Dead Wrong Read Online Free

remembrance, the memories of the joy that had filled her every time she’d held that tiny body against her own. Abruptly she pushed back from the table and walked to the door.
    “Spike,” she called, and from the living room came the unmistakable sound of a little dog tail thumping on hard wood. “It’s time to go for a walk.”
    Spike knew walk , but not time , which was just as well, since it was past one in the morning. But once the thorn of memory began to throb, Mara had to work it out of her system. Her conditioned response to emotional pain was physical. Any kind of sustained movement would do—a walk, a run, a bike ride, a trip to the gym. Anything that got her on her feet was acceptable, as long as it got her moving through the pain so that she could get past it for a while.
    Mara pursued exhaustion where others might have chosen a bottle or a needle or a handful of pills, though there’d been times in the past when she’d considered those, too.
    By day, Mara’s neighborhood in a suburban Philadelphia college town was normally quiet, but at night, it was as silent as a tomb. She walked briskly, the soles of her walking shoes padding softly on the sidewalk, the occasional streetlamp lighting her way, Spike’s little Jack Russell legs keeping pace. Four blocks down, four blocks over, and back again. That’s what it usually took to clear her head. Tonight she made the loop in record time. She still had work to do, and an appointment in court at nine the next morning.
    The evening’s storm had passed through earlier, and now a full moon hung overhead and cast shadows behind her as she made her way back up the brick walk to her front door. She’d let Spike off the leash at the end of their drive and now stood watching as the dog sniffed at something in the grass.
    “Spike,” she whispered loudly, and the dog looked up, wagging his tail enthusiastically. “Come on, buddy. Time to go in.”
    With obvious reluctance, Spike left whatever it was he’d found on the lawn and followed his mistress to the front steps. Mara unlocked the front door, but did not go immediately inside. She crossed her arms and stared up at the night sky for a long moment, thinking of her own child, wondering once again where in this vast world she was at that exact moment, and who, if anyone, was standing for her.
     
     
    On the television screen, the earnest five o’clock news anchor droned on and on, his delivery as flat as his crew cut. Mara turned the volume down to answer the ringing phone.
    “What’s for dinner?” Mara’s sister, Anne Marie, dispensed with a greeting and cut to the chase.
    “I was just asking myself that very thing.” Mara grinned, delighted to hear Annie’s voice.
    “How ’bout a little Chinese?”
    “You buying?”
    “And delivering.”
    “You’re back?”
    “I’m on my way.”
    “What time will you be here?”
    “Thirty minutes, give or take. I’m just leaving the airport. If you call in an order at that little place on Dover Drive, I’ll swing past and pick it up.”
    “Perfect. What do you want?”
    “Surprise me.”
    “Okay. See you soon.”
    Pleased with the unexpected prospect of Annie’s company, Mara found herself whistling while she hunted up the menu. She called in the order, then set about clearing the kitchen table of all the mail that had accumulated over the past several weeks while she had worked on the Feehan case. That case having been heard just that morning, Mara could pack up the materials she’d reviewed and return them to the courthouse in the morning. She wondered where Kelly Feehan had gone that night to drown her sorrows, her parental rights having been severed by Judge McKettrick until such time as Kelly successfully completed a rehabilitation program and obtained legitimate employment, at which time she could file for visitation rights. The odds that Kelly would follow through were slim to none, but the option was there. It had been the best the judge could