Dark Truth by Mariah Stewart Read Free Book Online Page A

the past four weeks, which meant that at least once a week, usually on Tuesday or Wednesday and always at the end of the work day, Jess called and cried on Nina’s shoulder. The book was too hard, it wasn’t shaping up the way she’d wanted it to. The characters weren’t cooperating, the book was falling apart. The book was doomed, her career was over.
    Yada, yada, yada.
    Nina smiled to herself, recalling Carlos’s often-quoted comment that it was better to be the editor, with an all-seeing eye, than the author, with limited vision.
    It had taken longer than usual to get Jess back on track, which resulted in her late arrival home. Which meant the trip she’d wanted to make to the gym wasn’t going to happen tonight. It was already late; she was hungry and tired and still had several hours’ worth of work to do.
    She had just settled down on the sofa with a plate of General Tso’s chicken and a bottle of water when she noticed the light blinking on her answering machine. She leaned over and tapped the play button, and sat back against the sofa cushions. She stabbed a water chestnut and listened to the first message. Charles, whom she’d gone out with twice last month, had tickets for the Jets game on Sunday. Was she interested?
    Was she? She shrugged. Not really.
    Next, a call from her upstairs neighbor apologizing if her new pup’s nightly crying was disturbing. They were trying to figure out a way to make it stop.
    Nina hadn’t realized there was a dog in the building.
    Finally, the last message and a familiar voice.
    “Hey, Nina, Kyle here. Hey, listen, I’m thinking I might want to stay in the house for a while after all. I mean, with Marcie and me splitting up, and her staying in our house with the kids, it just makes sense for me to stay here, at least until I can get the furniture sold. I think some of the pieces in your dad’s study might be antiques. I think you should take another look at the desk and that map chest he had in there. And some of the books look like they might be worth some serious money. I don’t feel right keeping the money from things like that. So you should rethink what you want to do with those items. I’m happy to sell them for you, but I won’t keep the money from the sale. And that’s not negotiable.” He paused, then added, as if it had just occurred to him, “Oh, and say, I was just wondering if you’d gotten around to opening the letter Stephen wrote to my mom. I guess I’m just curious to know what he’d had to say to her. Well, sorry I missed you. Give me a call when you get a chance.”
    The machine clicked to signal the message had ended, and she was glad she’d set it to run until the caller had completed saying whatever he or she had called to say. Few things were more irritating than voice mail that cut you off after an invariably short amount of time.
    Well, Kyle was welcome to the letter. She had no intention of reading it. She debated for a minute, then got up and went to the closet and took down the box, which remained unopened. She set it on the coffee table and went to the kitchen for a paring knife with which to cut the tape. She’d done her best to get rid of the damned thing, had gone so far as to deliberately leave it in the trunk of the rental car when she’d returned the vehicle. But some well-meaning, conscientious soul at the rental agency had forwarded it to her at her apartment, and she’d arrived home last Thursday night to find it waiting for her. She’d brought it upstairs and tucked it away, refusing to give it any consideration whatsoever.
    She slipped the knife through the tape and opened the box, ignoring the envelope addressed to her in her father’s small, precise script, and looking for the one with Olivia’s name on it. She found what she was looking for, dropped it on the table, and closed up the box, refusing to look upon the photographs that peeked out from under the pair of men’s dark brown leather shoes. Probably the