This Strange Addiction by Julie Steimle (e book free reading .txt) 📕

help. It amazed her, really, how he understood well that he got more headway putting himself among the workers than just providing trucks. It felt a bit like watching Henry V going about with his army. But she also noticed moments where he had to catch his breath. Rick was also limping from pain, and he did not have full use of one arm, as if his shoulder in particular was killing him. His friend Robert appeared to hover near him also, standing a bit like looming shadow. Robert didn’t say much either to anyone but Rick and Matthew.

“Hey…” Matthew walked up to Audry, damp from the mist and salty foam. He had been busy with Neil and their group, talking with them while collecting other kinds of trash. “I finally got you alone. Where’s your boyfriend?”

Lifting up the top of her hat, Audry looked around. She spotted Hogan further down on the beach and pointed him out. “Over there. He’s coordinating with that other group, uh, Green Tree, I think they’re called. We think this cleanup is going to take a while, maybe more than a week, and some of us have got other work. Do you need to talk to him?”

Matthew shook his head. “No. I wanted to talk to you without any peeping ears, see how you are doing… though I am curious about him. Rick once joked that you seem to be attracted to troublemakers. Though to me, you seem to be attracted to guys whose names start with the letter H.”

In a second Audry caught his meaning very well. Her last boyfriend, whom Matthew had not met but clearly knew about through Jessica, was named Harlin—and when they had broken up, he had stalked her. He only quit stalking her when she became great friends with Jessica who at the time was a policewoman who had worked with Matthew. But he was also hinting that she had crushed on Rick—whose given name was Howard Richard.

“Very funny,” she said.

Chuckling, Matthew then collected the trash she was raking up and helped her put the garbage in a bag. “I know…. But I am thoroughly disappointed. You and that guy seem pretty serious. And we like you.”

Again, Audry shot him a look. “Stop it.”

“No. Seriously,” Matthew said. “And we honestly had hopes that you and Rick would have gotten over your differences. I’m completely devastated. We’re going to have to look all over again for somebody else for our friend.”

Audry punched Matthew in the arm. “Stop teasing.”

Matthew’s mouth pressed together in a mocking smile. His eyes were shining.

They gathered up more plastic as it came, moving down the shoreline. As they worked, Audry glanced at him, a number of pressing questions on her mind. And now, for the first time, she realized she might get answers to them. There was no one to listen in after all.

“Um, can I ask…?”

Matthew lifted his head, staring at her face as if he already knew what question she was thinking. He thought for a minute and nodded. “Ask anything.”

“Ok…” Audry swallowed, remembering the odd feeling she always got around Rick’s friends. But she lowered her voice to a whisper. “I read on the internet a story about your father. Was he really killed by the Mafia?”

Nodding, Matthew sighed. “Yes. By my uncle actually. He was in the Mafia. A low level guy, but he was in it.”

Audry sighed, nodding.

But then he elaborated, as if he knew she really needed more. “It was Mr. Deacon that arranged for me to go to Gulinger Private Academy. Mr. Deacon knew my father.”

Surprised, Audry lifted her eyes to him.

Nodding, Matthew smiled sadly. “Yeah.”

Another question she had been dying to know the answer to for years came to her lips, and since he said she could ask anything, she asked it. “What kind of school is Gulinger Private Academy? I tried to research it, but the website did not give much information. Some of the questions for eligibility were—how do I put it? Odd.”

Chuckling, nodding, Matthew said, “Of course. Uh, Gulinger is not your usual private school.”

“The website said it was school for special needs children,” Audry said watching his expression as she formed her words. “But the questions weren’t about those kinds of needs. And to be honest, you don’t seem like a special needs kind of guy. It seemed more to me like a school for kids with PTSD.”

Matthew nodded approvingly. “Yeah… that’s a good way to describe it.”

Audry’s eyes widened. Was it true?

He cleared his throat and said while dragging their bag further up the shoreline to gather more garbage. “Uh, I don’t think Rick would be upset if I explained the school to you. You see, Gulinger is a school for children who are special and need protection.”

She drew in a breath.

“I was there hiding from the Mafia,” Matthew said. He nodded to himself, thinking more on it. Gesturing back toward Rick and Robert, he said, “Bobo went there to—”

“Bobo?” Audry looked back in that direction.

Chuckling, Matthew nodded. “Yeah. We never call him Robert. He’s Bobo. But anyway, Bobo was abused by an uncle, and all his family are dead. Murdered.”

She drew in a breath.

“And you’ve met Tom, Randon, and Troy, right?” Matthew said.

Audry nodded, remembering all of Rick’s peculiar friends. Tom Brown was an ADHD adult with white hair, weird orange eyes which he always concealed behind sunglasses, and currently working as a CIA agent. Randon and Troy looked like brothers but were just good friends, both with charcoal-colored hair and shining blue eyes. She had met all of them twice at least, though briefly each time.

“Tom was sent to the school to keep him off the streets—because his mother is in prison for, I think, armed robbery. She should be getting out soon.” Matthew nodded to himself, as if that might actually be a problem though it was not clear why. Maybe she was dangerous. “Randon’s mother and sister were self-declared witches and abused him, so his father grabbed him and ran. His father has been under witness protection and Randon went to Gulinger.”

