The Second Lie Read Online Free PDF Page A

does your mom work?"
    Maggie named the local department store. "She's a cashier, but that's just because she doesn't suck up enough to the managers to get a promotion. I keep telling her she should just do what they say and quit arguing and pretty soon she'll be calling the shots, but she doesn't listen."
    We were getting off track, and that sense I have that tells me when something's surfaced was kicking hard.
    "So you're curious about sex, but you don't like boys."
    "I guess."
    "Did I misunderstand?"
    "It's not that I don't like boys--as though I like girls or something. I don't. I like guys all right. Just not...you know...immature ones."
    And she was curious about sex.
    Uh-oh.
    Maybe Lori Winston was right about Maggie having a new interest. Moms often knew their daughters well.
    I refrained from biting on a fingernail in the absence of my pen. Or a new pencil. It's just that I seem to relax more, hear more, when I'm chewing something. Or writing.
    "Is there someone you like now?"
    "No." Maggie seemed to be inordinately interested in a flower on my couch.
    "You sure about that?"
    For the first time, when the teenager glanced up, she avoided looking me straight in the eye. "Positive."
    Okay. Well, I'd file that reaction. As soon as I could get to my pad and write it down.
    I had nothing solid. No real clues.
    Which put me right back to square one. Damn.
    It wasn't my job to like or dislike my clients. Or to open my heart to them. But this was my town. I cared about the people who lived here.
    And I liked this girl. I wanted to help her.
    "Is there anything you want to talk about?"
    "I paid for the hair color. It was on sale." Interesting choice of topic.
    "How do you get your money?"
    "I have a paper route." She named the local weekly that regularly employed Chandler teenagers. Like the larger papers used to do when I was growing up. "And I babysit whenever I can."
    Maggie and eighty percent of the other female teenagers in this town.
    We'd been talking for forty-five minutes. Lori Winston was due to arrive in another fifteen. Which didn't leave me much time.
    "What else is going on in your life? Any concerns about starting high school?"
    "Not really. I mean, it'll be all the same kids I went to junior high with. Just the teachers and building are different."
    "Why'd you quit cheerleading?"
    "Guys think cheerleaders are hot."
    "And that's a bad thing..." At Maggie's frown--her first full-out facial expression since she'd been there-- I added, "Because the guys who think they're hot are immature."
    "Right," she said, and I was left feeling as if I'd just scored well on an exam. Sometimes my job was like being a soldier--you had to walk through some minefields to get the work done. You avoided them when you could, and prayed in case you couldn't.
    "You said you read about teenage development on the Internet. And that you talk to sick kids online. Do you spend a lot of time on the Net?" Living alone with a working mother would probably give the girl plenty of opportunity to log on to what I considered the world's worst invention.
    "Some."
    "Do you talk to other people besides the kids?"
    "Not much."
    "But some."
    "Yeah. I guess."
    "Anyone in particular?"
    "What is this, twenty questions?"
    I'd just stepped on a mine.
    "Do you know why your mother wanted you to come see me, Maggie?"
    "Yeah. She thinks I'm doing it with an older guy."
    "But you aren't."
    "No. I told her that. But she doesn't believe me."
    "Have you talked to any older men on the Internet?"
    "I'm not stupid, Dr. Chapman. I know all about the sick stuff that goes on there. I stay away from it."
    "If an older guy asked you out, would you go?"
    "No. I'm too young."
    "Would you want to?"
    "Do I have to answer that?"
    "No."
    I waited, but Maggie didn't respond any further. I'd pushed as far as I could. The girl's entire demeanor had changed from willing cooperation to resentful suspicion.
    "What else have you read about on the Internet?"
    Maggie crossed her arms over