Free Stranger Things Have Happened: An Adrien English Write Your Own Damn Story (The Adrien English Mysteries) by Josh Lanyon

, but he explains that he’s a freelancer.
    Which…well, that’s possible, after all.
    __________
    If you choose to go have coffee with Green, click here
    If you suddenly feel like you need a nap, click here

Y ou’re out of practice, so it isn’t smooth. “Look, you don’t have to leave. I mean, unless you do. But if you don’t have to be anywhere…I’d like you to stay.” You’re not even sure if that’s true. Except, strangely, it is. You feel some connection to Riordan. It’s crazy, but there’s something there.
    But maybe it’s just on one side.
    Riordan’s face changes, grows ugly, dangerous. “Stay? What, here? With you ?”
    He sounds appalled, but there’s a certain hungry glitter in his eyes. The heat rushes into your face, but you nod.
    He says finally, slowly, “What do you think I am?”
    “I…think you’re a man. Like me.”
    He shoves you back, hard. You crash into the hall table, knocking it over, smashing the jar of old marbles you’ve collected through the years. Glass balls skip and bounce along the corridor. You land on your back, your head banging down on the hardwood floor.
    From a distance you hear him saying, “I’m nothing like you!”
    For a second or so you lie there, blinking up at the lighting fixture, taking in the years of dust and dead moths gathered in the etched-glass globe. The silence that follows is more startling than the collision of you and the table and the floor. You can hear Riordan’s harsh breathing and, from far away, a marble rolling away down the hall — dying into silence.
    Riordan bends over you, and you knock his hands, rolling away and scrambling to your feet. You stay out of reach, watching him warily, waiting for him to launch himself at you again. Can you make it to the phone before he knocks you down again? You can’t take him, that’s for sure.
    Riordan is still staring at you in that stricken, horrified way. In his eyes, you read fear, and with the fear, the urge to knock you down again, to punch, to kick, to silence, to destroy. His hands are clenched by his side. You feel light-headed with anger and outrage — and yeah, you’re scared too. He could probably kill you by accident. Or maybe it won’t be by accident. Your heart is tripping in your throat.
    You can barely form the words without crying. From rage. “Get out.”
    He swallows once, dryly. He looks sick. He opens his mouth, closes it.
    You harden your voice. “I won’t tell you again. Get out.”
    In the back of his too bright eyes, you see the thoughts flitting through his brain. If he leaves, if you report this assault, he might lose his job. Worse, it might provoke speculation into something he very much does not want anyone to speculate on. Ever. The very thing you speculated on.
    He could shut you up for good. With one well-placed punch, he could probably solve the problem of you. He could claim you admitted to killing Robert and that you tried to jump him.
    There is fear and desperation in his face. Riordan is right to be afraid because you don’t know yourself what you plan to do — if you live through the next two minutes.
    The seconds pass. Your gaze never wavers from Riordan’s.
    Then he goes, shutting the door quietly behind him.
    __________
    If you phone the police and report the assault, click here
    If you decide to keep your mouth shut about the assault, click here

F inally you decide that since you’re probably not going to live that long anyway, it’ll be less trouble for everyone if you just move in with your mother for however much time you have left.
    Lisa hires an overpriced team of specialists to oversee your “recovery,” even though the possibility for actual recovery is nil. In addition to a night nurse, a masseur, and a physical therapist, she hires a day nurse by the name of Jean Paul.
    Jean Paul is six foot three, French and totally gorgeous. He is a few years younger than you and professes to be a fan of your book, which is probably total