The Midnight Road Read Free Page B

rate all that high on the Holy Shit Barometer if your own mentally handicapped uncle lived in a cage in your basement. Was that just another sign of practicality?
    “He has a good life,” Christina Shepard went on. “Believe me, considering the choices, he has nothing to complain about. He plays a lot.”
    This was always the worst part. Listening to their admissions and rationalizations, their explanations about why they do the terrible things they do. No accountability. Blind denial of their ugliest behavior and intentions.
    Flynn said, “I want the key. Now.”
    “It’s not here. I don’t know where it is.”
    “He likes it in there,” Kelly said. “He doesn’t want to leave.”
    “You see!” Christina said. The barrel of the gun wavered. “You see? He likes it in there. We don’t abuse him.”
    Flynn had met crazy once or twice before, but nobody had ever poured on the bad juju like this lady. There were rules, and he tried to stick to them, but when it got ugly he tossed them to the curb. It was pretty ugly right now. He stepped up, grabbed the woman, shook her hard. It was like putting your hands in the ocean. The immense power could rise up and crush you at any second.
    She raised the pistol and shoved it under his chin.
    He thought maybe he had a death wish like his brother Danny.
    “Where’s the key to this damn cage?” he said. It was tough talking with a pistol barrel jabbed into your jaw.
    “Don’t take him away! You don’t understand—my father, he’ll—”
    Footsteps pounded upstairs and Flynn knew things were about to get even more funky. He squared his shoulders and moved to the side of the stairwell so he could try to prepare for whatever was coming now.
    Christina switched gears, reverted back to sweetness, her voice full of honey. But she kept the pistol pointed at his head. She called, “Mark, there’s someone here.”
    Mark Shepard flipped the rest of the light switches on his way down and the basement practically glowed with reflections in all the glass. He stared at Flynn and Flynn stared back.
    Shepard had the eyes of a man who’d been living with a guy caged in his basement for the last six months. He was frayed, his gaze faraway and at the same time way up close, like he couldn’t get anything into focus. He was a couple years younger than Flynn, maybe thirty-five, but he had the look of someone who’d been battling a terrible illness and losing fast. His thin face had grown long with shadows. He stood very still but seemed to somehow be trembling. Flynn knew immediately that Shepard had made the anonymous call himself.
    “You’re late,” Shepard said. “Why were you so late?”
    “The storm,” Flynn said.
    “I was waiting. I should’ve stayed away but I couldn’t.” For a guy who wanted to keep the call anonymous, Shepard was too fried to play the game in his own house. He snapped and gave up the truth without anybody even pushing him for it. He looked at his wife. “Christina, I’m sorry.”
    She gave him a murderous glare. All the dizzy attitude had fled her now, leaving behind only that tension. The gun was still loosely pointed at Flynn, but he could tell she was thinking of shifting it over a little and aiming it at her husband.
    Flynn wondered if she was going to make all three of them get in the cage. It would be cramped. There’d be a death struggle for the cookies.
    She moved in on Shepard. “You did this? But I thought you understood. You told me you understood. You agreed!”
    “I did, Christina, but—”
    “Liar!” she shouted. Flynn had a tough time watching her, those pretty features squeezed together, as if stuck in a vise, deformed by rage. “My father was right about you!”
    “Your father’s never been right about anything in his life, that crazy son of a bitch.” Shepard managed to raise his maladjusted gaze high enough to find Flynn’s eyes. “I don’t know what to do.”
    “You made the right choice,” Flynn said. “But she