Total pages in book: 196
Estimated words: 186555 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 933(@200wpm)___ 746(@250wpm)___ 622(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 186555 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 933(@200wpm)___ 746(@250wpm)___ 622(@300wpm)
“Nothing, come on, come on,” he said, but I didn’t miss the way his cheeks went red.
The house was huge, I could tell as we went through the foyer.
“I didn’t know they were coming, but Mom called when their flight landed, so I couldn’t tell you I was going to go with them, but—Mom!” he yelled suddenly as the foyer opened into a kitchen on the left-hand side. I could hear voices, but I only spotted three women in the kitchen. One had hair so white it was nearly blue who was stirring something and oblivious to us, another was an older woman who might be in her fifties, and the last was a woman who appeared to be a few years younger. She was the one who looked up at the “Mom.”
She smiled.
“Dad Rhodes is here, and this is Ora,” Am said, looking at me and patting my shoulder once.
It was basically a hug coming from him, and I would’ve cried if Amos’s mom hadn’t circled around the island and come straight toward us. She ignored Rhodes as she passed by him, and the second she was close enough, she thrust her hand out toward me.
But her eyes glittered.
I took out my own hand and grabbed hers.
Her smile was tight but genuine. And I knew I didn’t imagine the tears in her voice when she said, “It’s so nice to finally meet you, Ora. I’ve heard everything about you.”
I know I heard tears in my voice when I replied, “I hope it was only the good stuff.”
“All good stuff,” she assured me before appearing to fight back a smile. “I even heard about the bat and the eagle.”
I couldn’t stop the snicker or the glance toward the sheepish-looking teenager still beside me. “Of course you did.”
A grin took over the woman’s face at the same time I laughed. She shook her head. “When he wants to, he has a big mouth like his dad.”
I must have made some kind of face at the idea of Rhodes having a big mouth because she smiled even wider.
“Billy. Most of the time though, he takes after Rhodes with his one-word answers,” Amos’s mom explained. “When they’re not in the mood, getting them to talk is like...”
“Getting wisdom teeth removed wide-awake?”
Rhodes grunted from where he was standing, and we both turned to look at him. Then Amos’s mom’s gaze and mine met again. Yeah, we both knew that was exactly it. She grinned at me, and I grinned right back.
“Remind me to give you my number or email before we leave, and I’ll give you the real scoop any time you want,” I offered with a wink, feeling a sense of ease come over me.
Rhodes had been right about Thanksgiving and Amos’s other parents. I didn’t have anything to worry about.
Chapter 25
I was at the table in the garage apartment, trying to finish this son of a bitch of a puzzle. How many different shades of red were there? I had never really considered that I might be color-blind, but I kept putting the wrong shades of red together and the pieces still weren’t matching up.
This was what I got for buying a used puzzle that had to be at least twenty years old. Maybe it was faded or the color had yellowed with time. Whatever it was, it was making this a whole lot more complicated than it needed to be. And I was cursing at myself over this puzzle that I shouldn’t have bought on clearance at a resale store when I heard the garage door rolling up downstairs.
I had just picked up another piece when I heard Amos yell from downstairs—not this panicky thing of terror but just frantic enough to make me sit up straight. Just in time for him to shout again.
“Am?” I yelled, dropping the puzzle piece to the table and heading straight downstairs. I opened the garage door and peeked my head out. “Am? You okay?”
“No!” the kid pretty much shrieked. “Help!”
I threw the door wide. Amos stood in the center of the garage, head tipped back as he stared at the ceiling with a look of pure helplessness on his face. “Look! What do we do?”
“What the hell,” I muttered, finally taking in what he was freaking out over.
There was a massive stain on the ceiling. Dark, dark gray patches were formed along the sheetrock. A few drops of water dripped onto the floor at Amos’s feet, just short of where most of his music equipment was.
There was a leak. “Do you know where the water shutoff is?”
“The what?” he asked, still staring at the ceiling like his vision alone was going to be enough to prevent the sheetrock from crumbling and have water come flooding down.
“The water shutoff,” I explained, already whipping around to find what I was pretty sure I knew what to look for. When the Antichrist’s child and I had found the home that he eventually bought—and like a dumbass I had been fine with them not putting me on the deed because someone could look up the records and ask questions—I remembered the realtor pointing at something along the wall in the garage and specifically mentioning a water shutoff in case of a leak. “It’s a lever thing in the wall. Usually. I think.”