Already Gone Read Online Free

Only half the work.”
    The field tech smiles, but I can tell he doesn’t know what to say. He runs through the fingers on my right hand, rolling them along the inkpad then across the paper. When he finishes, he hands me several Kleenex and thanks me.
    “No problem.”
    Behind me, I hear Diane say, “But you’re not doing your job. If you were, we wouldn’t be sitting here. Those two men would be in jail.” She stands, and her voice gets louder as she speaks. “Don’t come here and act like this is his fault.”
    Detective Nolan holds up his hands. “Mrs. Reese, I never said anyone was at fault.”
    “Just do your fucking job.”
    She moves past him to the front door. I try to stop her, but she grabs her purse from the small table in the entryway and walks out.
    I look back at Nolan. He’s watching me.
    “What the hell did you say to her?”
    “Nothing.” He shakes his head. “I asked if you had any enemies, that’s it.”
    I look out the window in time to see Diane’s car pull out of the driveway and disappear around the corner.
    “Maybe I should’ve saved that question for you.”
    I let the curtain close, then turn back to the living room and Detective Nolan. “The cop at the hospital already asked me.”
    “Right, but it’s been a while, and you’ve had time to think about it since then. I thought you might’ve remembered someone.”
    “Sorry,” I say. “No one.”
    Nolan flips through his notebook. “I pulled your old file.” He taps his pen down the page, counting as he goes. “Multiple assault and battery charges, disturbing the peace.” He turns the page. “And an assault with a deadly weapon charge. A brick.” He looks at me. “All street fights. Sounds like you had quite a temper.”
    “It was a bad neighborhood.”
    “Does your wife know about all these?”
    “She knows.”
    “Are you sure?” He motions to the door. “Because it doesn’t look like it to me.”
    I hear the smile in Nolan’s voice, and all the muscles in my body get tight, ready to snap. I remind myself who I’m talking to and try my best to calm down.
    “She knows about all of it.”
    “Then what else can you tell me?”
    “You’ve got my file. It’s all in there.”
    “It’s never all in there.” Nolan closes his notebook. “Look, Mr. Reese, I want to help, but I can’t do much if you won’t talk to me.”
    “That was another life,” I say. “I put those days behind me a long time ago. And if someone from those days is coming for me, why did they wait so long?”
    “You tell me.”
    I shake my head. “Isn’t that your job to figure out?”
    Nolan stares at me for a moment, and then he stands and takes a card from his jacket pocket. He holds it out to me and says, “Call if you think of anything that might help.”
    I don’t take the card.
    He drops it on the coffee table. “Tell your wife I’m sorry for upsetting her.”
    “I’ll do that.”
    Nolan walks to the kitchen table where the lab tech is filling out forms. He leans in and says something I can’t hear. The tech nods, then packs his case and slides it over his shoulder.
    I hold the door open for them as they leave. Once they’re outside I remember and ask about my ring.
    “Your ring?”
    “My wedding ring.” I point to the evidence bag the tech is carrying. “On my finger, in the jar.”
    “What about it?”
    “I want it back.”

– 5 –
     
    “Evidence,” I say. “I can get the ring back when they send my finger off to medical disposal, whenever the hell that happens. Your guess is as good as mine.”
    Diane doesn’t say anything.
    She walked through the door about an hour after the cops left. Now she’s sitting at the kitchen table picking over a bowl of butter noodles with a fork.
    I watch her for a while, then say, “You think this is my fault, don’t you? Something I did.”
    She looks up. “No, I don’t.”
    “What’d that cop say to you?”
    “He kept asking about you.”
    “Do you think I’m