A Field of Red by Greg Enslen Read Free Book Online Page B

actually.”
     “Good, that’s good,” he said, his voice low. “Cops?”
    She nodded.
    “I filed the report, like you said. And gave them the envelope with all the photos of our property and me, so there was proof, if he ever hits me again,” she said, glancing around. “Not sure how that’s going to work, though. His buddies might protect him. But my sister’s staying over, and things are already a lot better.”
    Frank nodded slowly and looked her in the eyes.
    “Keep an eye open,” Frank said, frowning. “Things will get worse for a while—a lot worse—before they get better.”
    She was taken aback.
    “Are you sure?” she asked, glancing around comically, as if her ex-husband were hiding behind the crane game machine that stood near the front door.
    Frank nodded and resisted saying anything else. He looked at her and nodded again, then turned back to his breakfast. After a long moment, she walked away, much less chipper than she had been before.
    Why did he do that? Frank knew he should say something to her, something more comforting, but he couldn’t force himself to bullshit her.
    He’d had enough bullshit in his life. Too many lies, too much death. He liked to keep things simple, truthful. Maybe he’d been too truthful too often. Maybe that’s how he ended up sitting at this random table, eating breakfast alone in a small town he’d never heard of.
    Sugarcoating things never worked. Trudy never wanted to hear about his work or the troubling things he saw. She only wanted to hear the good stories, and there weren’t many of those. Frank must’ve started repeating himself somewhere along the line, because she’d lost interest. First in his career, then in him, and then their marriage.
    Gina, the waitress, had asked for advice on his first visit, and he’d given it to her. Why had she asked? Maybe he still looked like a cop. That barkeep Saturday night had said the same, so maybe Frank still gave off the appearance of someone who cared. Or should care, at least.
    But Gina had asked for his advice, and he’d given it, freely. He’d walked her through the steps, and she’d jotted them all down on the back of her ticket book. She asked intelligent questions, questions that told Frank she might have a chance of extricating herself from the situation.
    He’d seen it enough to know the chances weren’t good, but he thought she might be able to pull it off. Of course, it was up to her to follow through, to make it work. Either way, he didn’t really care—he’d seen too many people in bad situations to assume it would work out. It usually didn’t.
    He resisted the temptation to call Gina back over and say something comforting, like “oh, you don’t need to worry,” or “he’s probably moved on.” Instead, Frank slipped out his flask, added a little vodka to his OJ, and went back to his paper.
    There was trouble all over, he knew. But, reading the paper, the news in the Midwest seemed less dire than it had in other places he had lived. The Dayton paper was full of stories about unemployment and petty crimes and the occasional murder, but there were also a fair share of upbeat items. As he ate, he read about some new construction going on at the nearby Wright Patterson Air Force Base, the large military installation in Kettering and a major local employer.
    There was also ongoing construction on the highway heading down to Cincinnati, and the paper had included complicated maps to avoid the area and the traffic. And there had been several shootings in Dayton. Evidently, there was some kind of ongoing turf war over drugs, and several young men had been killed over the past 48 hours.
    But there were several charming stories, too, something he didn’t remember from Birmingham or the big Atlanta papers. Chili cook-off’s and fundraisers and animal rescue stories might not save the planet, but they broke up the gloom and doom.
    Frank heard the jingle of the bell on the front door.
    He didn’t