Lying With Strangers by James Grippando Read Free Book Online Page A

they’re in trouble?”
    “Do you have to stick your nose into everything?” he said.
    “If her marriage is falling apart, she’ll need emotional support from us. We can’t help her if we don’t know what’s going on in her life.”
    Peyton didn’t need to open her eyes to see her father weakening. That was the way her mother had always gotten to him. Put it in terms of Peyton’s well-being.
    “What do you want to do?” he asked.
    “I think we should ask her about the baby.”
    “Ask her what, if she really wanted it? That’s pointless.”
    “If we can help her realize that she really didn’t want it, we can help her get over the fact that she lost it. She’ll recognize it was all for the best.”
    “Let her grieve, will you, please? For once in your life, stop trying to tell your daughter how she should feel.”
    “Are you going to do it or not?”
    “No,” he said firmly.
    “If you don’t, I will.”
    “I’m not doing it. And if you’re half as smart as you think you are, you won’t either.”
    “What do you know about smart, Henry Shields?”
    Peyton lay still, eyes shut, hoping just this once to hear a stinging comeback from her father. But she knew he was too big of a person to trade insults with his wife in front of their daughter, even if he did think she was unconscious.
    She heard only the shuffle of her father’s footsteps and the firm closing of the door.

7
    IT WAS ALMOST LUNCHTIME WHEN SHE HEARD KEVIN’S VOICE IN THE hallway. He’d kept his promise. With him was a detective from Boston PD.
    “John Bolton,” he said in a voice that was just right for a police station, a little loud for the ICU.
    Peyton shook hands, careful not to yank out an IV tube. “Thanks for coming.”
    “No problem.” He said “no” like a cow, a long moo with an “n.” The closer Peyton looked, the more apt the bovine analogy seemed. He was a large man, undoubtedly muscle-bound in his younger years, simply thick in middle age. The face was round and full. He wore a necktie with the top button of his shirt unbuttoned, not to be casual but because the jowls made it impossible to button it. As he removed his coat, Peyton noticed the burly folds of skin on the back of his neck, little steps that led to his crew-cut head. He had a set of matching steps on his forehead.
    “Some water?” Peyton offered, with a nod toward the pitcher on her bed tray.
    “Nah, I’m fine,” said Bolton. “I know you’re not feeling a hundred percent, so I’ll make this quick. I read the accident report, so I know just about everything there is to know, except what you can add.”
    “Did you find out who pulled me out of the car, who called nine-one-one?”
    “The call came from a pay phone. The guy did tell the operator he was the one who pulled you from the water, but he didn’t want to give his name.”
    “Isn’t that a little odd?”
    “Not really. In this day and age, a guy dials nine-one-one and leaves his name, next thing he knows a hotshot lawyer is suing him for smearing some woman’s makeup as he pulled her from a burning building. You can’t blame people for not wanting to get that involved.”
    “I guess not,” she said, thinking of Felicia’s lawsuit against her and the hospital.
    “Anyway,” said Bolton, as he removed a pen and small pad from inside his coat pocket. “The nurse is going to kick me out in five minutes, so as best you can remember, tell me what happened.”
    Peyton glanced at Kevin for reassurance, then began. “It was around three A.M. I remember it was snowing hard. Harder by the minute. I stopped at a red light and dialed in for messages on my cell phone.”
    “At three in the morning?” asked Bolton.
    “It’s about the only free time I get, but that’s not important. The light changed. I turned down Riverway and right before it becomes Jamaicaway, a car flew past me.”
    “Were you still on the phone?”
    “No. I had just hung up.”
    “Was that the only call you