The Burning Girl by Lisa Unger Read Free Book Online Page A

okay.”
    Ray forced her to leave her car in the lot and drove her home. On the way, she told him about The Burning Girl, about tonight. He listened in the silent, careful way he had. When she was done, he didn’t say anything for a minute. She could feel him processing, trying to understand, to make connections.
    “I want to take care of you, Eloise,” said Ray finally.
    Ray and Eloise had an on-again, off-again thing for a while. Mainly, it was about sex. Well, not sex really, but closeness, physical contact. Now that he and his wife were living apart, Eloise had figured that he would want more. She wasn’t sure that she had anything to give.
    She put a hand on his arm. “You do take care of me,” she said.
    She liked the look of him. His big shoulders, his full head of hair, those dark eyes that glittered with intelligence and mischief. He had powerful hands, a good face with strong, defined features. There was just one problem with Ray. He wasn’t Alfie. Eloise still belonged to her husband. He’d have wanted her to move on, to find happiness. She knew that. She just couldn’t.
    “As much as you let me,” he said.
    “It’s enough,” she said. It sounded like she was shutting him down. And maybe she was. Still, he brought her home and got her tucked into bed. Then he headed out again to get her soup from the twenty-four-hour diner just outside of town—because that’s what she wanted to eat and there wasn’t anything in the house. He was a good man. She could tell that he was dying to talk to her about Stephanie Schaffer, but he was keeping whatever he’d found to himself for now.
    • • •
    Ray had been gone only a few minutes when the phone rang. She picked up quickly because how odd for the phone to ring after midnight. Usually, she’d let the voice mail get it and screen the call. But she had a feeling she shouldn’t do that. When she picked up, she heard her daughter’s voice.
    “Mom,” said Amanda. A mother knows when her child is on the verge of tears. Amanda had always been a stoic, holding it all in. Emily was the emotionally flamboyant one, always screaming and slamming doors. Only once had Amanda gone through a “rage phase”—and she’d been entitled to it after losing her sister and father. After that passed, she’d grown more reserved than ever. But Eloise could hear it, that slight wobble.
    “Amanda,” said Eloise. “What’s wrong?”
    Her daughter released a shuddering breath. Eloise reached for it. What was it? Had something happened to one of her grandchildren? She sat up, gripped the phone. There was nothing. Surely, she’d have felt it before now.
    “Finley asked me to call you,” said Amanda. “She woke up from a nightmare, crying. She never does that. She said you hit your head, Mom. Is that true?”
    Finley’s given name was Emily. (Amanda had named her after her lost sister, much to Eloise’s dismay.) But when Finley was very little she started insisting that she be called by her middle name. No one understood why, but she was so intractable on the point that everyone complied. Amanda had named her younger son Alfred, after her father. And Amanda called him Alfie. Eloise could never understand why people insisted on naming the living after the dead.
    “It’s true,” Eloise said reluctantly. “I just got back from the hospital.”
    “Are you all right?”
    “I’m fine, dear,” she said. “Really.”
    “Why didn’t you call me?” Amanda asked. She heard all the notes of fear and guilt in her daughter’s voice. Because you live all the way across the country , Eloise thought. Because you’ve made it clear that you want limited contact . She didn’t say those things.
    “Because I’m fine.”
    Eloise could hear Finley’s mellifluous, sweet voice in the background. “I want to talk to Mimi.”
    There was some muffled shuffling.
    Then, “Mimi, are you okay? I saw you fall. You hit your head on the table.”
    Finley was a very wise