Wicked Lies Read Online Free PDF

simply the way it was. She’d tried to accept the rules but been unable. She’d tried once to make believe they could work their way back together, and that was a complete failure, for which she now was pregnant.
    With Byron’s child. For so long she’d wanted a baby, hoped for a child, and now . . . oh, God, now she felt a fierce love for this baby but didn’t kid herself that raising the child—Byron’s child—alone would be easy.
    She sat at the table a long time, finally got up and heated water in the microwave and, when the timer dinged, dipped a packet of decaf tea into the steaming cup. As the fragrant tea steeped, she turned on the television and caught breaking news.
    Her heart nearly stopped.
    The narrow face of Channel Seven’s Pauline Kirby, her short, slick dark hair blowing a bit in the evening breeze, was reporting that Justice Turnbull, a known murderer, had escaped from Halo Valley Security Hospital. Two men had been critically injured. One was fighting for his life.
    “Oh, dear God.” Laura stared at the screen.
    “A madman is loose,” Pauline was saying, and Laura recognized the redwood and stone facade of the mental hospital in the background, filmed earlier this evening, and shivered to her toes.
    Her tea forgotten, she watched the rest of the short report while her heart drummed in her chest and her worst fears were confirmed.
    She wished suddenly, mightily, that there was someone out there who could find Justice Turnbull, dig him out from under whatever rock he chose to hide, expose him, and make sure he was locked away so deep that he could never hurt her or the new life growing inside her, a life she was already bonding with.

CHAPTER 3
    I t had been a less than interesting day for Harrison Frost, but then they all were since he’d been fired, let go, canned, kicked in the ass, and ordered ten million miles away from the Portland Ledger and his old job. One day he was a respected investigative reporter; the next he was dog meat. All because he’d tweaked a few tails that didn’t want to be tweaked. And he would do it again. His brother-in-law’s death was a homicide no matter how many people wanted to shriek otherwise, and at some point he was going to prove that fact.
    But tonight . . . tonight he was following another story, one with less drama but one that was a fascinating character study nonetheless. He was sitting at an outdoor café table, scrunched down in a half-lounging manner by design, staring across Broadway—Seaside, Oregon’s main drag—toward a waffle cone stand as this surprisingly soft June day faded into night. His right arm was hanging loose, his fingers touching the fur of his sister’s fuzzy mutt, Chico. He’d be lucky if the mean little bastard didn’t turn around and bite him. The beast seemed to have an aversion to men of all kinds, but the dog sure as hell liked the girls, and that was exactly the reason Harrison had deigned to take him out. Harrison was on a story that involved teenagers, and he didn’t want the young girls to think he was some creepy guy, so he kept Chico around to make him seem more approachable.
    Now the dog growled low in its throat, so Harrison carefully removed his hand. No need to risk injury for the sake of his costuming. Chico had snapped at him enough times for him to respect the little bastard’s space. Jesus. The only thing good about this assignment was it didn’t require much in the way of self-realization and reflection. He could just move forward and forget—or at least put aside—the events that had led him here. It was a job. It didn’t require anything from him but to be in the present.
    Harrison glanced at his watch. It was 9:00 p.m. The girl Harrison currently had under surveillance was a sixteen-year-old thief with a bad attitude, a habit of chewing gum with her mouth open, and an enormous sense of entitlement. She and her girlfriends and a few guy friends appeared to have banded together and started stealing