Free Shadows from the Grave by T. L. Haddix Page A

beer?”
    “In the fridge,” Annie said. He got up and grabbed a couple bottles, holding one out toward her. She nodded, and Chase came back over, handed her a bottle, and sat down. He pulled a couple of sheets of folded paper out of his back pocket.
    “I received a card at the office today. This is a copy of the letter that was inside.” He handed it to her, but hesitated before letting it go. “It’s pretty graphic,” he warned.
    Annie set her plate down on the coffee table and took the paper. As she read the words the killer had written, Chase saw her swallow. He set his own plate down and leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees. When Annie finished reading, she handed the letter back to him.
    “You called the cops, right? Gordon, Ethan? Someone?” she asked.
    “Of course,” he replied. “I called Gordon, and he called Stacy K. She came over and got everything, took it down to Louisville for processing. I made the copy before she got there.”
    “That’s a page out of Beth’s book,” Annie said. “She’d be proud of you.”
    Chase gave her a half-smile. “It is. And it’s true—easier to beg forgiveness than to ask for permission. I didn’t think Stacy would object to me copying the letter, but I didn’t want to take a chance. I just snapped a picture of it with my phone and printed it out before I left the office.” He fell silent, gazing down at the label on the bottle of beer.
    Annie thought he looked more than a little lost, and her heart broke watching him. “Chase, I’m sorry. Surely what he says in that letter, it isn’t true. About Kiely.”
    To her surprise, Chase laughed. It was a bitter sound, and as he turned to face her, the self-loathing on his face shocked her. “I have the feeling it’s all true, Annie.” He stood up to pace around the room. He seemed restless and angry.
    “Why do you say that?” she asked.
    Chase just shrugged and took a long swallow of his beer. Annie waited for him to answer, not wanting to push. Finally, he said, “All these years, I’ve never told anyone this. Not anyone outside the investigation, anyhow, and even then, not in all the detail I’m getting ready to share with you. It just didn’t seem right to tell anyone, to blacken Kiely’s memory. There wasn’t any point to it, not when the truth would cause more pain than good.” Chase kept his gaze on the bottle in his hands, picking at the label as he spoke.
    “You know she was killed just after school started back, right? What most people don’t know is that we had pretty much broken up that spring. I had been offered an internship with the Commonwealth Attorney’s office down there, and she wanted me to go home to Ashland with her. I chose the internship instead.”
    Annie frowned. “But Chase, surely you don’t feel guilty about that. You weren’t even in law school then, were you? For you to have been offered that internship, at that age, that early in the game—you’d have been stupid not to take it.”
    “I had just finished my first semester. I was about a year ahead of my class.” He sent her a bitter smile. “We always have a choice, Annie. Good, bad, or ugly, I don’t regret making the decision I did. Not after everything else that happened.” He paused when thunder sounded in the distance, and Annie smiled.
    “This house has a screened-in porch,” she reminded him. “Want to go out back and sit? Watch the storm roll in? You look like you could use a diversion.”
    This time when he laughed, it was a much more natural sound. “You have no idea. Sure, storm watching sounds good.” He grabbed the plates off the coffee table and carried them to the counter, where he set them and the beer bottle down.
    When he turned toward the hall that led to the back porch, Annie was waiting, hand outstretched. “Come on, friend. Let’s go watch the storm, and you can finish your story.” Chase took her hand and followed close behind her down the hall. As soon as she opened the