Trust Me Read Online Free Page A

faster. Maybe you and me can get together and talk about it. I could see if your serius or not .
     
    Henry read the message. ‘You bait your hooks well, Luke. Very well. I want you to listen to me.’ And Luke thought, with affection, Here comes Henry trying to be a dad. Here comes the hand on the shoulder … yep. And now here comes the fumbling advice . ‘Luke. You know I loathe sentiment. But …’
    ‘I’m the only family you’ve got.’ Luke paused. ‘And this greeting card moment is brought to you by The Shawcross Group.’
    ‘Now, Luke.’ But Henry offered a rare smile. ‘I promised your mom when I married her that I’d take care of you if anything happened to her. To me that was a solemn vow.’
    His mother. He put up the photos of her when he knew Henry was coming for a visit; it was too raw, too painful for Henry. The car crash had been only a year ago.
    ‘Henry, don’t treat me like a child. You don’t have to watch out for me.’
    ‘Habits are hard to break.’ He cleared his throat, as though preparing to deliver another speech or presentation. He seemed to have trouble looking at Luke. ‘Aside from you, the think-tank is my life. Come work for me. I would love to pass the think-tank on to you one day.’ The final words came in a rush.
    ‘Henry, wow. I don’t know what to say.’ He felt touched. Honored. Henry was a bit of an oddball - all into his researches, his pondering about the political trends of the world, his books and papers, but he was the only family Luke had. A world without family was a lonely place, and Luke thought it had been an unbearably lonely place for Henry before Henry married Luke’s mom. It had not always been an easy road for him and his stepfather but Luke never doubted that Henry, in his own way, loved him.
    On the screen a comment appeared: you’re right, what we need in America is a nice dirty bomb set off in the beltway, clean up the whole act, make the Potomac a toilet for all the human waste in DC, start fresh . Another loon chirping to be heard. A nice dirty bomb, as opposed to an awful dirty bomb. These people made his blood run cold.
    ‘My God,’ Henry said, blinking at the comment. ‘This is the other reason I want you working with me. You get results. Say yes. Please, Luke. Please.’
    Begging was most un-Henry-like and Luke felt a swelling of gratitude. ‘I will sleep on it. After I wander a bit down the Night Road this evening.’
    ‘Fair enough. I need to make a couple of a phone calls and then we’ll go out to dinner. Go get cleaned up.’ His stepfather patted his shoulder and went off to the condo’s guest room.
    Luke turned back to the computer, eight more bits of poison on his screen, and had to smile at the viciousness of the responses. He didn’t want to admit it, but this taunting of people with such strong opinions was addictive. He wondered, despite all his worries about those he angered, if he could give this work up so easily. Behind the mask of the internet he was a badass, a troublemaker, a take-no-prisoners tough guy. Nothing like the mild academic who typed on the keyboard and thought hard about what precise words would evoke what terrifying responses.
    Luke went to his bathroom and showered. Rubbing the shampoo into his hair, he wondered about the thousands of people he touched - angry, bitter, so convinced in their hate that they were blind to nuance or circumstance or even to a basic morality. The web connected them all, electronic threads spanning the country, and he had the uneasy feeling that the people he called the Night Road could reach out and touch him, know him for the fraud that he was, in an instant.
    Luke hated airports. He had last seen his father alive at Dulles ten years earlier. Every time he stepped into the wide, cool expanse of a terminal he thought of his father; a dark-suited arm raised in farewell, Luke’s clothes still wrinkled from the force of his father’s parting hug.
    ‘Have a good trip, Dad,’