Far From True by Linwood Barclay Read Free Book Online

didn’t have any laundry with him. Just a swagger.
    “Excuse me,” Sam said, and walked toward the door. “Get out of here, Ed,” she told the man.
    Ed opened his arms wide in innocence. “Hey, just dropping by to say hello.”
    “I told you, get out.”
    “I thought I might do my laundry?”
    “Where is it?” she asked.
    “Huh?”
    “Your fucking laundry. You forget that?”
    Ed grinned. “Guessin’ I did.” The grin broadened. “Brandon’s folks say hi.”
    “You can tell Brandon’s psycho parents, and Brandon, too, that they can kiss my ass.”
    “Not me, too? Because I wouldn’t mind.”
    I put the book down.
    “I know the lawyers have been in touch,” Ed said, “but I thought I’d drop by to reinforce what they had to say. Carl’s going home.”
    “Carl
is
home. If he’s with me, he’s home.”
    “Well, from what I understand, that home is not suitable, Samantha. It’s an unfit environment.”
    “You think Carl’d be better off being raised by his dad? Getting some time every day in the exercise yard? Making license plates in the machine shop? Sounds like real father-son bonding time.”
    “Now you’re just being silly. Brandon’s folks are ready to step up and do the right thing just as soon as you come to your senses. And right now, they’re playing nice, just using the lawyers. You don’t want it to go beyond that, do you?”
    I said, “Is there a problem here?”
    I was standing just behind and to the side of Sam, my hands positioned unthreateningly behind my back. She turned when she heard my voice, and Ed squinted at me.
    “I think there is now,” Ed said. “The lady and I are talkin’, pal. I think it’s time you moved your panties into the dryer.”
    I said to Sam, “Is this man bothering you?”
    “It’s okay,” she said. “Ed’s leaving.”
    “That right, Ed?” I asked.
    He looked back at Sam and said, “You fucking this one, too?”
    Sam opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out.
    “You don’t speak to a lady that way,” I said.
    Ed fixed his eyes on me again. “Excuse me?”
    “Apologize.”
    “Apologize?”
    “About a block down, there’s a clinic where you can get your ears tested, if there’s something wrong with your hearing.”
    That was when he decided to have a go at me. Started to pull his right arm back, planted his left foot forward. When the punch was just starting to come my way, I brought my hands out from behind my back and tossed the powdered soap I’d been keeping in my right into his face.
    “Shit!” he said, stopping the swing halfway, putting both hands to his eyes.
    That was when I drove a fist into his considerable gut. It was like punching a massive Pillsbury Doughboy. Or maybe the Michelin Man.
    Didn’t really matter.
    What mattered was that he dropped to the floor like a sack of cement, gasping for air, still unable to see.
    I felt like giving him a good swift kick while he was down there, and might have, but the ding from my cell phone indicated I’d just received a text. I reached into my pocket, glanced at the screen, which read
Lucy Brighton
.
    The message was: Please call. URGENT.
    I said to Ed, “Don’t move or I’ll add fabric softener.” He kept wiping his eyes.
    I brought up Lucy Brighton’s number from my contacts list, dialed.
    “Oh, Cal, thank you,” Lucy said, her voice shaky. “You remember me?”
    “Of course,” I said. A recent investigation involving a student and the school board had brought us together. A former teacher and guidance counselor, she now worked as an administrator at the board office. “What’s wrong? Another school thing?”
    “No, not this time. It’s . . . more personal.”
    “You want to meet?” I asked, watching Ed brush soap powder from his eyes.
    She didn’t immediately answer. I had the sense she was trying to hold it together.
    “I think something has happened. At my parents’ house. Well, my father and his wife.” She paused, collecting herself.