The Lie - Debra Webb Page 0,2

a quilt and enjoy the view for a bit. It soothed her. She sat on that porch almost every night.

Glass topped off, she grabbed her favorite well-worn quilt from the sofa back and headed outside. Her mother had worried, particularly the past few years, whether Lara would ever find her happily-ever-after in the big city. At thirty-two she still felt too young to worry about forever. Her mom had worried enough for the both of them.

Maybe it was because her mom never had a happily ever after of her own. Lara’s father had died when she was a baby and her mother never remarried. She hadn’t ever even attempted another romance as far as Lara knew. She didn’t raise the topic of grandkids, but she often mentioned how much she wanted Lara to find someone so she wouldn’t be alone in the world after she was gone. Mary Franklin had fretted a great deal about Lara having a partner in life. They had no other family, only each other.

Even in the city Lara always enjoyed plenty of friends, but her mother only had one that Lara had met. She had been far too much of a homebody—almost a recluse—to support more than one relationship at a time. She’d often said how glad she was that Lara hadn’t inherited her hermit ways.

Her mother’s homebody behavior hadn’t seemed strange to Lara. Growing up her life was plenty full. She’d never missed having a father or extended family.

She pulled the quilt closer around her and exhaled a big breath, shifting her mind from the past. She looked forward to Monday’s blog. The controversial crime solving technique on the agenda was sure to be a hit with her followers. Who would have guessed there were so many couch crime solvers out there?

Monday’s blog was particularly interesting to Lara. Genetic evidence and DNA profiling had always been at the top of her curiosity list. More recently the ancestry sites and their role in contributing to the discovery of criminals was mind-boggling. Everyone—even the worst of the worst killers—came from somewhere, had some person related by blood to him or her. The idea that the connection, even a fairly remote one, could haunt a killer with the fear of exposure was exhilarating. How could a killer protect him or herself from the genetic connection? He couldn’t. Because few people knew everyone with whom they were related in some way.

You might be able to conceal or destroy your paper trail and even your online existence, but you couldn’t hide from genetics. You could only hope to never leave any behind at a crime scene.

Lara herself, for example. She had no known family beyond her mother. If her father had extended family beyond his adopted parents, who died not long after his death, her mother hadn’t known. But there would almost certainly be someone out there. To prove her theory, Lara used one of the public ancestry sites to look for her own genetic relatives. The results would be available for review on Monday morning, and Monday evening she would share them with the world.

She sipped her wine, shivered as the cold invaded the thick cotton swaddled around her. Her mom wouldn’t have approved of the idea. She insisted that family was the people around you who loved and took care of you, not some person whose DNA pattern was like yours.

This was true, of course. A genetic connection didn’t make people family in the truest sense of the word.

Still, it was interesting in terms of solving crime. Her followers would love the personal aspect. In truth, she was vaguely curious as to whether she had any close genetic links out there.

Who wouldn’t be?

She’d also done some browsing on FamilySecrets.Life, a fairly new site touted for doling out advice and offering private counseling. The counseling options were slanted toward family issues. Lara was somewhat impressed with what the site brought to the table. The advice was often times blunt but on target, in her opinion.

She drank the last of her wine and leaned her head against the vintage wood of the ancient swing. Pushing off with a sock-clad foot she set the swing in motion then tucked her leg back into the warmth of the quilt. Closing her eyes, she allowed the quiet and the darkness to clear her mind. All the voices of tonight’s multitude of commenters faded into nothingness. She could sit here all night, just swaying gently back and forth. Except she might very well