime, driving him away from his home.
    She noticed her dad was trying to pry the broken half of his Pop-Tart out of the toaster with a butter knife. “Unplug that thing before you electrocute yourself.”
    He kept poking.
    “If you fry yourself, Mom’ll know you’ve been sneaking junk food.”
    The phone rang.
    “That’s probably the food police right now,” Ellis said as she picked up the phone.
    “Send Daddy to Aunt Jodi’s right away!” The panic in her mother’s voice arced through Ellis’s body.
    “What’s wrong?”
    “Greg’s lost his mind—” Something crashed in the background.
    Ellis remembered the last time Uncle Greg had lost his mind: when the police had come with the news that Laura’s naked, unconscious body had been pulled out of a breakwater.
    “Maybe you should call the police.”
    “Just send Dad!” The line went dead.
    The wild ride as Ellis’s dad drove them to Aunt Jodi’s felt much longer than its actual four miles.
    Greg’s Corvette sat in the front yard, stopped at an angle to the front steps. The car’s spinning tires had kicked the St. Augustine grass out of its sandy bed, leaving a swerving outline of his route from the driveway to the porch. The driver’s door stood open.
    Her father was out of the car before Ellis had even reached for the passenger door handle. He sprinted toward the front door, calling for her mother. “Marsha!”
    By the time Ellis got inside, her dad had joined her mother in attempting to quiet Greg. Her uncle’s face was an unnatural purple, his eyes wild. He leaned forward, straining against her dad’s grip on his shoulders. Ellis’s mother stood between Greg and Jodi, calling his name in a voice so quiet that Ellis wondered why she bothered.
    The room looked like the aftermath of a raucous teen party. Books were splayed on the floor. One of the toss pillows lay in the cold ash of the fireplace. Two lamps sat ready to topple off the edges of their tables, shades askew. The collectibles Jodi kept on her fireplace mantel lay shattered on the hearth. The bricks were littered with tiny arms and legs, porcelain hands gripping clusters of flowers, cherub faces split in half.
    Jodi sat hugging herself on the sofa, withdrawn like a terrified child. Her face was wet with unnoticed tears, her eyes unfocused.
    Ellis shot another glance at Greg. Her mother and father now stood shoulder to shoulder, facing him, inching him backward out of the living room.
    He reached around her father and punched a finger in the air. “I will never,
never
forgive you for this!”
    Ellis hurried to her aunt and knelt on the floor. “Aunt Jodi?” she said softly, her voice sliding beneath Greg’s angry words: “
You have no respect for our daughter . . . goddammit . . . you went behind my back . . .
”
    Jodi rocked slightly.
    Greg’s voice became more diffuse; her parents must have gotten him into the kitchen. Underneath Greg’s rants, Ellis could