A Place So Wicked by Patrick Reuman (life books to read txt) 📕

It took a minute, but David took the hint. “Oh, now! I’ll do it now.”

Maybe the rat did have brains, Richard thought, his nerves simmering just a little.

David picked up his cell phone and dialed a number. They waited a moment, Richard just barely able to hear the soft ringing coming from the receiver. Then someone answered.

“Hello, Joseph! Yes, it’s David Masterson down at Black Falls Realty.” David smiled and nodded at Richard, like they were friends and Richard was supposed to be in on some inside joke. “Yes. Yes. I’m okay. I just have a little problem.”

Richard could hear the voice speaking on the other line but not nearly loud enough to know what the man was saying.

“I have a house I sold. Thirteen Ripley. There’s a room in the basement, from what I understand, and the owners can’t get into it. We can’t find the key, so we need a locksmith.”

David paused as the other person spoke.

“When is the soonest you can get in to check it out?”

David frowned and glanced up at Richard.

“Okay. Okay. Thank you.”

David pulled the phone away from his ear and ended the call with a somber look. “I’ve got good news and bad.”

“Okay,” Richard said.

“The good news is, he can get in to check it out and will as soon as possible.”

“And the bad?” Richard asked.

“That won’t be for two days.”

Richard’s anger rose again. Only, this time, far less so than before. He was frustrated, but at least the guy did something instead of pushing him off like he did last time. He supposed it wasn’t his fault the locksmith couldn’t fit them into his schedule sooner. Unless he had called the locksmith in the first place instead of avoiding his calls.

“All right,” Richard said, ready to get out there. He couldn’t stand the man’s plump face any longer.

“I’m sorry it couldn’t be sooner.”

Richard just nodded, not wanting to continue the conversation.

“Maybe the problem will work itself out by then,” David said, a smile now replacing the anxiety on his face.

Richard wasn’t sure how that was supposed to happen, but he didn’t care to ask. He told him to give them a call with any updates and then left. He wanted to get back home, but before he could do that, he had one quick stop to make. Two days was too long.

24

Toby watched at a distance as his mother stood in the kitchen, staring down silently at a dish of food. He wasn’t sure when it came, before his father left, sometime earlier in the morning, or after, in the twenty or so minutes since his dad left. But since he arrived downstairs, his mother had done nothing but stare at the dish.

The whole house was in a state. His dad was gone. Paisley had left a short while ago. Trevor and Robbie were locked away in their rooms like they had the plague. That left him and his mother, who seemed right then to be just as gone as the others. Which left him, alone.

But for once, he didn’t mind. He was in his own place as well. Only his world, unlike the others, was good. He was happy. He still couldn’t believe what had happened the night before.

He recalled sneaking back in, the house draped in darkness, and finding his way back up to his room. For the first…however long it had been, he stared through the window at the house across the street, at the bedroom he knew to be Addy’s. But it wasn’t because he wanted to see Addy in the way he had before, in some teenage perversion, but because he wanted to feel close to her again, even if it was only from a distance. If he could just set his eyes on her, he had thought.

But she never appeared in the window. The bedroom light across the way never turned on. In his fantasies, he imagined her lighting the room and coming to her window to look across at him just as he was looking across at her. Their eyes meeting, sharing something more special than words or a touch.

That didn’t happen. But that was okay. The warm, butterfly feeling had lasted all night into the morning. Even as he stood there watching his mother stare at a dish of food like a confused zombie, he felt something amazing, something he had never even imagined was possible. The feeling had its own life, its own fire, spreading to every corner of his body, taking root in the crevasses of his mind and body, even his soul.

He thought about heading across the street to say hello to Addy but decided not to after a minute of mental deliberation. It all boiled down to him not wanting to seem needy. So far, she had been coming to him, and that was okay with him.

Instead, he sat on the couch and turned on the television. Flipping through the channels, he didn’t stop until he came across a news network, which was going on about some auto accident that had happened on a highway that sound only mildly familiar to him, like maybe it was one of the roads they had taken to get to Black Falls. Then came the weather, which forecasted sunny skies, a happy change from how the weather had been recently.

Toby heard the sound of the refrigerator opening then the clatter of the dish being placed inside. He wondered why she hadn’t just thrown it out given that they hadn’t touched any of the previous dishes left strangely on their doorstep. His mother left the kitchen and went upstairs without a word to Toby.

Shortly thereafter, Toby heard the door handle turn and in came his father. Immediately, he saw the frustration in the man’s eyes. That’s how his dad appeared