Curse (Blur Trilogy Book 3) Read Free

instantaneous.
    I’ve seen it before, both in him and Mom.
    Concern first.
    Then anger.
    Two different sides of love.
    Probably every parent goes through it when they find out their kid has gotten hurt from doing something that maybe wasn’t the smartest thing in the world.
    “The driver said you ran right out in front of his truck,” Dad says.
    “I thought I saw a boy there. I was trying to get him out of the way.”
    “Yes. He mentioned that on the phone. He didn’t see anyone.”
    “I did. It looked like he was about five years old.”
    My dad is quiet.
    “It really happened, Dad.”
    “Okay.”
    It’s strange. I’m both hoping that there wasn’t really a boy, because he would’ve likely been seriously hurt or even killed, but I’m also hoping that there was —because otherwise it means I’m losing touch with reality.
    While I’m trying to figure out what else to say, Dad gets a call on his radio. From growing up in a home where I hear dispatch codes all the time, I’m familiar enough with them to recognize that this one is for a drug overdose or attempted suicide.
    “I’ll have some deputies search out there one more time,” he says, but I can tell he’s distracted by the call, by the address they announced. I don’t know whose place it is, but it’s in the next town over and for something this serious he’ll probably need to be onsite. “But from what I’ve heard, they already went over the area pretty carefully.”
    After talking briefly into his radio, he tells me he has to go, then rests a hand lightly on my uninjured shoulder. “Dan, I can’t tell you how glad I am you’re alright. On the drive over here, I spoke with your mom. She’s on her way back from Madison. I’ll let her know you’re fine, but you should call her yourself.”
    “Don’t tell her about the boy.”
    He looks like he’s going to object to that.
    “I’ll tell her,” I say. “It’ll be better if I do it.”
    “Alright.” He turns to the doctor. “Call me the minute you get those X-ray results.”
    “I will.”
    He gives her his number, speaks with dispatch one more time, and after he leaves, she leads me to the X-ray room.
    Our hospital isn’t huge, so the doctor serves double-duty, taking the X-rays herself. While she gets everything ready, I try to figure out how to tell Mom about the blur.
    In a way, she knows what this kind of thing is like. She’s had hallucinations too and last year she had such terrifying nightmares that she actually moved out because she was afraid she might hurt me or Dad.
    She’s back now, we’re figuring things out as a family, but she’s a natural worrier and I’m not really sure how she’ll react when she hears the news that I’m seeing things again.

    Dr. Adrian Waxford was at home completing the prisoner transfer request paperwork when the screen saver on his computer flicked to the picture of his younger brother. The movement caught his eye, momentarily distracting him.
    It was a photograph from a quarter century ago. Adrian had scanned it in and used it to remind himself every day why he did what he did.
    In the photo, which had been taken when Jacob was thirty, the two of them were standing on a beach holding up the sea bass they’d caught that day. Sunlight danced on the waves behind them. Everything was perfect.
    It was the last time Adrian saw his brother alive.
    Less than a week later, Jacob had been murdered by a serial killer who was eventually caught and sentenced to four hundred and fifty years in prison for the nine homicides he’d committed.
    However, he died after just a few ye ars, before he’d served even a tin y fraction of his sentence.
    So ever since then, Adrian had dedicated himself to justice, to the greater good.
    It motivated everything he did.
    Those who commit crimes like that deserve to be punished.
    And they deserve to serve out their entire sentences—even if that sentence stretches hundreds of years longer than a normal