Nine Perfect Strangers Read Free Page B

how to play some violent PlayStation game he loved. Frances’s friends with kids had laughed and scoffed over that, but she’d been looking forward to learning the game; the story lines sounded really quite rich and complex.
    An image came to her of that detective’s earnest young face. He had freckles left over from childhood and he wrote down everything she said in laborious longhand using a scratchy blue ballpoint. His spelling was atrocious. He spelled “tomorrow” with two m’s. He couldn’t meet her eye.
    A sudden rush of intense heat enveloped her body at the memory.
    Humiliation?
    Probably.
    Her head swam. She shivered and shook. Her hands were instantly slippery on the steering wheel.
    Pull over , she told herself. You need to pull over right now.
    She signaled, even though there was no one behind her, and came to a stop on the side of the road. She had the sense to switch on her hazard lights. Sweat poured from her face. Within seconds her shirt was drenched. She pulled at the fabric and smeared back strands of wet hair from her forehead. A cold chill made her shake.
    She sneezed, and the act of sneezing caused her back to spasm. The pain was of such truly biblical proportions that she began to laugh as tears streamed down her face. Oh yes, she was losing her mind. She certainly was.
    A great wave of unfocused primal rage swept over her. She banged her fist against her car horn over and over, closed her eyes, threw back her head, and screamed in unison with the horn, because she had this cold and this back pain and this broken bloody heart and—
    â€œHey!”
    She opened her eyes and jumped back in her seat.
    A man crouched next to her car window, rapping hard on the glass. She saw what must be his car pulled up on the opposite side of the road, with its hazard lights also on.
    â€œYou okay?” he shouted. “Do you need help?”
    For God’s sake. This was meant to be a private moment of despair. How deeply embarrassing. She pressed the button to lower the window.
    A very large, unpleasant, unkempt, unshaven man peered in at her. He wore a T-shirt with the faded emblem of some ancient band over a proud solid beer belly and low-slung blue jeans. He was probably one of those outback serial killers. Even though this wasn’t technically the outback. He was probably on holiday from the outback.
    â€œGot car trouble?” he asked.
    â€œNo,” said Frances. She sat up straighter and tried to smile. She ran a hand through her damp hair. “Thank you. I’m fine. The car is fine. Everything is fine.”
    â€œAre you sick ?” said the man. He looked faintly disgusted.
    â€œNo,” said Frances. “Not really. Just a bad cold.”
    â€œMaybe you’ve got the proper flu. You look really sick,” said the man. He frowned, and his eyes moved to the back of her car. “And you were screaming and sounding your horn like you … were in trouble.”
    â€œYes,” said Frances. “Well. I thought I was alone in the middle of nowhere. I was just … having a bad moment.” She tried to keep the resentment from her voice. He was a good citizen who had done the right thing. He’d done what anyone would do.
    â€œThank you for stopping but I’m fine,” she said nicely, with her sweetest, most placatory smile. One must placate large strange men in the middle of nowhere.
    â€œOkay then.” The man straightened with a groan of effort, his hands on his thighs to give himself leverage, but then he rapped the top of her car with his knuckles and bent down again, suddenly decisive. I’m a man, I know what’s what . “Look, are you too sick to drive? Because if you’re not safe to drive, if you’re a danger to other drivers on the road, I really can’t in good conscience let you—”
    Frances sat up straight. For heaven’s sake. “I just had a hot flash,” she