Alex Kava Bundle - Alex Kava [734]
“Where’s the TV?” Tommy was back after an inspection of the bathroom.
“There is none.”
“No TV?”
“Nope. No TV, no radio, no phone, no Internet. Can’t even get good reception for my cell phone.”
“Holy crap. How long did you say you’re staying out here?”
“Two weeks.”
“This is why you have no life, buddy. How can you handle being out here by yourself for two fucking weeks?”
“I need to get away from the day-to-day distractions. Besides, I brought a nine-inch portable TV—if that makes you feel better. You know I can’t be away from the news for too long.”
“Day-to-day distractions? I hate to tell you, but that’s just life.” Tommy picked up the case of Bud Light and started putting the bottles carefully in the refrigerator. “So it sounds like you have the same philosophy about writing as you do about fishing,” he said from behind the refrigerator door.
“How’s that?”
“Fishing isn’t about catching fish, right? Sounds to me like writing about life isn’t about living life.”
“Very funny,” Andrew said. But he was annoyed enough to realize that Tommy could be right.
CHAPTER 11
2:30 p.m.
Melanie shoved the overstuffed laundry basket into the closet. She’d get to it tomorrow when things returned to normal. Though somewhere in the back of her mind she knew, she just knew that after today, things would never be normal again. It was only a feeling, the kind of feeling that gnaws at your gut. Something about this job of Jared’s didn’t feel right. Maybe she was simply disappointed that Jared and Charlie had been planning this without her. Maybe it was nothing, too much coffee at the restaurant when she had been trying so hard to do without. How had she ever expected to give up coffee and her smokes at the same time? Too much, too soon. Who did she think she was? Her gut instinct, she realized, had never been wrong before. In the past it had stopped her from doing some pretty stupid things. She reached for the Pepto-Bismol, screwed off the child-protective cap and took a swig from the bottle.
She loaded her own backpack with a change of clothes and some other necessities. She stopped at the mirror, tucking a strand of hair up under the baseball cap. It had been an effort to contain her thick, shoulder-length hair, first making a ponytail and then stacking it on top of her head. If she had had more warning she would have had it cut. More warning—how much trouble would that have been? There it was again, her anger. Wow! When had she decided it was anger instead of disappointment?
Melanie turned away from the mirror and added a couple of granola bars to the backpack. Jared promised they’d be home before nightfall, and he would say the backpack wasn’t necessary. He was probably right. Maybe, like Charlie, she needed her own security blanket this time.
She heard a car pull in to the driveway and glanced at her wristwatch. Right on time. But when she looked out the window, she didn’t recognize the dark blue sedan. She did, however, recognize the car’s emblem. Another fucking Saturn. What was it with that boy and Saturns?
She opened the front door, holding it for Charlie while she stood on the porch scanning the surrounding houses, catching a glimpse of curtains swinging back into place in the brick bungalow across the street. Old Mrs. Clancy noticed everything in the neighborhood, but thankfully, she kept her mouth shut, whether out of respect or fear Melanie didn’t much care. She didn’t need some busybody reporting her every time a strange car appeared in her driveway. But, as Melanie watched Charlie, she couldn’t help wondering what old Mrs. Clancy was thinking, because she knew the woman was watching from somewhere in her house.
Charlie’s usual T-shirt and baggy jeans had been replaced by dark coveralls, the zip-up kind with long sleeves. The coveralls looked out of place in the ninety-degree heat. What looked odder was his