Read Kindred Spirits for Free Online Page B

mother, Elsie, provided a plate of cold cuts and crudités. Sean’s sisters had assumed the arduous task of combining the fruit salad—cantaloupe, honeydew, grapes, strawberries, and pineapple—to go with a couple of batches of chocolate-chip cookies baked by Sean’s mother.
    But she had done the rest. With Lynne.
    When Mary Kay came to the library last Thursday morning, Beth had been in her cluttered office, typing up the monthly newsletter announcing their reading list for the “cabin fever” book group series, the most popular of all their library clubs because it took place after Christmas when snow and cross-country skiing were beginning to lose their white charms and folks were itching for companionship. The Help , by Kathryn Stockett, led the list. A big book, but most everyone had read it so they’d be up to speed. She’d been tapping a pencil against her teeth, debating whether to include Saving CeeCee Honeycutt , by Beth Hoffman, or the latest Tracy Chevalier when out of the corner of her eye she saw Mary Kay framing the doorway.
    She was in her purple scrubs, the ones with the dancing teddy bears on the top, and her black curls were held back by a cheery bandana in a matching pattern. But there was something else. Something off.
    Beth hopped up from her desk, the pencil clattering to the floor. “Is everything OK?”
    Feeling light-headed, Mary Kay slid down against the wall of Beth’s office and crumpled into a heap on the floor, her torso bent over her knees.
    “Oh my God!” Beth gasped. “What’s wrong?”
    Mary Kay roused herself, and when she looked up at Beth, her eyes were glassy. “I’m so sorry, Beth. I don’t know how to tell you.”
    What? Beth felt like she might crawl out of her skin if someone didn’t explain right now exactly what was going on. And yet, and yet , through her racing panic she knew. In the back of her mind she sensed what Mary Kay had come to say.
    “Lynne,” Mary Kay began, her chest heaving, her hand gripping Beth’s upper arm, her thumb pressing into her flesh so hard it would have been painful if Beth had bothered to notice. “She gave Tiffany the night off. . ..”
    Don’t. Beth fought the urge to slap her hands over her ears. She didn’t want to hear anything about Lynne. Not like this.
    “Tiff had no idea. Lynne had it all planned out right down to the notes she left.” Mary Kay shook her head back and forth slowly, rolling it against the wall. “Beth. . . she’s gone. She’s gone forever.”
    No, no, no. Beth blinked back something in her eyes, her brain spinning for a logical answer to what obviously was a huge misunderstanding. Mary Kay might be a nurse, but even nurses could be wrong. Of course they could.
    “She hasn’t gone anywhere,” Beth blurted out. “I just saw her.”
    Wait. When had she seen her? She searched her memory for the exact time last night so there’d be no doubt. She’d tried calling Lynne to tell her that she was bringing over the Crock-Pot, but the line was busy so. . . so, she’d brought it over anyway and plugged it in. Then she’d tiptoed upstairs and found Lynne asleep not on the hospital bed in the living room, but on her old bed in the master suite.
    That was the problem. Mary Kay must have found the hospital bed empty and assumed Lynne had left.
    “No, she’s just sleeping upstairs. I checked on her last night and. . .”
    Mary Kay tightened her grip. “Listen to me, Beth. You’re not making any sense. I know this is awful to hear. It’s awful to say. Drake and I. . . we found her this morning when we went to her house to check. She was on the back porch.”
    In this weather! It must have been close to freezing last night. What was she doing sleeping on the screened-in porch? “We’ve got to go get her.” Beth tried to jerk away, but Mary Kay held on. “She’ll catch her death of cold.”
    “Beth.” Mary Kay refused to let go. “She overdosed on morphine. She committed suicide.”
    Suicide .
    That