Brown-Eyed Girl by Mariah Stewart

Author:Mariah Stewart
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Romance, Published 2010, Romantic Suspense
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

… And the funny thing was, she just didn’t get it at first. I mean, I think she thought I was playing some funky little love game with her.“

The chuckle that followed sent a chill up Leah’s spine and caused the hairs on the back of her neck to stand straight up. From the moment she’d sat down across from Ethan and he had turned on the first tape, her stomach had been in the tightest of knots and her hands had not stopped shaking.

She and Ethan had not made eye contact since Lambert’s voice had first drifted forth from the small plastic machine that sat between the two of them on the trestle table Leah used for dining in a corner of the great room. Lambert spoke almost melodramatically, as if for effect, and in great detail about where he’d been and what he’d done and who he’d done it to, animated in the way a younger man might describe his sexual conquests to his fraternity brothers. Lamberts detachment from the torment he’d inflicted, his relish at relating all the gruesome details, his joking about what this victim said or that one did, had a surreal quality that left Leah unnerved and repelled.

She could barely imagine what it might be doing to Ethan.

Ethan had hardly moved a muscle since the tape had been turned on earlier that morning. He and Leah had risen about the same time, spent an hour or so making breakfast and chatting over coffee, but their conversation was the nervous, distracted sort of patter that people make while on their way to the doctor’s office for a dreaded diagnosis. When Leah had finally suggested that they take their coffee into the great room, it was with that same reluctance.

Leah had placed the small tape recorder in the center of the trestle table, which overlooked the back of the property, rather than on the coffee table or in the kitchen, so that Ethan would have a place to turn to if he needed a calming view or something to gaze upon that could, for a moment, let his mind escape from the ugliness that would spew forth and surround him. Leah would, herself, seek the solace of the late winter scene that spread out serenely on the other side of the window nearly as many times as Ethan would before the day ended.

Lambert’s voice droned on and on throughout the morning, the tape occasionally silent while Ethan asked a question in the background.

“I’m sorry, Ethan,” Leah whispered, “what did you just ask him?”

Ethan cleared his throat.

“I asked him if he was still talking about Joann Stivens there, in that last part. I believe he answered by nodding.”

“And that was in—”

“The Austin area.”

Leah nodded and fell silent as Lambert began to speak again.

“Now, did I tell you about her funeral? Damn, I never did see such a sight.” On the tape, Lambert whistled long and low, and slipped into a modified Texas drawl. “Oooh, baby, the whole town was there.

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