Free Shadow Account by Stephen Frey

just an incredible story.”
    Thunder rumbled again. Louder this time. “The question is, what do I do now?”
    “Don’t go to the cops,” Gavin advised quickly. “If you walk into a precinct babbling about some woman being murdered in your apartment, they’ll suspect you immediately. I’m telling you, pal. Even if there isn’t a body.”
    “But I have to find out what happened to her.”
    Gavin folded his arms. “No you don’t.”
    “Excuse me?”
    “Let her go.”
    “What?”
    “You’ll find someone else. A guy like you always does. You need to stay as far away from this as possible.”
    Conner had heard stories of how cold Gavin could be. But he hadn’t experienced it until now. “This coming from a man who was devoted to one woman for thirty-four years? I can’t believe you’d say that.”
    “You’re talking about my
wife
, pal.”
    The tops of the tall pines swayed against a sudden gust of wind. “Liz and I were close,” Conner said quietly.
    “She was engaged. Isn’t that what you said?”
    Conner nodded.
    “If you were so close, why didn’t she break off the engagement?”
    Typical Gavin. Straight to the heart. “You don’t understand. There were extenuating circumstances.”
    Gavin smirked. “There are
always
extenuating circumstances. No offense, pal, but I don’t like what I hear about this woman.” He paused. “Are you absolutely sure she was dead?”
    Conner’s eyes raced to the old man’s. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    “Just a question.”
    “She was dead,” he said firmly. “I’m sure.”
    Gavin glanced up at the threatening sky. “Walk with me, Conner.”
    They moved across the grass, side by side, toward one of the tallest pines. Its lower branches had been cut away, forming a small archway. Beneath the branches was a marble gravestone with the name HELEN inscribed on it.
    “My wife,” Gavin murmured, stopping a few feet away. “I didn’t want her in a graveyard beside someone she never knew. I wanted her here with me. I loved her so much.”
    “I know,” Conner said.
    The rain began to fall, rustling the trees.
    “Have you ever wanted to kill someone?” Gavin asked, staring at the tombstone.
    Conner glanced up from the brown needles covering the grave. “What?”
    “Have you ever been so angry, you thought you could actually take another person’s life?”
    Thunder rumbled again. The storm was coming in off the ocean, and it was close. The gentle shower would soon turn into a downpour. “Yes,” Conner admitted.
    “Frank Turner?”
    Conner shut his eyes. Nine years ago a man named Frank Turner was driving his SUV home from his country club. Blind drunk after nine beers. He’d run a red light at forty miles an hour and broadsided Conner’s mother, shearing her tiny Toyota in half and killing her instantly. Making her almost unrecognizable at the morgue.
    Turner came away from the crash with a few stitches in his forehead and a manslaughter charge. Seven months later the judge sentenced him to nothing but probation and community service. There was no justice from the system for the poor. Things hadn’t changed in a thousand years, and Conner was convinced they never would.
    A few minutes after the trial Conner had found Turner chuckling with his slick-haired attorney in a parking garage connected to the courthouse. Laughing about how smoothly the whole thing had gone. It had taken four troopers on their way to traffic court to keep Conner from tearing Turner apart.
    A week later Conner found the upscale neighborhood where Turner lived, and the office building he owned a few miles away. A month after that a small article appeared in a local newspaper describing how Turner had slipped down a stairway outside that office building late one rainy night. And how he’d died several days later from complications brought on by the severe head injuries suffered in the fall.
    “Yes,” Conner said tersely. “Frank Turner.” He looked the old man