Read In the Dark for Free Online

she was lying.
     
“How did the two of you meet?” he asked.
     
“We were both in Rikke Mathisen’s geometry class in our junior year,” Tish said. “Laura and I sat next to each other. It was like we were kindred spirits. Laura was restless, like me. She had lost her mom, too, and her dad was a piece of shit, so she could relate to what I was going through.” She hesitated. “I’m sorry, I guess I shouldn’t have said that. He was your father-in-law.”
     
Stride shrugged. He and William Starr had never been close. The man had dealt with the tragedies of his life by taking his anger and his Puritan guilt out on everyone around him. Except Cindy. He knew better than to tangle with his youngest daughter. Cindy had pretty much run her dad’s life for the next fifteen years after his wife’s death, until William Starr succumbed to cancer. Just as Cindy would do ten years later. Stride finally understood how easy it would have been to end up like his father-in-law, when he lost his own wife in the prime of her life.
     
“I think Cindy was a little jealous of me in those days,” Tish said. “You know as well as I do that Cindy and Laura were never really the same after their mom died. Cindy took over, and Laura let her, but that’s not the same as being sisters. So when I came along, it was like I was the sister Laura had been looking for. Cindy never said anything, but I don’t think she liked it. I was always there. I slept over a lot. Laura and I shared everything. We were going to run away from Duluth together, see the big wide world, you know?”
     
“Except you moved away, and Laura didn’t,” Stride said.
     
Tish’s face clouded over. “Yeah.”
     
“What happened?”
     
“I told you, it wasn’t important.”
     
“No, you told me you didn’t remember,” Stride said.
     
Tish looked at him. “You’re right, I don’t.”
     
She was still lying.
     
“Anyway, we were past it,” Tish went on. “I wrote to her when I moved to St. Paul, and she wrote back, and we became friends again, just like before. Laura was going to join me in the Cities. She never got the chance, though. She was killed before she could get away. I guess that’s why it’s gnawed at me all these years. It wasn’t supposed to be that way. She and I were supposed to escape together. Instead, we let some silly argument come between us, and she stayed behind. And she never made it out.”
     
She made it sound as if Duluth were a war zone, and Laura had been a soldier trapped behind enemy lines.
     
“When did the stalking begin?” Stride asked.
     
“During the spring. Late April, early May.”
     
“Did Laura have any idea who was doing this to her?”
     
Tish shook her head. “No, but it must have been someone at school. Most of the notes wound up in her locker. She thought it would all go away after graduation.”
     
“It didn’t?”
     
“No, the letters and photos started arriving by mail after school let out. Laura told me about it when she wrote to me in the Cities. I was scared for her.”
     
“Why did you bring up Peter Stanhope’s name? Do you have any reason to believe he was the one who was stalking her?”
     
“He was one of the last people to see her alive. I know he was a suspect in the murder.” She added, “Does your girlfriend have some kind of relationship with Peter Stanhope?”
     
“He’s a client,” Stride said.
     
He didn’t tell her that the relationship went deeper than that. Stanhope had asked Serena to be a full-time investigator at his law firm, and Serena was wrestling with the decision. Stride thought she was planning to say yes.
     
“Is that going to be a problem?” Tish asked.
     
“Peter’s rich and powerful. That’s always a problem.”
     
Tish shrugged. “I’m not afraid of him. Look, I know that Peter was after Laura. They dated for a while that spring. Peter was looking for another conquest. If Laura had put out, that would have been the end of it.”
     
“But she didn’t?” Stride asked.
     
“No way. Peter was hot for