The Murder of Sara Barton (Atlanta Murder Squad Book 1) by Lance McMillian (top 20 books to read TXT) 📕

a stay in the hospital with a broken collarbone and soreness everywhere else. I shudder at the thought of her on pain pills. She enjoys her wine a little too much.

I ask, “Do we need to take her keys?”

“I don’t know. She says a deer ran out in front of her.”

“Plausible, I suppose.”

“Yeah. She’s asking for you, by the way, wondering if now you may actually come and visit her.”

Within the hour, I head south on the interstate to my boyhood home ninety minutes away. Breaking the news to Lara fills me with anticipatory dread, even though I’ll only be gone for a few days. The anxiety is stifling and suggests an unfamiliar neediness that threatens to take over my life. I loved Amber madly, but I never lost control of my own identity. Lara is different. I feel stripped of all volition with her.

I call from the road and give her the news.

She responds, “You shouldn’t be alone during a time like this. I’ll come down tomorrow to keep your company.”

“What? You shouldn’t—”

“Give me the address. I’ll be there early evening.”

The idea is galactically stupid, but I keep that objection to myself, opting instead to sink deeper with her into the quicksand.

The rest of the drive down gives me time to contemplate the relationship. The trepidation I felt earlier about leaving Lara for a few days yields to a rising foreboding that her eagerness to join me portends something darker—that the cure of being together is worse than the disease of being apart. But why? Forget the actress stuff. The fame is a nuisance, full of sound and fury but signifying nothing. Lara is just like any other woman, filled with the same hopes, needs, and frailties. Perhaps the problem lies there. She is too real. Contrasted with Amber’s perfection—a myth that only grows over time—Lara’s imperfection sets my instincts on edge. She remains to me a mystery.

Or maybe the trouble is closer to home. Attachment frightens me because it portends the possibility of more loss. The monastic quality of my life these past couple of years shielded me from the risk of experiencing another heartbreak—something Ella knows all too well. But the monastery doors didn’t hold, and the monk sinned. The woman isn’t the problem; it’s the man. I need only look in the mirror to confirm the diagnosis. Lara didn’t repair the destruction unleashed by Mr. Smith. She only provided a distraction. The broken man is still broken. The possibility that Lara is a mere diversion leads the broken man to a sobering thought. Is it the sex? Has it always been just about the sex?

The car ride resolves nothing. Amber is dead. Lara is alive. But what am I? I am still the broken man.

I arrive too late to visit Mom tonight. I sit in her living room, the place all to myself for one of the few times in my life. The chirp of crickets carries me back to a time long ago. I learned in high school that the average lifespan of a cricket is three months. What’s the point? The meaninglessness of it all strikes me as profoundly sad. Some purpose exists in God’s grand plan, I’m sure. But the cricket will never know. It lives only to die.

Lara will arrive tomorrow, and I’ll make love to her in the same house where I lost my virginity. That strikes me as meaningless, too.

***

“Why do I almost have to die before you will come down and visit me?”

“I love you, too, Mom.”

Guilt comes in many forms, but a mother’s guilt has its own special flavor. The guilt here packs a little extra punch because it is well earned. I haven’t been a good son. Seeing Mom in this condition hammers home that truth. I can blame the murders, but losing Amber and her grandson delivered its own searing emotional trauma to Mom. No man is an island. I forget that I’m not the only survivor.

To compensate, I put on my Good Son hat for the day. I buy some tabloid magazines to catch her up on the latest gossip, watch gawd awful morning talk shows with her, and sneak her some Chick-Fil-A to spare her from the hospital food. Her request for wine meets a firm denial. When her friends stop by, I shed the cynicism of the city and adopt the manners of the country, performing with perfection my role in the Southern ritual of “visiting.” Eventually, as inevitable as death and taxes, she gets around to talking about the case.

“When’s the trial?”

“Three weeks.”

“On TV?”

“Yep.”

Mom smiles. Genuine excitement fills her face only to dissolve into a kind of wistfulness as she turns to look out the window. A single tear travels a path from her left eye down her cheek, puzzling me. I consider asking her about it but decide to give her space. Mom will tell me in her good time.

“It’ll be just like watching your father again. I used to go into town and watch his trials. My husband—the star of the courthouse. It made be so proud, made me feel so special. He’d be so proud of you, you know. So proud.” She pauses before asking, “Are you as good as they say?”

“Probably not.”

“Never took you to be the modest one. That’s more Ben’s line.”

We laugh and return to a comfortable silence. She’ll be asleep soon. She’s fighting it, but her body will demand it of her directly. I already promised to come back tomorrow, so I’m free to leave when she drifts into unconsciousness. Ben has been doing a funeral all day and will visit her tonight. Lara is due to leave Atlanta soon, giving me a few hours to stock up on supplies. She can’t exactly be seen around town.

Mom asks, “Do you ever see Lara Landrum?”

“Sometimes.”

“She seems nice.”

“I told her about your accident. She’s thinking about stopping by to see how you’re doing.”

“Stop it.”

Sarcasm always infects our dialogue. That’s just how the two of us communicate