Read Every Fear for Free Online Page B

people are, ma’am?”
    Studying the photo, the woman’s head tilted with the tender affection of a grandmother. A smile rose on her face then died. Her high red cheeks accentuated her Slavic features, pushing her bright eyes into tiny slits, as if to shut out the world—or her memories of it.
    “Ma’am.” Jason softened his voice. “Do you know what happened to these people? Did you see what happened?”
    She looked at him for several moments before smiling.
    “Tak.”
    Jason didn’t understand, but, given her intonation, interpreted it as yes and opened his notebook.
    But the old woman went away. Without moving a muscle, without leaving the bench, Lani Tychina resumed the journey she was on before Jason had interrupted her.
    She was a retired professor at the University of Washington; a linguist fluent in five languages; awidow who lived alone in her house a few doors from the Colsons, the young couple with the beautiful baby.
    Lani had gone to Arnie’s first thing this morning to get a new hinge to repair her cat door so Buttons would no longer have to scratch the screen to get in and out. Walking home, she’d remembered she needed lightbulbs, turned around, and started back.
    That was when she saw the van, the baby, Maria— everything.
    It catapulted Lani back to Kiev, back through her life, before she married her American sweetheart—the handsome history student—and moved to Seattle. Back to when she was a little girl, back to Kiev’s old castles in the hills, the silk-weaving mill, the market. Back to that day her Uncle Taras took her to the Podol and she was playing near the Dnieper River with her little cousin, Analise, back to when they heard the Soviet army trucks coming like sudden, angry thunder.
    They came upon them so fast.
    “Leave the ball, Analise! Take my hand! Analise!”
    But her cousin’s hand slipped from hers as the first truck launched Analise skyward. She fell to earth under the next truck, its big wheels firing her body like a rag doll to the gutter.
    Lani rushed to Analise, took up her hand, refusing to let go, screaming. Then today, the horror she thought she’d buried in Kiev returned when she’d witnessed the horror in front of Kim’s store.
    Lani was paralyzed by it.
    Too stunned to help or call, shocked with fear, she’d simply walked away, seeking comfort in the park thatwas like the banks of the Dnieper before the Soviet trucks; before death had brushed against her. And now this young man, Jason Wade from the newspaper, wanted Lani to tell him about it. She tried, but each time she replayed the details she was jolted.
    It was too painful.
    He kept speaking to her, this nice young man, repeating himself.
    “Ma’am, please, can you tell me again? You said you saw the incident. What did you see? Can you tell me, please?”
    Lani struggled. She wanted to help—had to help, but all she could see were the trucks and Analise until her thoughts shifted. Someone else was talking now. There was a woman with a pretty face also asking questions, like the police officers in Kiev.
    “Lani Tychina?”
    How does she know my name?
    “Tak.”
    “I’m Detective Grace Garner.” She showed her ID then abruptly turned to Jason. “Who are you?”
    “Jason Wade, Seattle Mirror, and I was interviewing Lani Tie-Chee-Na,” he said to Lani. “Is that correct, ma’am? Is that how you say your name?”
    “Your interview’s over,” Grace said. “Leave.”
    “This is a public park, Detective.”
    “Don’t make me tell you twice. This is police business.”
    Jason stood there, appraising her smooth skin, the way her hair was pulled back. She looked about his age, maybe a year or two older. Her face held somethingbright, strong. Behind her eyes, he perceived a hint of sadness. Maybe for the crime. Maybe for something personal.
    “Did you hear me?”
    Grace stepped closer, assessing him, the silver stud earring in his left lobe, then the few days’ growth of whiskers that suggested a