Finders Keepers Read Free Page B

an MRI machine—the overflow, including a life-size Big Bird for Kate’s favorite niece, ending up stacked around them in the passenger compartment. Though they’d spent a bundle, the wallet inside Keith’s spanking new overcoat was still so thick with hundreds he could barely fold it closed. He told Kate at Rodale’s he felt like ole Saint Nick himself.
    As predicted the storm hit hard, but for the better part of the trip it ran ahead of them, leaving the two-lane blacktop snow-packed and icy in places but otherwise passable. They ran into some weather about two hours out, an intermittent sleet carried on a flaring wind, and further on, an eerie crystalline frost that hung in the low spots like fog. It was the wind that concerned Kate most, bulldozing its way across the highway, side-swiping the limo; but the big Lincoln was sure-footed and solid and before long the tension she’d felt earlier had all but vanished.
    To pass the time they played a movie trivia game they’d invented when Kate was in her teens, Kate throwing obscure bits of dialogue at Keith and, as always, failing to stump him. At one point she thought she had him: in a Chinese accent she said, “Boards…don’t hit back,” and Keith looked puzzled, fingering the cleft in his chin that never got properly shaved, repeating the quote a few times in a thoughtful whisper. Then he grinned that cocky grin of his, said, “Bruce Lee, Enter The Dragon , nineteen-seventy-three, Robert Clouse, director,” and denied being even remotely perplexed. “Just letting you think you had the hook in me,” he said and went back to fiddling with the limo phone.
    Kate sipped champagne from the bottle she found in the limo fridge, the fizzy cool of it relaxing her. And in quiet moments, she pictured the future in ways she’d never imagined before. They could live together in California now, maybe even start their own production company. Her father knew more about the movie industry than anyone she’d ever met; it had been a life-long hobby of his, tying neatly into his job as a projectionist. He’d read almost everything written about the film business and still flipped through the trade magazines every morning before breakfast. Kate could even imagine him directing, he had such a good eye. She’d write ’em and he’d direct ’em. They could be partners. She still wanted to go to school, though, take advantage of that opportunity.
    She poured herself another glass of bubbly, feeling giddy now, the reality of the change that was coming finally sinking in. She offered some of the champagne to Keith, but he was having too much fun with the phone, spreading the news to everyone he could think of. He’d been trying since they left town to reach Aunt Lee, and had just now gotten through to her. Kate snuggled next to him with her coat off, pressing her ear close to his so she could listen in.
    “No, Sis’, it’s true,” Keith said into the handset. “I’ve got the ticket right here in my hand.”
    Lee said, “Oh my God, Keith, that’s fantastic. How much did you win?”
    “Are you sitting down? Ten million big ones. Can you believe it? I’ve been playing the same damn numbers for years.”
    Lee said, “God love us, I can’t even imagine. Where are you now?”
    “In a limo on our way to Toronto. I want to get this thing squared away before I wake up and find out I dreamt it.”
    Lee chuckled. “Where’s Katie?”
    Keith gave his daughter a ten million dollar smile. “Right here beside me. We’ll be staying at the Royal York tonight—splurge a little—but we’ll see you in the morning, soon as we’re through at the lottery office.”
    “Okay, sweetheart. You tell that driver to take his time.”
    “Ten-four, kid. See you tomorrow.”
    Keith cradled the receiver, folded the ticket into his wallet and tucked the wallet back inside his new overcoat. “I think your aunt wet her pants,” he said to Kate.
    “I still can’t believe it myself,” Kate