Hearing that gave Audry chills. She was a friend with another self-declared ‘witch’ who had nearly successfully left her coven—her roommate Silvia Lewis. The woman was a New York hairdresser now. Audry knew through Silvia how nasty such people could be, never mind the nonsense about magic. Those folk did not allow people to leave them.

“As for Troy, his parents had nearly killed him. And honestly, I don’t want to get into the details about that,” Matthew said. He seemed disturbed, thinking about it.

“I see,” Audry murmured. It was a lot to think about. But then she said, “But why did Rick go there?”

Sighing, Matthew replied, “After his parents’ divorce, his father didn’t think it safe for him to stay in Middleton Village.” He then met her gaze knowingly. “You know about the witch covens there, right? You know Silvia.”

Audry nodded. That prickly feeling crawled up her arms and neck more.

“Gulinger is an extremely safe school,” Matthew explained.

She nodded again. But then another thought struck her. “But what about that debutant? Selena Davenport?”

Matthew laughed. He started to nod, picking off three plastic bottles and another bag the damp sand. “Ah… yeah. Selena. Um, Selena was actually gifted. Our school, as I told you, also took in special children. And I don’t mean it in a euphemistic way. I mean it literally. I’m gifted, actually.”

This startled her, though she knew from all the signs that it was a fact. There was something different about Matthew, about all of Rick’s friends actually, something she could not quite put a finger on. But now, she believed she would hear it.  

“Like, high IQ?” Audry asked, feeling it was not quite accurate, but she had to ask.

 A knowing look was in his eye as Matthew grinned at her. “No. Though Tom is quite brilliant. Um, rather… I think you know already.”

A rush of chills flooded through her.

“You’re pretty intuitive,” Matthew said, smiling more at her. “You can sense things about people.”

More chills swept through her.

“But, as for me,” Matthew said, cautiously smiling as he seemed to choose his words carefully, “I… I can hear thoughts when people speak.”

That didn’t quite make sense. Audry stared at him, puzzled.

“What I mean is, I know your true thoughts when you form words and speak.”

For a second, Audry was still not sure what that meant. He could read minds, but only when she talked?

“I can tell when people lie,” he clarified.

“Oh.” Audry brightened up.

“And also what people withhold,” Matthew added.

This time she stared. “No way.”

He nodded. “Yep. And it is incredibly useful when being a detective.”

Audry stared more.

“I mean, it is not admissible in a court of law or anything,” Matthew murmured, mostly to himself as they continued to collect garbage along the shoreline. “But it is useful in an interrogation room.”

She laughed. Such an ability would be.

“We call people like us ghoulies,” Matthew explained. But then he whispered, “But don’t tell Rick I told you any of this. It makes him uncomfortable. He works really hard to protect the school.”

Sighing, she nodded. That sounded like Rick. He seemed personally protective over a lot of things.

They worked once more in silence

Hogan soon joined them. He chatted it up with Matthew, joking and laughing as together they heaved up driftwood to a pile, and seaweed. Funny thing, though, Audry detected some jealousy coming from Hogan. He had easily placed himself between Matthew and her like a skilled dancer smoothly choreographing their interaction so that it was clear she and he were a solid item. She had never really felt such from him before. But then no one really stood as competition before. Hogan was amazing after all. And yet, as they were joined by Robert Lafon, Audry looked up to where Rick was working. She found him heading up the hill, taking his work gloves off. At the top of the hill stood Carl, waiting for him.

“He’s leaving?” escaped her lips before she could stop it.

Matthew glanced to Robert who replied, “His father called him in. And his shoulder has been hurtin’ him. I told him not to overwork it.”

“He’s not better yet,” Matthew murmured, watching Rick go.

“What really happened in Germany?” Hogan asked, putting down his end of some driftwood they had hauled from the water’s edge. He was tugging off a plastic bag hooked to a salty branch.

Audry listened.

“Neither of us were there,” Matthew said, thumbing to Robert. “But what I hear is that some kook sic’d his pet wolves on Rick’s friends, and Rick did everything he could to stop them.”

“What?” Audry put a hand over her mouth.

“Yeah.” Matthew looked to her specifically. “It wasn’t just a regular wolf attack.”

“Did Mr. Deacon tell you that?” Hogan asked.

“You mean his father?” Matthew gazed at Hogan in confusion.

Shaking his head, Hogan laughed it off. “No. Your friend.”

Robert broke into an amused laugh. “Mr. Deacon. Imagine calling Rick that.”

Matthew nodded, chuckling.

“Well, it’s only polite,” Hogan said looking a degree annoyed. Audry patted his shoulder understandingly.

“I suppose for business, it is,” Matthew said, nodding. He lifted up a larger two liter plastic bottle that still had on the cap, putting it into the bag. “But I think he’d appreciate you calling him Rick.”

Hogan shrugged.

Audry watched Rick’s departure up above. He had barely been there.

Ok, so he had been there for several hours, but he had barely even talked to her. He hadn’t even said ‘hi’. He had not even made one of his snarky comments. Indignation had begun to swell in her, and yet… he had been so hurt. She could tell he had been beaten down. She could tell he was in a lot pain.

“That shirt,” Robert said, gesturing to her shirt front. “Where did you get it?

Looking to his surprised, nearly amused face, Audry then peered back down to her shirt front which had her wolf on it. Immediately she colored, peeking once to Matthew who was smothering a laugh. It was like a running