What You Left Behind Read Online Free PDF

and pushing her against the gate. Her eyes grew huge and she opened her mouth to scream.
    Freddie dropped his phone and was immediately between them, fighting Gil off Stella, getting him in an armlock.
    “I’m OK,” Stella said weakly, attempting a laugh. She was hugging herself.
    Freddie saw the tears gathering in her eyes.
    “Let him go, Freddie.” Lana pried Freddie’s arms off Gil. “He didn’t mean to scare her. He just gets overenthusiastic sometimes.”
    Gil was clapping clumsily and nodding, unashamed by what he’d just done. He pulled at Bruce’s mane. “They say I’m bad but I’m not,” he said.
    The horses kicked up their heels and galloped off across the field in a chain reaction of bucks and sideswipes. Gil turned and lumbered off down the path.
    Freddie picked up his phone and put an arm around Stella. “You sure you’re OK?” he asked.
    She nodded, sniffing back the tears.
    Freddie ruffled her hair, fighting back his own tears, although fordifferent reasons. “He could be the one, you know,” he whispered, in a spooky-film voice, forcing himself to be brighter for Stella’s sake. “The evil murderer who lives in the old tack room.”
    “He’s not evil, you idiot,” Lana said immediately, but her words were obliterated by a sudden shriek from across the garden.
    They all turned. Gil was crouching, spit frothing at the corners of his mouth. The muscles in his forearms stood out as if his limbs were attached to his shoulders by thick cords.
    “I’m not a murderer!” he shouted. “I didn’t do it!”
    Lana ran over to him.
    Stella clung to Freddie, shaking.
    “He was my friend but now he is dead. Don’t blame me! Don’t blame me!”
    “No one’s blaming you for anything, Gil,” Lana said kindly. “Let’s get you inside.”
    She led him off toward the house, looking back at Freddie briefly, allowing him to see the worry written all over her face.
    Freddie didn’t know if he should go after her and help her or stay with Stella. In the end, he remained frozen, watching until they’d disappeared from sight, feeling even more useless than he already was.

3

    Lorraine gave a little smile when she heard Stella’s gasp of delight. Her daughter had been looking forward to the play all week.
    “Is that the place?” she asked as they viewed the wide red-brick building with its glass-topped tower sitting squarely beside the river. “Shakespeare’s theater?”
    Stella had stopped in her tracks as they’d rounded the corner from Sheep Street. They’d just finished lunch in a quaint bistro housed in a beamy black-and-white-fronted Tudor building with a wonky roof and cobbled courtyard at the rear. It had prompted her to pour out everything she knew about the 1500s. She’d not visited Stratford-upon-Avon for a few years and, now that she was older and had studied the period at school, she was devouring the quirky old buildings that seeped history.
    “It’s not Shakespeare’s theater as such,” Jo replied, “but it’s home to the Royal Shakespeare Company.” She wrapped her arm around her niece’s shoulders. “It opened in the nineteen thirties.”
    Stella nodded and spouted off another stream of facts about Elizabethan times and the Globe Theatre in London, tumbling over her words until Jo had to stop her. “Come on or we’ll be late,” she said, laughing, leading Stella across the road.
    Lorraine was pleased to see her daughter a bit more cheerful now. When Freddie had brought her back from the Manor earlier she’d seemed upset about something. Tearful, even. She hadn’t wanted to talk about it or say why, and Freddie hadn’t provided answers when asked. He’d just sloped off up to his room, saying he wouldn’t be coming to see the play. Jo had looked crestfallen.
    The Royal Shakespeare Company theater dominated Waterside, appearing almost factory-like and urban since its refurbishment. The glass and brick was a fitting contrast, Lorraine thought as they climbed the