Read To Probe A Beating Heart for Free Online

Steve.
                  Dan replied with the same question.
                  “I am Steve Danker and this is my house!”
                  “Oh, okay pal, I’m outta’ here.” And Dan bolted out the door and was hurrying to his car as Ellie was coming down the stairs trying to catch her breath and collect her thoughts.
                  “What was that all about?” she demanded.
                  “Who was that, and what is he doing in my house?”
                  “Your House!” Ellie was now on the offensive. “This is MY HOUSE! And you are welcome to leave it anytime you want. The sooner, the better.”
                  Sarah was frightened by the yelling and she ran to Averell. He led her up the stairs to her room and told her to sit in the corner where she would be safe. “If you are still scared, you can get into bed and get under the covers, that’s safe too.”
                  He then went to his room and sat in the corner and listened to the argument raging on the first floor. He did not like listening to it, but he was not going to go down stairs and try to get past them to get outside. Averell looked across the room at his window, it opened onto a flat roof over the garage. He often wondered what it would be like to go out onto the roof, so he got up and walked over to the window and opened it. He thought for a moment and moved the screen. It came off easily and he crawled out the window and sat on the roof. As he stood and walked carefully across the roof feeling that his every movement would make some loud noise or he would crash down through the roof and into the garage, he carefully approached the edge and looked down to the ground. It was a long way down and he was tense. He walked over to the far end of the roof where a tree grew close to the edge. He could reach a large branch and climbed up on it. That was easy, and returning to the roof was also easy from that same branch. Once in the tree, he could see a way down near to the ground. He climbed down and swung down from another branch to the ground. The only problem would be getting back up into the tree. He walked over to the garbage cans and moved an empty one under the tree. Now he could climb on the garbage can, up into the tree and back onto the roof. Perfect, a way in and out without being noticed.
                  Averell sat on the roof for a long time until he no longer heard the arguing on the first floor. He crawled back in through the window, replaced the screen and made sure there was no sign of his venturing out on to the roof. He went down stairs and saw Ellie sitting in the living room reading a newspaper. The pizza was still on the table.
                  “Go set the table for dinner” she barked.
                  “Okay, is everybody going to be here?”
                  “Just the three of us, Sarah me and you.”
                  “Okay.”
                  Dinner was quiet, the pizza had cooled down and the soda was warm. Sarah was still a little scared and behaved accordingly. Averell was curious about Steve, but didn’t ask. After dinner he cleaned off the table, loaded the dishwasher, swept the kitchen floor and straightened up the living room. He found several of Steve’s tools near his chair and under the couch. He took them to his room and thought about seeing Steve use them and handled each one. A pair of pliers, a box cutter, and a pair of wire cutters. Averell went back downstairs and joined Ellie in front of the television.
                  Suddenly Ellie stood up, tossed the newspaper to the floor and started to walk out of the room, “I’m going out for a while, Charlotte will be here soon.”
                  “Okay” said Averell.
                  “Okay mommy,” said Sarah.
                  Ellie