Shadow Stations: Unseen Read Free Page A

back seat. As we pulled away, I reminded myself to pick up another pair of jeans and my good boots. We left the long driveway and began to pass miles of isolated countryside.
    I turned my right hand on the steering wheel. The thin red mark on my wrist should have disappeared by now. In the daylight it almost looked like a rash.
    A hawk sailed out of nowhere across the road in front of us. When the huge bird turned toward a line of juniper trees, I felt a sudden urge to turn around myself, just to make sure the device was still safe in the closet, but I shook off the impulse.
    The technology was incredible, the ability to track somebody thousands of miles away without detection, but how could my mind travel to another location while my body stayed here? Had the experience even been real? Maybe it had been some gruesome form of entertainment. I shot that last thought down. The prisoner’s ordeal, the lava field, and the blood red flowers had been too vivid to be a simulation.
    Nikki sat up to look out the window. Farms appeared, followed by Civil War tee-shirt and souvenir stores that had closed for the season. We drove into Gettysburg, passed the tree-lined historic part of town, and swung up our street. My roommates and I had been lucky to find our house, even though it looked like Dracula’s castle with a turret and overgrown yew bushes. We were a five minute walk to the college.
    Karin’s Suzuki was gone, but Mike’s Toyota pickup sat by the curb with the seats jam-packed with canned food.
    Mike Miller was into saving the world. The cans were a sign that he was collecting for something again. He volunteered for the soup kitchen, swung a hammer for Habitat for Humanity, and did countless other things he never talked about. He was the kind of guy you wanted to fall in love with… except he was just so damned nice .
    I didn’t see anybody when I opened the front door, but Nikki sniffed at a jumble of shopping bags by the couch. Incredulous, I wondered if Karin had pleaded poverty about the watch because she’d blown all her money on clothes, but the bags turned out to be full of dog food. Her rescue group. So she was planning to foster another dog. I hoped Nikki would tolerate this one. She’d nipped the last dog in the face, but had loved the one before that.
    Upstairs, my bedroom had a closed up feel after a week away. Everything looked the same, the white silk shirt I’d tossed on my bed, the pile of books on the floor. I had just started to throw socks and bras in a suitcase when somebody cleared his throat behind me. Heart pounding, I dropped everything and spun around.
    Mike was smiling in the doorway.
    “ Sneaky.” I punched him on the arm.
    He ruffled Nikki’s fur, sat his wide receiver frame down in my chair, and crossed his legs. He was wearing the clothes he lived in: faded jeans and a navy blue Gettysburg College sweatshirt that barely fit his oversized neck. He’d buzzed his hair since the last time I saw him and looked like a cop.
    “ You sure are jumpy,” he said. “Long time no see.”
    “ You know you can come out anytime.”
    “ I called you a couple of times yesterday.”
    “ I’ve been leaving my phone off. I texted you last night.” I stuffed a black sweater in the suitcase and avoided his gaze. I wasn’t going to get him involved.
    “ You’re doing okay, though?”
    “ I have good days and bad days.” I’d heard that somewhere. It was a convenient thing to say when people brought up Ben’s death. I didn’t have to go into the raw details about how I really felt.
    He nodded. “Yeah, I know what you mean. You had breakfast yet?”
    “ No, I didn’t have time.”
    “ Want to eat out? July Thunder and I’m buying. Come on, get your coat. Let’s go.”
    “ What’s all that stuff in your truck?” I asked him on the way downstairs.
    “ Thanksgiving drive for the shelter. I’ve been all over this morning.”
    I took Washington Street, passed the college, and headed to the