All the Best Lies--A Mystery by Joanna Schaffhausen

Author:Joanna Schaffhausen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

11

Ellery stumbled blindly in the direction of the lights, but the path she had jogged earlier was now clogged with tourists, party girls teetering on high heels, and other Friday-night-fun seekers. The winter desert wind came howling down the boulevard on full tilt, whipping her hair into her eyes and raising the gooseflesh on her bare arms. She hugged herself for warmth and to make a slimmer figure as she cut through the crowds, angling between the drunk college kids and the gawkers with their cell phones out at arm’s length. “Hey, watch it!” She bumped some guy’s elbow and he shoved her back in retaliation for messing up his shot, but she didn’t pause or apologize, just kept pushing forward through the mass of people. She was desperate to put as much space as possible between her and the thing that had hurt her, that awful scene at the hotel. Her heart beat like a hammer, painful and hard, drumming out the same word over and over: Go, go, go. She’d spent three days trapped in a closet and so now she ran—she ran whenever she could. If you stopped to think, the pain could catch you. Go.

Reed’s face. She could still see it in her mind’s eye, the way his dark eyes shifted, kaleidoscope-like, melting from desire into pity. She had never been intimate with anyone who knew about Coben. Her occasional bed partners got to see her only half-naked in total darkness, handpicked as they were to be the sort who would never stop to ask about the scars. Bike accident, she would tell them if they ever raised the issue, and no one thought to question her. No, they didn’t ask her anything at all. What do you like? Ellery halted with the crowd at an intersection, stuck there with the memory of Reed and his warm hands on her body.

She’d slept with men to prove she could, to show she could give away what Coben took and still come out whole on the other side. If she’d felt anything after these encounters, it was triumphant. Fuck you, all right. The light changed and the crowd surged forward, dragging her along with it. Her flip-flops scraped against the pavement as she hurried to keep pace. Reed had been into it, she knew, right up until she’d confessed the truth and reminded him exactly who she was. Coben’s victim. The girl from the closet. Hot tears burned her eyes, and she swiped them away with a furious gesture. She should’ve known. She should’ve kept her mouth shut. Even when Reed talked to her like she was normal, when he touched her like he enjoyed it, she had to remember—the scars were forever. She would never be able to outrun them.

Winded, she stopped again at the next intersection, bent over slightly as she tried to catch her breath. The cold air burned her lungs. She looked around at the blinking lights, the honking traffic, and the enormous casinos. “Hey, lady.

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