Read Lost Voices for Free Online

tried to steal your mother.
    But you know that’s not sufficient excuse for how I acted. Not enough to repair Peter’s feelings, anyway.”
    “It’s none of Peter’s business!” Luce was starting to get angry; she didn’t like hearing her father blame himself that way.
    “Mom loved you.”
    “She did,” her father agreed. “She did do that. Gave me more and truer love than any human being can hope for in this life.” He was looking away, and Luce knew he didn’t want her to see the tears in his eyes. “But the truth is that it would have been a whole lot better for her if she hadn’t.” He was so upset that Luce didn’t try to talk him out of his plan to move back to Pittley, Alaska, where he’d grown up. If she had only argued with him then, screamed, threatened to kill herself, then maybe he never would have gone out on the High and Mighty at all . . .
    He’s dead, Luce thought. She couldn’t have said why she was suddenly so sure of this; she only knew that it was inescapably true. Drowned . He won’t ever come back. And then she felt the sticky wooden table under her hands. There was a sudden crash. She looked over to see Peter splayed on the floor with a barstool 30 i LOST VOICES
    tipped across his stomach, his arms swinging heavily as he tried, and failed, to right himself.
    The bartender rushed around the counter and helped Peter up to a sitting position. His face was blotchy and swollen on one side. “You okay there?” the bartender asked.
    Maybe Peter was trying to answer him in words, but it came out more like a growl. He managed to drag himself onto his feet, but Luce wasn’t sure how long he’d be able to stay upright.
    He was clinging to the edge of the bar for balance.
    “I’ll get you a cup of black coffee,” the bartender said after a minute. “Shouldn’t have let you drink so much. Coffee, and then you better get your niece on home. It’s a school night.” He looked at Luce, and she got up and walked over. “Can you get home okay?”
    “It’s almost two miles,” Luce told him. “And that’s if we take the shortcut. Along the cliffs.” The bartender tipped his head sideways.
    “Maybe you should wait till I can get somebody to drive you, then. Don’t want Peter too close to any cliffs, his condition being like this.” It was the wrong thing to say. Peter pulled himself straighter and raised his eyebrows in a way that was probably supposed to seem dignified.
    “I’m not in need of any coffee,” her uncle said with an exaggerated effort to enunciate clearly. It didn’t quite work. “And I’m perfectly capable of escorting my niece back home. The way you talk to her, it seems like you don’t recall who’s the adult in this family.”
    “I didn’t mean anything like that, Peter,” the bartender soothed. He gave Luce a funny look, as if she were a fellow con-spirator. “Just two miles is pretty far to be walking in the cold, i 31
    and once my son’s off work he’ll be happy to give you a ride. Sit down and have a coffee while you wait for him.” The bartender checked his watch. “It’s twenty past eight now, and he’s off most nights by eight thirty.” Luce was amazed that it wasn’t at least midnight. The day had already dragged on for such a horribly long time. An image of the dead girl’s milky greenish face flashed in her mind again.
    Peter shook his head. “Get your things, Luce.” She stared down; there was nothing to get. The bar was cold enough that she hadn’t even taken off her jacket. “When we get home,” her uncle said laboriously, “I’ll check to see you’ve done all your homework properly, and if you have you can watch half an hour of TV before bed.” Of course Luce knew he was only saying that to impress the bartender. Her uncle had never checked her homework once, and Luce didn’t think he was about to start now. He locked one thick hand on the back of her neck and shoved her out through the bar’s dirty glass door. He