Read The Bone House for Free Online Page A

Chicago to the peninsula
because it was exactly where they wanted to live. She just didn't know if they
could stay in a place where they would never be welcome.
        Then
there were the doubts. The questions. They followed her everywhere. Even the
handful of friends who'd remained on her side sometimes lapsed into awkward
silence, as if to say: are you sure?
        Are
you sure it was just a fantasy? Did you read the diary? It was so detailed, so
precise, so explicit about their sexual encounters. What if it really
happened?
        That
was a question Hilary refused to entertain. She never even allowed it to enter
her mind. She knew her husband. If he said there was no affair, then there was
no affair. But she also knew that Mark was afraid that in the end she'd begin
to believe the lies. They would both be consumed by the cloud of judgement.
        That
was why she'd told him how she felt on the first day and never again. If you
have to say it more than once, you don't mean it.
        'I
trust you.'
        
        
        'Tell
me what happened,' Hilary said.
        Mark
shook his head. 'Hil, I don't know. I wish I did.'
        'Start
at the beginning. Did you see Glory on the beach?'
        He
nodded. 'Yes.'
        'Did
you talk to her?'
        'I
did, but it was just for a couple of minutes.'
        'Why
didn't you tell me at breakfast?' she asked, keeping her tone even. She didn't
want him to hear an accusation in her voice.
        Mark
hesitated. 'I should have, but I wasn't ready to drag up everything for you
again. Or for me. I didn't think it mattered, because nothing happened. I saw.
her, and then I walked away. As far as I knew, that was the end of the story. I
have no idea who killed her.'
        'What
went on between the two of you?'
        Mark sat
down next to her on the sofa and stared at the carpet. 'Glory was drunk. I
didn't think it was safe for her to be out there like that, so I tried to
persuade her to come back to the hotel with me. She wouldn't go.'
        Hilary
saw the tension in how her husband was holding himself. His body was taut, like
a coiled spring. There was something else that he was reluctant to tell her,
and she made a guess about what it was. 'Glory came on to you, didn't she?'
        Mark
exhaled in a loud hiss. 'Ah, shit.'
        'Tell
me.'
        'Yes,
she kept asking me to have sex with her. I said no.'
        'I
get it,' Hilary said. 'Look, we both know Glory is the wild one compared to
Tresa. I'm sure she liked the idea of trying to seduce the man her sister was
in love with.'
        'Nothing
happened,' he insisted.
        'You
already said that.'
        'Most
of it was just talk, but the one thing she did - she took her bikini top off.'
        Hilary
closed her eyes. 'What did you do?'
        'Nothing.
That was it. I gave up trying to get her to go back to the hotel with me. I
left.' He added, 'Things were getting out of control, Hil. I just needed to get
away.'
        'Don't
blame yourself,' she told him.
        'I
do. I should have told someone she was out there, but she was threatening to
say we had sex. She said no one would believe me, and she was right. I couldn't
take the risk, not after last year. I couldn't put myself in the middle of it.
Or you.'
         We're
in the middle of it anyway , Hilary thought, but she didn't need to say it
out loud. Mark knew the score.
        'They're
going to come after me,' he said. 'They know I'm in the hotel. The police are
going to paint a bullseye on my chest.'
        'You're
probably right,' she acknowledged, 'but let's not panic, OK? Did anyone see you
leaving the room? Did anyone see you on the beach or see you when you came
back?'
        She
watched him mentally retrace his footsteps. 'I don't know. There may have been
a hotel employee on the patio when I left our room, i but that's a
couple hundred yards away. I'm not sure whether he saw me or would