Rising Darkness by T.S. Worthington Read Free Book Online

didn’t want to give Robin too much to work with here. He did not want this little clown to know that Joe was the prime suspect in everything.
    Alex excused himself and left to leave Robin wondering about what was going on. Alex expected that Robin might call Jess to give her a heads up or a warning that he was going to be talking to her, but he would probably wait until the evening. That little worm had to think up a way to even broach the subject and break the news to her. By that time Alex would have already have talked to Jess.
     
     

Chapter 6: Childhood Games
     
    Joe could feel the beginnings of a good night’s sleep knocking at his doorstep, but he fought it anyway. He had been dragging hard all day since he had slept barely a wink the night before in the jail. He did not understand how anyone could be expected to live like that and to ever actually get some solid rest on those uncomfortable cots they were expected to use. It was really nothing more than thin metal covered by a very thin mattress and a sheet. It was horrible. He could not let himself go back there. He just couldn’t.
    His thoughts kept returning to his good friend Alex and he wondered what sort of progress he was making with his prospects. Alex was pretty crafty and clever. If someone had something to hide or if they were bending the truth any at all he would get it out of them. It was a gift that Joe had witnessed watching in court on several occasions to some of Alex’s more high profile cases that involved a lot of money.
    Joe and Kirsten had been having an amazing time talking and getting to know each other all evening after a nice dinner. They had even played some cards the way they had when she was younger. The favorite was Uno and his daughter was a notorious cheat. The worst thing was that she was not very good at it and then she would blatantly lie to your face when she was caught red-handed. It was a thing they had always done. He loved it.
    They had just finished up the third game of cards and were debating whipping out the good old chess board when the doorbell rang. Joe had listened to it and wondered why no one was answering, when he realized that the person who usually did that was out of town still with family. He was not sure she was coming back; she had heard about what happened to Tracy and about the media circus that was surrounding Joe right now. He was tempted to start looking for someone else, but he wasn’t sure where he would find someone good and reliable who would not care about any of those things.
    He started to get up but Kirsten beat him to it, rushing towards the door. The girl was still young and full of energy, like he used to be. He just wished that he could bottle just a little bit of this thing called youth and take just a bit of it every day.
    “OH MY GOD!”
    He heard Kirsten’s exclamation a few seconds before he entered the living area. He was shocked and speechless by who he saw standing in the doorway. He would not have believed it if anyone had told him this was ever going to happen, especially not now. But there was his step daughter, Elena.
    He could not get over how much she looked like her mother. It was as if she had been brought back to life. He just could not believe that Elena of all people had stopped what she was doing to come and see him during a time of great crisis. She had never really been that fond of Tracy, but then she had never really let herself become fond of Tracy. There was a permanent mental block and a huge wall there that she had carefully constructed so that it would not happen. She would never allow anyone to replace her mother in any way, even though she realized that was not what had happened.
    Joe had wished a thousand times a day that he’d had the relationship with Elena that he had with Kirsten. It was something that he struggled with and something that he knew would never be fixed. It was a constant source of pain in his life and he realized that when he stopped to