Forest of Shadows Read Online Free Page A

walk. 
    He grabbed the remote off the kitchen counter and turned the stereo on, hitting the button for CD One. A few seconds later, Tom Waits was lamenting the loss of love to liquor in a voice that could only be attained by hard living and occasionally gargling vodka with a shot of broken glass. He’d had speakers installed in every room of the house except Jessica’s, so Tom’s soulful cries followed him as he went upstairs to change his shirt, splash some water on his face and give one last check of his email before heading out to pick Jessica up from school. 
     
     
    “Hey Sherry,” John said as he caressed his second baby, a two door, midnight black Jaguar XK, fully loaded with a 4.2 liter engine and an Alpine audio system that had contributed mightily to his future hearing loss. It was the one ostentatious purchase he had made over the years and he made no apologies. He’d wanted a Jaguar ever since he was a kid when his father had explained to him that people who drove Jags were people who had the world by the balls. It took him three years after winning the lottery to finally indulge himself, and he was glad he took that leap. He sure as hell didn’t have the world by the balls but at least he looked the part. 
    He desperately wanted to open her up today but thought better of it because of all the kids getting out from school. Maybe later, when Eve came over, he’d take a drive and see just how long he could push ninety on the Long Island Expressway. Of course, he’d have to wait until the rush hour traffic cleared, which could take until seven o’clock. 
    An Aerosmith song ended on the radio and now he was forced to listen to an ad for a pill that made you horny. Who buys this crap? he thought. He went to punch in another radio station but a bump in the road made his finger hit the SEEK button instead. A caller on a sports station was hollering about the mismanagement of the Islanders and called for the resignation of the entire front office. John quickly changed the station. He hadn’t been able to listen to or watch anything related to the Islanders since Anne died. There were a lot of things he couldn’t do since that day. 
    Before he fell into another bout of painful remembrance and introspection, Jessica’s school pulled into view. Hundreds of kids were darting in every direction, some lining up for the half dozen yellow buses, others to their parents’ car and many more just walking home. He pulled as close to the front entrance as possible, which meant he was about fifteen cars away. 
    Grade school boys walked by yanking off clip-on ties, laughing about things ten-year-old boys laughed about (farts, most likely). Little girls walked in packs wearing their uniforms, pleated blue skirts with powder blue knee socks and white shirts. One boy came running up behind a girl and smacked a stack of books out from beneath her arm. She immediately gave chase and caught up to him just a half block away. John winced as he watched the girl yank the boy’s hair so hard he fell into a nearby bush. 
    Lesson learned. Mess with a girl and she will get you back, sooner or later. 
    Jessica came running to the car, her long auburn hair trailing freely behind her. She looked so much like Anne, especially when she smiled, it was almost as if she’d never left them. 
    She stopped at the door and turned around to wave goodbye to her friend Mary who was off to join the bus line. A second later she was in the car and chattering away about some incident that happened in the lunch room that day between a sixth grader and the lunch room monitor. It was hard to figure out the exact thrust of the story because she was talking so fast and further hindered by her lisp, thanks to the two front teeth she’d lost recently. 
    “And hello to you, too,” John said. 
    Jessica stopped momentarily. “Oh, hi Daddy,” and leaned over to give him a kiss. 
    “Don’t forget to buckle up, squeak-pip.”
    Jess had always been