Read No River Too Wide for Free Online

by her childhood memories.
    The air under a canopy of hardwoods was turning chilly, and Janine shivered inside somebody else’s jacket. Her body temperature dropped too easily now, probably as a result of the weight she had lost. Losing so much had been easy. She had always been thin, but in the past year her appetite had simply vanished. Her secret would never be marketed in diet books. During meals with Rex she had silently replayed her decision to find a way out of the prison he’d created. Fear of what lay ahead, as well as the consequences if he found her, had made it nearly impossible to eat.
    Rex had noticed, of course, but he had seemed pleased. The shadow she had become was the wife he had wanted all along.
    As she rounded a curve she wasn’t surprised to find Bea lounging against a tree casually observing the driveway. Tall, wiry, threatening enough that her male colleagues called her Grandma Grouchy, Bea was older than Janine, but even in her sixties she exuded a raw power that Janine found a bit intimidating. Bea was a grandmother, but she was more likely to teach hunting and fishing to her grandsons than to play dress-up with her granddaughters.
    “You okay?” she asked when Janine got closer. “This the right house?”
    Janine eased Buddy’s backpack into a more comfortable position. “I haven’t seen her yet, but Harmony’s here.”
    “You okay, Jan?”
    Janine gave a short nod. “The phone didn’t work inside, and I didn’t want you to worry.”
    “You want me to wait?”
    “You go on and settle in for the night. If this doesn’t go well...” Janine swallowed, because the rest of the sentence stuck in her throat.
    “It’s going to be fine.”
    “I’ll find a way into town, and I’ll call the hotline from there.”
    “Just call me direct. I’m going to stay nearby and wait while you have that reunion. Things don’t go well tonight, you just give me a buzz, and I’ll come back. I don’t hear, though, we’ll need to be on our way in the morning early. So you have to let me know where to pick you up then.”
    Janine realized she was crying. Bea didn’t seem surprised, and her voice softened a little.
    “It’s always like this, honey. I’ve seen it too many times before. You been through too much. You been scared practically every minute for years now. You’ll still be scared some, but at least that part will feel familiar. And it will ease.”
    Janine wiped her cheeks with her palms.
    “We did a good job for you,” Bea said, retrieving a tissue from a pocket and handing it over. “It’s not likely he’s gonna find you. And the house burning down, that was a stroke of good fortune.”
    “No, I shouldn’t have burned those photos.”
    “Might have been divine intervention. You just being able to squeeze through the first flames without damage to anything but that old coat of yours. That tank going up like some kind of atom bomb.” Bea smiled as Janine finished wiping her eyes. “And now nobody knows if you burned up or ran away or anything else. Including old Rex.”
    “They’re looking through those ashes for no good reason. I know he wasn’t in the house.”
    “Think of it as good practice for the fire department, forensical training.”
    “But where is Rex? Why hasn’t he come forward?”
    “This point in your life? You need to stop thinking about Rex, and start thinking about yourself and that girl of yours.”
    Janine couldn’t imagine a life in which Rex was not the central figure. “I’ll always be looking behind me.”
    “We’ll be keeping an eye out on your behalf, and we’ll get in touch right away if we hear anything you need to know. I’m as sure as I can be that the trail we left won’t lead him in your direction.”
    Janine didn’t know what to do next, but as if she sensed that, Bea stepped forward and put her arms around her for a brief hug. “Now you get on back there and have that reunion. Call me if you need me tonight, but be ready to go