Christmas at Timberwoods - Fern Michaels [12]
He drained his coffee and rinsed the cup in the stained kitchen sink. Turning on the radio for the weather report, he heard the soft strains of “O Come, All Ye Faithful,” and scowled as the song ended. Where were the faithful? Where was the joy? Who was triumphant? His head began to ache as he listened to the jovial announcer: clear skies this morning, clouding up by late afternoon, snow beginning in the early evening.
The hooded jacket wouldn’t be noticed by anyone. Good enough. There was no way anyone could know what he was planning. No way at all. He let his mind wander again. Everyone would be gone in a single second. In a way it was a shame that no one would ever know that he was the one responsible for the destruction. But as long as he knew, that was all that counted.
Would the threatened snow deter shoppers from coming to the mall? Not likely, as long as they had wallets full of money and credit cards. Reassured by his thoughts, Charlie slipped into his jacket and pulled on a warm woolen cap.
While he waited for the old Chevy to warm up, his thoughts wandered to the mall. He had noticed something strange yesterday. There seemed to be more security guards patrolling the mall. They looked more alert than usual and kept checking and rechecking the same areas. One of them had even had the gall to tell him to move on, until Nick Anastasios had vouched for him.
Maybe he should just quit and let it go at that. Revenge, done right, was a lot of work. He could put in for disability. Fade out. A small knot of tension crawled around Charlie’s stomach as he shifted the car into gear. Stopping for a red light, he let his mind drift again. All the guys in the maintenance department would have to work as hard as he did for once. He wouldn’t have to set foot on the loading docks ever again. Did they care that he had a bad back? Six years of honest, loyal work had counted for nothing. When he had protested, he had been told he could take a transfer or a layoff. There had been no choice. His temporary stint as Santa’s freaking helper didn’t count for anything, either. He didn’t need it. He didn’t need anyone.
The more he thought about it, the more he realized that he’d had enough. Of everything. Seeing Heather with Lex had made something snap. Behind that fantasy was . . . nothing.
He had never liked a single one of those wisecracking idiots in the maintenance department constantly ribbing him about this and that. They loved to tease him about his shyness around women. That’s all they cared about—women and sex. Nothing else mattered.
Not friends, not family, not their jobs—nothing. But he was smarter than all of them put together. Hadn’t he proved that, by graduating from refrigeration school? And not from some dumb correspondence course, either, but from an accredited evening course at Woodridge High School. They’d told him he was one of the most promising students.
But then there had been that incident halfway through the course, when the instructor had taken him aside and asked whether he intended to pursue a career in refrigeration and air-conditioning. If he did, the instructor said, Charlie had better do something about the extra weight he was toting about. The job market was tough on overweight men, and job bosses wanted guys slim enough to crawl around the air ducts. Well, he’d done it, hadn’t he? He’d lost almost fifty pounds