Flashback by Amanda Carpenter Read Free Book Online Page B

You’ve never been anything but honest with yourself. What were you planning on doing with the ink drawings after you’ve finished with them?”
    She shrugged. “I really don’t know. Maybe I could get them displayed in a bookstore or an art store somewhere. I was thinking about trying that. But first I have to get the drawings done!” She paused and then glanced at her mother, noticing with affection how Denise’s hair was beginning to silver. It was striking against her dark hair. “Do you really think they might sell?”
    Her mother’s response was immediate and sincere. “Yes, I do. Your drawings have a sensitivity and a delicacy about them that is tremendously appealing. I think you have a great deal of promise.”
    “Thanks.” Dana smiled slightly at the encouragement and praise from her mother, and Denise breathed an unconscious sigh of relief. It was the first real smile she’d seen from Dana in days.
    But then the smile was fading and Dana’s eyes went unfocused as her head came up like a questing dog’s, sniffing the wind. She said briefly, “The front door. Would you get it, Mom? I don’t really feel like talking to anyone today.”
    And Denise frowned, saying, “Sure, I’ll take care of whoever it is.” She noted the pallor in Dana’s cheeks and the way her fingers tightened on her drawing pad. “Is everything all right, dear?”
    “Oh, yes,” she answered, too quickly. She tried to smile again, but it was the same facial movements that Denise had seen for the past three weeks. The older woman knew a sinking feeling. “What could possibly be wrong?”
    After staring at her daughter hard, Denise shook her head slightly and left to answer the knock at the front door that had not yet come. Dana kept her face averted until her mother had left the kitchen, and then she blew out a shaky sigh. She would steal out the back way while her mother talked to David Raymond. She knew that his intention was to speak to her and not her mother, but she had no desire to have what she was sure would be an unpleasant encounter with him. Then her head jerked, and her hand slipped on her pictures, sending them scattering to the floor.
    “Oh, no,” she said in a kind of moan, panic fluttering through her stomach. “He’s coming for the back door, instead!” She’d felt him change his mind just as she’d known his original intent. It sent her scrabbling on the floor in a frantic effort to pick up all of her pictures and get out before he actually looked. “Mom! He’s coming to the back door instead! Hurry and—oh, shoot!” That last was as a firm knock sounded not five feet away from where she was crouched. She straightened slowly, knowing she couldn’t escape now since the curtains across the window in the back door were pulled wide open and that his eyes were on her.
    She went to the back door and pulled it open reluctantly, just as her mother hurried into the kitchen from the front of the house. Dana lifted her eyes as if her gaze were under a heavy weight, and she met the dark, blank eyes of the silent man in front of her. He was still. Then he moved, breaking out of that silent pose. “Hello, Dana,” David said quietly. “May I come in, please?”
    If Dana had been by herself, she would have been rude and refused, but her mother was standing there and watching, and Denise never tolerated rudeness to a visitor. Dana dropped her eyes and stepped back. She searched frantically for some kind of clue as to why he was there, feeling the air before her delicately, with invisible antennae, but she could pick up nothing aside from a grim purpose and the intention to speak to her. That unsettled her more than most anything else would have; she always relied on her extra sense like most people rely on their sight or their hearing. It was a mistake to do so, she knew suddenly. Sometimes it just didn’t seem to work.
    She had no inkling as to what to expect. She didn’t know if he was angry or sad, or if he