Silent Witness by Richard North Patterson Read Free Book Online Page A

‘You guys want to go swimming?’
    Alison gave him that direct gaze that seemed to be her property. ‘In what?’
    Sam laughed. ‘It’s dark out,’ he said carelessly.
    Alison’s slight smile did not change her eyes. ‘Not dark enough.’
    He looked at her a moment, then shrugged and turned to Sue. ‘Let’s get in, okay?’
    Sue did not answer. In the ethos of Lake City High, you weren’t a slut if you slept with your boyfriend; or even more than one boyfriend, as long as the time between relationships was long enough to qualify both as love. What seemed to bother Sue was Alison – Sue turned to her, as if unwilling to compromise a comrade. With a certain patience, Sam waited: it struck Tony that Sam treated Sue with more respect than he did anyone but Tony himself.
    â€˜We’ll be back in a while,’ Sue said to Alison. Glancing at Tony, Sam took Sue’s hand.
    Silent, Tony and Alison watched Sam and Sue walk away, their shadows receding until they vanished in the darkness.
    Gently, Tony kissed her. ‘Want to go in?’ Tony asked. ‘They’ll be tied up for an hour.’
    Face close to his, Alison regarded him with both hesitance and desire; although they had touched each other, sometimes to the point of torment, she had never been undressed with him. Then she stood and backed into the shadows, still watching him.
    Tony waited, afraid to move. In the darkness, Alison was only a silhouette, arms raised above her head. Tony could sense, rather than see, her nakedness.
    Her slender body appeared in the moonlight, skittering into the water. Tony thought of his confessor, Father Quinn; Alison was the ‘near occasion of sin,’ Tony knew, and the sin of making love with her would be a mortal one. He could feel his heart beat.
    Stripping, Tony followed.
    He saw Alison waist deep in water, her back to him, and then she seemed to kneel, turning to face him with only her head above the inky blackness. She had given him no permission, Tony knew; this was her way of covering herself.
    He stopped a few feet from her, the water coming to his waist. Tony could imagine the hidden outline of her body, near enough to touch. He felt his own body stirring.
    He moved toward her. She froze, stepped back once, stopped again. Her eyes were very still.
    Reaching out, Tony lifted her by the waist and pulled her close to him, filled with months of wanting her.
    Their mouths met, and then their bodies. Tony could feel her small breasts against his chest, her hips thrust forward with her own sudden desire. Then she pulled her head back, twisting away.
    â€˜I can’t.’ Her voice was strained. ‘This can’t happen now.’
    Caught in his desperate need, Tony could not release her. ‘It can. . . .’
    Her eyes shut; it was as though if she could not see him she would not want him anymore. Suddenly Tony felt hollow. He had come too close; this time the denial of passion seemed to have left a hole in him, as if they suddenly had nothing. In a low voice, he said, ‘Your parents have started in on you again.’
    Alison’s eyes opened. Now she seemed incapable of looking away. ‘ Part of it is my parents. . . .’
    â€˜Is it still because I’m Catholic?’ In his anger and frustration, Tony felt his temper snap. ‘You can’t be too careful, can you? Let “them” in the club, and the next thing you know, your daughter will start having red-haired children with rosaries around their necks and a line straight to the Pope. . . .’
    Abruptly, Tony felt a wall come down between them; on the other side, closed to him, was the world of shopping trips to New York City, vacations in Paris, and weekends with the sons and daughters of the Taylors’ East Coast friends. All while Tony, whose grandfather Lord’s Polish surname was once two syllables longer, tugged his forelock on