Down the Darkest Road by Tami Hoag Read Free Book Online Page B

stands,” Anne said as the waitress brought their drinks. “Try that wine. If you decide you want another, I’ll drive you home.”
    Lauren laughed. “Most therapists don’t recommend self-medicating.”
    Anne shrugged. “Two glasses of wine never killed anybody. And I’m not most therapists. You seem on edge. That’s not a fun place to be.”
    “It’s been a long day,” Lauren admitted. She wondered what the psychologist would have to say if she related her afternoon’s drama. Anne Leone would probably write her a prescription for a long stay in a padded room.
    She took a sip of the wine. It was warm and velvety on her tongue, and went down as smooth as silk. She looked to the playroom to see Leah and Wendy laughing at the antics of Anne’s little boy as he danced around in a sea of large, colorful plastic balls.
    “That’s nice to see,” she said. “Leah hasn’t found a lot to smile about lately.”
    “That’s a tough age to move,” Anne said. “I’m sure she misses her friends. But she’s found a good new friend in Wendy.
    “Wendy’s been through a lot in the last few years too,” Anne explained. “I was her fifth-grade teacher. She and several of her classmates stumbled onto a murder victim. It was a rough time that opened a Pandora’s box of trouble. She lost her best friend. She was attacked by another student. Her parents ended up getting divorced.”
    “That sounds like a lot of damage done,” Lauren said.
    “No doubt about that. And it’s hard for kids who have gone through these kinds of things. All they want is to be like everyone else their age, but they’re not. They’ve had experiences other kids can’t understand or relate to.”
    “I feel the same way,” Lauren confessed. “And I’m forty-two.”
    “You belong to a club nobody wants to join.”
    “The dues suck,” she pointed out.
    “And there are no benefits,” Anne added.
    “Aren’t we lucky?” Lauren said, giving a little toast with her glass.
    “Speaking for myself,” Anne said, “yes. My alternative was to be dead. I’d rather be a live victim than a dead one. At least there’s room for things to improve.”
    And I’d rather be dead if it meant bringing Leslie home safe , Lauren thought, but didn’t say. She’d shared enough for one night.

6
     
    “She didn’t start out a bitch,” Tanner said. “I’ll give her that. You had to feel for her. I can’t imagine going through that—your kid just disappears, you don’t know what happened, you don’t know if she’s alive or dead or what some sick son of a bitch is doing to her. What else would matter to you? Nothing. Fuck everybody.”
    She took a long drink. Vodka and tonic with three wedges of lemon.
    They sat at a prime window table at one of the best restaurants on Stearns Wharf. Tanner’s choice. A well-dressed older woman at the next table gave Tanner a dirty look for her language. Tanner rolled her eyes.
    “I’d be the same or worse,” she admitted. “If somebody tried to do something to my kid, I’d be like a tigress with her claws out. I wouldn’t care who got in my way.
    “If I were in her place and believed what she believes, I would have fucking killed Roland Ballencoa with my bare hands. I would have cut his tongue out, tore his balls off, then pulled his beating heart from his chest and eaten it while he died watching.”
    “I’ll remember not to piss you off,” Mendez said. “Tell me about Ballencoa. Obviously you think he did it.”
    Tanner played with her fork, frowning. “I liked him for it. So did everyone else. But we’ve got nothing on him. No one saw anything. No one heard anything. There was never any sign of the girl.”
    “Did he have an alibi?”
    “The ever-popular ‘home alone.’ ”
    “Did he have a history with the girl?”
    “He’s a freelance photographer by trade. He had taken pictures of the Lawton girl—and a lot of other girls her age—at sporting events, concerts, on the street.
    “He