The Body Reader Read Online Free Page B

brother.
    Uriah wasn’t from the Twin Cities, and he didn’t follow celebrity gossip, yet he recalled something about Fontaine emancipating herself when she was sixteen. Apparently she had nothing to do with the Schillings anymore and had even taken a new name. Judging by the horrified expression on her face, it looked like her feelings toward her kin hadn’t changed all that much over the years.
    “What the hell are you doing here?” she asked.
    Schilling frowned. “I wanted to see you. Chief Ortega contacted us about your escape, and Dad wanted me to make sure you were okay.” He swallowed, his eyes glistening as he continued to stare. “My God. You look like hell.”
    “Get out,” she whispered.
    Upsetting her would not be helpful to the investigation. “You’d better leave,” Uriah told him.
    Schilling raised his hands, giving up. “Okay, okay.” He backed away, turned, and vanished out the door.
    Jude fumbled for the bed’s lift control, gave up, closed her eyes, arms limp at her sides, face ashen.
    Afraid she was going to black out, Uriah grabbed the control, hit the button, and lowered the bed.
    “Curtain,” she whispered breathlessly.
    He pulled the fabric across the window, darkening the room. “You okay?” he asked. What a question.
    Like someone afraid to move for fear of throwing up, she gave him an almost-imperceptible nod.
    “Need a drink of water?”
    “No.”
    The subscript being that she wanted him to go away. He’d stayed too long. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”
    In the hallway, he found Schilling leaning against a wall. Upon hearing Uriah’s footsteps, he straightened.
    Uriah introduced himself and flashed his badge.
    “She looks like a different person,” Schilling said, openly disturbed by what he’d just seen. “I mean, I knew she’d probably look rough, but . . .” He shook his head. “Wow.”
    “Can I buy you a cup of coffee?” Uriah asked. It was a polite gesture, meant to open up communication.
    Five minutes later, they were situated at a corner table in the cafeteria, white diner mugs in front of them.
    “I really can’t tell you much of anything.” Schilling measured out two teaspoons of sugar, then stirred noisily, stainless steel against ceramic. “I’ve had no contact with Jude since she was sixteen. None. I guess it was stupid of me to come. I thought maybe she’d be happy to see family, you know? I thought she might need somebody with her.”
    “Obviously not you.”
    Schilling flashed him a look of irritation, then launched into an explanation of their situation. “She was diagnosed with mental problems back when she was a kid. Honestly, if she hadn’t looked so bad today, I would have said the last three years were fake. Something she concocted. Her disappearance.” He shrugged. “Just to get back at us for whatever she thinks we did to her. But seeing her like that . . . I guess it was real. And I feel bad that we didn’t try harder to find her.”
    This was the first Uriah had heard of Fontaine’s mental instability. She would have had to pass a psych evaluation to join the department, but Schilling had known the child, the teen, not the adult. And teenagers were volatile. “Does she have any family she associates with? Somebody who can help her through this?”
    Schilling shook his head. “Not that I know of. She was living with a guy when she was abducted, but I’m pretty sure he’s moved on. I’ve seen him with somebody. And who can blame him?”
    Uriah had an uncomfortable thought. “The guy she was with before? Does he still live in the house they shared?”
    “No idea.”
    How messed up would that be, to get out of the place you’d been held captive for three years, go home, only to find another woman in your house?
    “Just remember,” Schilling said. “She was unstable before any of this happened, and you just saw her in there. That wasn’t the reaction of a rational person.”
    Any decent detective knew better than to