The Bitter Season by Tami Hoag Read Free Book Online

anyway.”
    “Thanks.”
    “Trouble sleeping tonight?” he asked, trying to slip that in casually.
    “I’m fine,” Evi said. “I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep. A little TV, a little knitting . . . I’m fine.”
    “It’s the pressure of being a local celebrity,” Eric said teasingly.
    The Minneapolis
Star Tribune
had recently run a weekend feature story on Chrysalis and its work with victims of sexual abuse, domestic violence, and sex trafficking. In her capacity as the center’s senior social services case worker, Evi had been pictured and quoted, speaking out about the difficulties faced by victims who had aged out of the foster care system but didn’t meet the requirements for most women’s shelters.
    “I’m last Sunday’s news,” she said.
    She had been a little uncomfortable with the spotlight, brief as it had been, but publicity for the center was always welcome. The article had generated interest from several local TV and radio stations in the week that followed, but media attention had since moved on to new stories.
    Evi dropped a stitch in her knitting as one of those new stories filled her television screen with photos and graphics. Her heartbeat quickened. A strange cold flush ran over her from head to toe.
    NEW COLD CASE UNIT TARGETS UNSOLVED HOMICIDES
     
    The photograph took her back in time. Ted Duffy in a suit, looking authoritative, his face set in stern lines as he accepted an award,his wife, Barbie, and his twin brother standing in the background clapping.
    “Using half a million dollars in federal grant money, the Minneapolis Police Department, in conjunction with the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office, will launch a dedicated cold case unit this week . . .”
    The unit’s first case would be the unsolved murder of decorated sex crimes detective Ted Duffy.
    Eric looked from Evi to the TV and back. “What? Do you know that guy?”
    “No,” she lied, setting her knitting aside. She turned back to her husband with a smile. “A dedicated cold case unit will be a godsend for a lot of victims’ families from back when. Kate Quinn will be knocking on the door of that unit first thing tomorrow.”
    “While we sleep in,” Eric said, getting up from the couch. He held his hand out to her and pulled her up and into his arms. “Let’s go back to bed, Mrs. Burke. We’ve got some serious snuggling to do.”
    Evi pressed her cheek into his shoulder and hugged him tight. “That’s the only place I want to be.”
    In the here and now with the man of her dreams. But when she closed her eyes, she saw only the faces of her past.

6
     
    Sleet began to pelt the windows at around one thirty in the morning. The sound woke Professor Lucien Chamberlain from a shallow sleep. He fumbled for his glasses on the nightstand and checked the time on his phone.
    Beside him, his wife slept on, undisturbed by the rapid
tic tac tic tac
of the ice pellets striking the glass. Of course, she had taken to wearing earplugs to bed because she claimed he snored. Ridiculous. He didn’t snore.
She
snored. She snored especially when she had been drinking, and she had been drinking more than usual lately.
    She thought he didn’t notice. She thought she had become so adept at hiding it over the years that she could fool him. The truth was he didn’t care anymore. As long as she didn’t embarrass him in public or in front of his peers or their neighbors, he ignored her.
    That was, and had been, the state of their marriage: tolerance and cohabitation. He had no interest in her as a woman any longer. He never really had. His life was about his career. She had her committees and charities. They were companions for social events.
    She had never been a beautiful woman, he thought as he looked at her in the dim light from the bathroom. She had started leaving a nightlight on after stumbling into the shower stall by mistake one night, injuring herself badly enough that she had needed to go to the emergency