Stranger Things Have Happened: An Adrien English Write Your Own Damn Story (The Adrien English Mysteries) by Josh Lanyon Read Free Book Online Page B

you will be able to sit erect in a wheelchair and not have to lie inert in bed all the time. No, now you can sit inert in your chair.
    When you’re well enough for visitors, Detective Riordan comes to see you. He brings flowers, and seems self-conscious about it. He tells you the investigation into Robert’s death has moved in a different direction. The police are now looking into Tara’s financial situation. She was seriously in debt so being the beneficiary of Robert’s life insurance policy was a lifesaver for her. And of course she was a woman scorned, and everyone knows how that goes.
    Detective Riordan clearly has you confused with someone who gives a damn. In case he hasn’t noticed, you’ve got your own problems now. You let him know this in words of one syllable, and he goes away.
    You spend a month in the ICU and then a couple of months in a very expensive rehabilitation center learning how to breathe properly and swallow so you won’t strangle yourself.
    It could be worse — as people can’t seem to resist telling you. You could be dead. You hear that a lot. You’re too polite to respond with what you’re actually thinking. You are lucky in that your family is very wealthy and you’ll have all the care you need, and since you require twenty-four-hour complete assistance with everything from bathing to eating, that’s a very good thing.
    While you’re in rehab, you learn that your mother assumes you will move in with her after you’re released. She’s already handled the sale of Cloak and Dagger Books and had your belongings moved to her home in Porter Ranch. The house is being remodeled to accommodate the new and unimproved you, and she’s busily interviewing private nurses.
    Your options for suicide are reduced these days, but you can’t help thinking a lot about driving your motorized wheelchair into oncoming traffic. If only your keepers will ever let you get near traffic again.
    But then Claude comes to visit and suggests you move in with him. He confesses he’s always been a little in love with you, and he wants to take care of you. “Someone has to, ma belle .”
    Tears well in your eyes when Claude says you could be his partner in the restaurant. There’s nothing wrong with your brain, and you’ve always been pretty good at business.
    “We would make a good team, non ?”
    Hell. You can’t wipe your eyes, you can’t wipe your nose, crying is liable to drown you. The tears tickle their way down your face and you gulp in shuddery breaths. Claude makes a soothing sound, mops your wet face for you, holds a tissue for you to blow your nose. Welcome to the rest of your life.
    As grateful as you are, you feel you have to be honest with Claude, and you tell him you’ve never thought of him as anything but a friend. A dear friend, but…a friend.
    Claude just chuckles in that deep, sexy voice. He tells you love will come.
    Which brings up another, though related, subject. But Claude just brushes off your concerns and repeats that love will come.
    __________
    If you decide to move in with your mother, click here
    If you decide to move in with Claude, click here

Y ou go to Brits Restaurant and Pub on East Colorado Boulevard. There’s a dining room, but you sit in the pub section which has a ten-seat bar — nine seats of which are empty — a small TV playing soccer, and a handful of uncomfortable little tables.
    You order a Harp. Riordan orders a Bass ale.
    “So what piece of incriminating evidence do you think you left at Hersey’s?” Riordan inquires. He takes a long pull on his ale.
    Drinking on duty. Hm. He didn’t strike you as the type. But then you probably don’t look like an amateur burglar either.
    “I told you. I thought Robert might have brought some invoices home with him.”
    Riordan looks pained. “Come off it. You’re smart. Sort of. You know how it works. You know there are channels. Not to mention the fact that Hersey would no more have brought his work home with