Seed Read Free Page A

Eventually, he was there every single day for hours on end.
    It was there, among the moss-covered headstones and rusted wrought-iron fencing, that he first saw those eyes. Just as the sun dipped beneath the tree line and Jack picked himself up to leave for the night, he saw a pair of glossy black eyes staring at him from behind the trees. Like two onyx-colored marbles, they could have easily belonged to a wolf or raccoon. But there was something off about them. They were soulless, empty, as if pulled from the pit of something twisted and unclean.
    They were the same eyes he’d seen the moment before the Saturn lifted off the road and was thrown through the sky. They were the eyes that had haunted Jack in his youth. Jack knew those eyes, and it terrified him that they had found him again.

Chapter Two

    P atricia eventually forced herself to accept Jack as her son-in-law, but this accident was too much. Putting her daughter and grandchildren in danger! If Jack Winter thought Patricia Riley was going to turn a blind eye to his blatant recklessness, he had another thing coming.
    “Charlotte is running a fever.”
    Pat made the announcement the moment she stepped into the cramped little house. That house was another thorn in Patricia’s side. She’d raised her daughter in a proper Southern home, and here she was, living in a two-bedroom lean-to stuffed floor to ceiling with what could only be described as ‘the bizarre’. Aimee was a fan of antiques, collecting everything from tarnished mirrors to oversized furniture; Jack was partial to strange artifacts—ancient books and weird family portraits. It made for a peculiar collection of home décor.
    Patricia diverted her gaze from the taxidermied fawn curled atop Jack’s crumbling piano to Nubs, the Winters’ shaggy black and white Border Collie. She wrinkled her nose in distaste as the dog approached her, taking a cautionary step backward in case the flea bag decided to jump all over her new skirt. But Charlotte distracted him when she slunk into the house, dragging a bright yellow Spongebob Squarepants backpack behind her. Nubs’ interest in Patricia was instantly withdrawn, and he trotted behind Charlie like the loyal dog he was.
    “She was complaining about feeling sick earlier,” Aimee said from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a gingham-checked dishtowel. “I figured she was just making it up.” She lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “Guess not.”
    “You should get her to bed,” Pat advised, approaching the kitchen counter to inspect her daughter’s in-process cooking.
    Patricia Riley fancied herself a gourmet chef. As far as Jack was concerned, she fancied herself an expert at absolutely everything; especially the art of rearing other people’s children.
    “Give her some Tylenol and run a cool bath if her fever doesn’t break by tonight.”
    “Will do,” Aimee said.
    “And I’d consider keeping Abigail on the couch for the night if I were you,” Pat continued. “Or you’ll have two sick kids instead of one.”
    Aimee peeked into the girls’ room. Charlie was crawling onto her bed with great effort, pulling herself onto the mattress like a slug.
    “Thanks for driving her,” Aimee said. “I don’t know what we’re going to do about a car.”
    “Well, I have my bridge club every other day,” Pat said. “You know that. I can drive her every now and again, but I’m no chauffeur. A family can’t survive without a car.”
    “We’ll figure something out,” Aimee said. “We’re only a few weeks off of a down payment. We’ll just settle on a cheaper model, get it sooner.”
    “A new car?” Patricia raised an eyebrow. “You could probably buy two used ones for the same amount of money.”
    “Jack has his heart set on a new one. He’s been talking about it for months.”
    “What for?” Pat asked with a smirk. “So he can flip it down a few more roads?”
    Aimee frowned.
    “It was an accident,” she said. She had been hard on Jack