Read Stay Dead for Free Online Page A

tomorrow?”
    Elise was having trouble forming thoughts. And once she got the words lined up in her head, she felt too tired to bother saying them. “I’m perfectly fine here,” she finally managed.
    “What about groceries?”
    “The cupboards and freezer are well stocked. I microwaved a burrito for dinner. It was surprisingly good.”
    “Your voice is slurred,” he noted.
    Just move along. Nothing to see here.
    Elise didn’t like being out of control, but he was right. She could feel the thickness of her tongue and the heaviness in her arms. She could feel warmth seeping through her veins. “I had to take something,” she confessed.
    “See, this is why you should stay at my place,” he said. “When it comes to pain medication, you’re an amateur.”
    “We can’t all be pros like you.” She realized she was talking with her eyes closed, and she forced them open with a wide blink.
    “Which means I would have made a good guide. A guru.”
    “Let me ask you this. Would you go swimming in the very pool where your mother drowned? Does that seem odd to you?” Elise asked.
    “People do weird things after the loss of a loved one. Like becoming fixated on funeral homes and cemeteries. Or the place where the death occurred.”
    Elise sat up straighter, a pillow against the headboard and her back. “Did you use the tub?” she asked bluntly and without a filter. “After your son’s death? Did you ever use a tub again?” This wasn’t something she would normally ask. Too personal. Too terribly painful.
    David was quiet for a long time, as if trying to decide how much he wanted to share. When he spoke, the words were without emotion. “I never used a tub before, but after . . . I used one all the time after. I would stay in it until the water turned cold. I would submerge myself and look up at the ceiling through the water. I would imagine what it had been like for him.” His voice broke.
    “Oh, David. I’m sorry.” So sorry. Why had she brought it up?
    “Maybe she’s doing the same thing,” David said, pulling himself together. He was good at that. “Maybe she’s putting herself in her mother’s place. Maybe it makes her feel closer to the person she lost.”
    Elise heard a splash. “Damn. She’s back.”
    Then she heard laughter. The echoing, high-pitched kind that sounded like colored kaleidoscope glass. Far away, undefined, with a texture that never quite solidified. This sounded like a party, not a grief-driven visit.
    “Who’s back?” David asked.
    “Melinda. I have to go. Call you tomorrow.”
    Before he could ask any more questions, Elise hung up. Then she hefted the cast off the pillow. This was a maneuver done with two hands supporting her thigh, cradling her leg as if it didn’t belong to her. She swung the leg and cast to the floor, her good leg following. Then, balancing on the foot without the cast, she reached for the crutches and positioned them under her arms.
    She moved toward the door, paused, and waited for a wave of dizziness to pass. The pills had taken care of the pain, but they’d also done a number on the rest of her.
    Elise had gone her whole life without a broken arm or twisted ankle. Gunshots, that was different. Knife wounds? Oh, yeah. But now she’d been taken down by a sick bastard who’d spent days humiliating and torturing her.
    Don’t think about it.
    How could she not think about it when she was dealing with the remnants of that ordeal? Bastard, bastard, bastard. The things he’d done to her. The things she would never tell anyone, not even Dr. Kicklighter. And David. Especially not David. Or her daughter. Oh, God. Not her daughter. Audrey could never know. Elise would change in her eyes. She would become this other person who’d miscalculated. Who’d made a mistake. Who’d been overpowered. If her daughter knew, Audrey would no longer see her as strong and tough. She would no longer see her as the person who would protect her.
    A mother should be able