Shakespeare's Counselor by Charlaine Harris Read Free Book Online Page A

Tamsin and her husband. I had not spoken a word about what Jack and I had seen that evening while we were out walking. As far as I could tell, no one in Shakespeare knew that someone was stalking our counselor.
    Sandy McCorkindale was waiting outside when I arrived for our third evening together. While I knew more about Sandy’s life than I knew about almost any of the others—I’d met her husband, seen her sons, worked in her church, walked by her home—I realized I understood her less than any member of our little group. Waiting in the heat with her was not a happy prospect.
    In the two weeks since our first meeting, the season had ripened to full-blown summer. It was hotter than the six shades of hell standing on the asphalt, maybe the temperature was down to ninety-four from the hundred and four it had been that afternoon. At eight o’clock, the parking lot wasn’t dark; there was still a glow from the nearly vanished sun. The bugs had started their intense nightly serenade. If I drove out of town right now and parked by the road in an isolated place and tried to talk to a companion, the volume of bug and frog noise would put a serious crimp in the conversation. Anyone expecting nature to be silent—especially in the South—was plain old nuts.
    I got out of my car reluctantly. It had been a fruitless day on stakeout in Little Rock, and Jack was out of town on a missing-persons job, so I wasn’t having the mild glow of accomplishment I usually enjoyed after a long day. When I went home after the therapy hour, I promised myself, I would take a cool shower and I would read. After a day spent dealing with others, television was just one more batch of voices to listen to; I’d rather have a book in my hands than the remote control.
    â€œEvening, Sandy,” I called. At that moment, the pole-mounted security lights came on. With the residual daylight creating long shadows from behind the trees, I was walking across a visual chessboard to reach the woman standing by the side door we always used. As I drew closer, I could see the preacher’s wife had sweat beaded on her forehead. She was wearing the current young matron uniform, a white T-shirt under a long sleeveless, shapeless khaki dress. Sandy’s streaked hair was still in its slightly teased-with-bangs Junior League coiffure, and her makeup was all in place, but there was definitely something happening in her head. Her brown eyes, dark and discreetly made up, darted from my face to the cars to the bushes and back.
    â€œTamsin didn’t leave the door open,” Sandy said furiously. She was carrying her straw shoulder bag in the usual way, but with an abrupt gesture she let the strap slide down her arm and she swung the bag, hard, against the side of her car. That made me jump, and I had to repress a snarl.
    I wondered, for maybe the fifth or sixth time, why Sandy kept coming. She’d never talked in any more detail, or with any more feeling, about what had happened to her, but she kept showing up. She was making a real effort to keep herself separated from the common emotional ground. But every Tuesday night, there she was in her chair, listening.
    I leaned against the wall to wait for Tamsin to unlock the door. I didn’t feel up to any more emotional outbursts from Sandy McCorkindale.
    Melanie and Carla arrived together. I had decided they’d known each other before coming to the therapy group. In conversation, I’d heard them refer to common acquaintances.
    â€œGood! I got time for a cigarette,” Carla said in her harsh voice. She had one lit and puffing in a flash. “My car done broke down today in front of Piggly Wiggly, and I had to call Melanie here to give me a ride.”
    Normally I would have expected Sandy to pick up the conversational ball, but not tonight.
    â€œWhat’s wrong with the car?” I asked, after a beat.
    â€œMy boyfriend says it might be the alternator,”