Kiss of Midnight_ A Midnight Breed Novel - Lara Adrian [812]
“Stanley, did you hear me calling you up there? Do you intend to sleep all damn day in there?” She ham-fisted a few hard raps on the door, then gave the locked knob a good, but ineffective, jiggle. “Didn’t I tell you to run out first thing this morning and pick up some rice and canned beans? What the hell are you waiting for, the spring thaw? Get off your lazy ass and do something useful for a change!”
Skeeter didn’t trouble himself to answer. Nor did he budge from his sprawl in the chair, or even so much as flinch as his mother continued to huff and puff and bang on the door. He took another lazy hit off the joint and savored the buzz, knowing the annoyance outside his room would eventually tire of him ignoring her and slink back to her harpy’s perch in front of the TV where she belonged.
To help drown her out in the meantime, Skeeter reached for the radio a few feet away and cranked the volume. Harmony’s one-and-only law enforcer, Trooper Zachary Tucker, sounded like he had his panties in a wad over something pretty big today.
“Stanley Arnold, don’t you think you can just tune me out, you miserable no-good excuse for a son!” His mother pounded on the door again, then stormed off, her big mouth still running all the way up the hall. “You’re just like your father. Never been worth a lick and never will be!”
Skeeter got up from the recliner and moved in closer to the radio as Tucker, reporting in with the State boys in Fairbanks, rattled off the coordinates of an apparent multiple death scene—probable homicide, he’d said—some forty miles out in the bush. Tucker was awaiting air transport from one of Harmony’s two resident pilots. He advised that the other one, Alex Maguire, had been the one who discovered the bodies while on a supply run and was presently on her way back into town.
Skeeter felt a twist of excitement as he listened. He knew the area in question very well. Hell, he’d been out that way just last night with Chad Bishop and a few other people. They’d been getting high and drinking by the river … right before they’d started tormenting Teddy Toms. In fact, the way it was sounding to him, the settlement the cops were talking about had to be the kid’s family’s place.
“No friggin’ way,” Skeeter whispered, wondering if he could possibly be right about that. Just to be sure, he jotted the coordinates down on his palm, then riffled through a pile of unpaid bills and other trash until he found the beer-stained area map he’d been using as a coaster for the past couple of years. He triangulated the spot on the map, disbelief and a sick sort of wonderment sliding through his senses.
“Holy shit,” he said, taking a long drag off his joint before snuffing it out on the burn-scarred Formica to save the rest of the buzz for later. He was too excited to finish it now. Too lit up with morbid curiosity to keep from running a tight pace back and forth across the cramped room.
Had Pop Toms or the old man’s brother-in-law gone off the deep end? Or had it been Teddy who finally snapped his leash? Maybe the kid had gone home and lost it after Skeeter and the others had driven him off in tears last night at the river?
He’d know all that soon enough, Skeeter figured. He’d always wanted to see a dead person up close. Maybe he’d just head out for a little detour on his way to the store for those beans and rice his mother wanted.
Yeah, and maybe he’d skip the errand-boy bullshit and just go do what he wanted for a change.
Skeeter grabbed his cell phone—the sweet new one with video capability and the cool skull-and-crossbones skin. Then he fished the key to his Yamaha sled out of the mess on his counter. He didn’t bother telling his mother where he was heading, just pulled on his winter gear and strode out into the bracing chill of the day.
CHAPTER
Two
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS
Heat blasted out of the Range Rover’s dashboard vents as Brock upped the temperature another few degrees. “Damn, it’s cold tonight.” The big male from Detroit cupped his hands in front of his mouth and blew into his palms.