The Lurking Man by Keith Rommel Read Free Book Online Page A

and exited the house with a shake of his head and a slam of the door.
    She wiped her eyes and the stillness was instant and intense. She was lost and completely alone. Four thick walls made of self-pity and reinforced with the sins of her past held her prisoner. There were no doors to allow her passage and the walls were too tall to climb.
    â€œWhy can’t you understand that I don’t deserve to be loved?” she said to the closed door. She scanned the room and found the wine glass Emerson had placed on the countertop. It beckoned her.  
    â€œI don’t deserve to be loved by you or anyone else,” she said and hurried to the wine and carried it to the couch. She sat, turned on the digital picture frame, and watched the slideshow. She sipped the mauve liquid and struggled to think of ways to make things better.
    â€œI need to stop drinking,” she said, and meant it. She raised the glass and nodded. “I’ll have this last one to help take away some of the tension, and then I’ll stop.”
    The picture of her and Beau at the park appeared and she emptied the remainder of the wine out of the glass.
    You said this was the last drink and that you would stop.
    â€œThat’s not enough,” she said and paid the voice inside no attention.
    You had enough.
    â€œThat has to be the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard, so shut up,” she said to the frail voice of reason still within her.
    She went upstairs for the bottle of wine that was left on her nightstand. She was certain she would find a better plan hidden somewhere near the bottom of that bottle. 

Chapter 5
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    SEEING DEATH
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    Present day.
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    Cailean stood in the center of the light, oblivious to her whereabouts. Disoriented by the impossible task of trying to organize her thoughts, she had awoken from her memory with a heavy buzz from the alcohol she consumed after Emerson left her. Feeling dizzy and having a terrible stomachache, she bent over and moaned.
    â€œTake a moment and allow it to run its course,” the harsh voice from the unlit space said. “Those are merely residual feelings you’ve taken back with you and they will pass.”
    She couldn’t resist the pain any longer and collapsed to a knee.
    â€œI don’t know how I used to do this to myself every day,” she said, and clamped her eyes shut. The deep, gut-wrenching ache forced tears from her eyes. “I feel like hell.”
    â€œWhen someone is hurting they will do desperate things to try and escape the pain.”
    The tone of his voice and the way it penetrated her being made her body ache worse. Certainly having to argue with Wilson or fight with Emerson was so much more appealing than this. She’d even prefer to bask in her misery over Beau and what she did to him.
    â€œI know that now,” she said and dry heaved. She spit and wiped her mouth with her wet, stretched out sleeve. “I don’t know all of the details yet, but I know I did something unthinkable to my son. I mistreated Wilson and used Emerson along the way and didn’t care about their feelings. I know my childhood was bad, but whatever it is that happened, these big events we keep dancing around, they obviously turned me into this self-destructive, intolerable person.”
    The wind responded with a strong gust that nearly pushed her over. It was powerful and it reminded her of the shoves she had received from ill-intentioned kids that would surround her in grade school. They would volley her back and forth and tease her about her father, calling him a jailbird. She would argue back, stating that he was in prison and there was a big difference between the two.  
    â€œHold on,” she said, and tried to focus on the memory. “I think I just remembered something about my father. I was teased as a kid because he was in prison for some reason.”
    â€œYes,” he said. “You did many horrible things in