Reckless Radiance by Kate Roth Read Free Book Online Page A

his grasp. She threw a bag together quickly, taking only things she really needed and said a painfully simple good-bye to Henry.
    The list of things wrong with what she was doing was endless. Failing to report a crime and transporting a dead body seemed like things that could easily ruin her life. Then there was the fact she was driving to her parent’s house, a place she hadn’t seen in over a year. As the open road put her in a trance, she wrestled with her options.
    She could pull over and call the cops. Tell them everything. Then again, she was only an hour and a half away from her parents. Mommy and daddy. If ever in her life she felt the need for her mommy and daddy, it was now.
    She could keep driving, try to bury him or take him to the lake and move home for a while and never speak or think of any of it again. She pondered that idea for a while and her head was quickly stuck on one thing. Russell’s body. His dead body. There was currently a dead man in her trunk and she was just feet from him, separated by only a little bit of steel and upholstery.
    Up ahead she saw the dim glow of a rest stop. Should she risk being caught by a policeman who stopped for a break? It didn’t matter. Maybe she wanted that to happen. Either way, she wanted to see him.
    Pulling in slowly, she scanned the empty parking lot like a paranoid criminal. If the shoe fits, right? She parked the car underneath one of ten street lights that lined the lot. Her breath was heavy and she could hear her pulse in her ears imagining her blood was near the brink of boiling. Her hands shook and suddenly her eyes brimmed with tears. She felt trapped inside that car. Inside her body, too. She wanted to be in Russell’s place.
    She glanced around the lot again seeing only semis parked for a night’s sleep. With her best stealth moves, she slinked out of the driver’s seat and around to the back of the car. Her eyes lingered on the trunk for what seemed like hours. The chill in the air made her breath show as fog each time she exhaled a quivering sigh. The street lamp above cast an ominous blue glow over everything including her skin, making it look paler. Ghostly. The light flickered every few minutes and each time it happened, she jumped and took another suspicious scan of the rest stop.
    Enough was enough. If she didn’t look at him one more time, she didn’t know how she would react when she went to bury him. Every time she thought those words or pictured herself with a shovel, she felt sick.
    With shaking hands and bated breath she slid the key into the lock and heard the dreaded pop of the trunk. She closed her eyes as she raised the hood. Her eyes slit open barely to look upon his body. Valerie gasped and her eyes flew open wide seeing what could only be described as a ridiculous sight.
    Russell lay propped up on one elbow, eyes open, chest moving, cheeks pinked, looking at his cell phone.
    “I can explain," he said.
    Fear swelled inside her tight chest and she felt like the air had been sucked out of her. She locked eyes with him and her chin quivered. Her thoughts were battling each other trying to make sense of the moment. She’d seen him dead, she knew it. She’d felt his blood on her hands. Then again, she thought Russell had been across the room when the shot fired but somehow he’d taken the bullet. It didn’t make any sense. Henry had stuffed him in the trunk but he was now climbing out and coming toward her with his arms outstretched. She stumbled back away from him with wide, glassy eyes.
    “Valerie, it’s all right,” he whispered.
    Her eyes moved around the abandoned lot and as soon as she knew they were alone, she sank to the ground in a fit of sobs. Her mind couldn’t take any more. She couldn’t see or hear anything. She didn’t feel the pavement below or the tears streaming down her cheeks. She was numb from the day she’d been forced to experience. For the second time in her life she held a dead man in her arms and