Badlands by C. J. Box Read Free Book Online

used to work with. So no one would forget, he had the name embroidered above the pocket of his denim jacket and tattooed on his forearm.
    â€œI said move your ass, Kyle. I’m freezing to death standing here with the door open.”
    It was cold. Clouds had blown in from the north and covered the sky in dark gray. Pelletlike snow came in waves, carried by gusts of wind. The brown grass—what little there was of it in the front yard—was catching the snow and holding it there. Kyle wondered how much snow there would be the next morning when he went out to do his paper route. He needed those warm boots and some gloves. Maybe he could convince his mom to take him to Work Wearhouse later that night.
    â€œ Now, Kyle. Come on, man.”
    If T-Lock wore clothes other than black concert T-shirts and jeans with big holes in them—and maybe even shoes instead of flip-flops—he wouldn’t be so cold all the time, Kyle thought.
    Kyle climbed off his bike, readjusted his backpack full of books, and marched toward the front of his house with his head down. Their house was in the older part of town. Big trees, small lots, buckled sidewalks, no fences, lots of cars parked on the street because the homes had been built in the olden days before two- and three-car garages. Some of the houses, usually owned by old people, still looked pretty nice. Others didn’t. Kyle’s didn’t.
    T-Lock kept the storm door open for Kyle, who trudged up the cracked concrete steps and ducked under T-Lock’s outstretched arm. The storm door was closed behind him, followed by the front door. The inside of the house smelled of cigarette smoke, as usual. T-Lock wasn’t supposed to smoke inside except in the attached one-car garage, but he did it anyway. Especially since Kyle’s mom worked the afternoon shift at McDonald’s and wasn’t around.
    It was dark inside the house because T-Lock kept the curtains and blinds closed during the day.
    Kyle didn’t expect T-Lock to grab him by the shoulder and spin him around so they were face-to-face. The move nearly made Kyle lose his balance and fall to the floor because his heavy pack swung around as well.
    T-Lock was in his face. “We gotta talk, Kyle, we gotta talk. I went out to the garage to burn one and you know what I found, don’t you? You know what I found.”
    T-Lock was his mother’s boyfriend and had been, on and off, for a few years. He was tall and wide-shouldered with long stringy hair parted in the middle. He had deep-set eyes and a slow stoner’s smile when he smiled. In the winter he grew his beard out and didn’t shave it off until summer. T-Lock’s whiskers were thin and scraggly and about an inch long. The tips of his whiskers curled white as if covered by frost.
    â€œDo you know what’s in that bag you brought home?” T-Lock asked, shoving his face closer to Kyle’s. His eyes were bulging and there was a throbbing vein in his forehead that mesmerized Kyle because he’d never noticed it before. Of course, T-Lock rarely got so close. Kyle could smell his smoky breath.
    Kyle shook his head. When he’d returned that morning with the heavy packet he didn’t know what to do with it. He couldn’t leave it outside. His mom was still asleep with T-Lock in their bedroom, so he couldn’t ask her. He carried it from the canvas Tribune bag into the junky garage and put it on the floor under the workbench. It was tight in there because T-Lock had pushed an old Toyota Land Cruiser into the garage the year before so he could get it running. It was still there and not running. Kyle’s mom had to park their old minivan out on the driveway, even in the winter.
    â€œYou really don’t know?” T-Lock asked.
    Kyle shrugged.
    T-Lock stood and whooped as if he couldn’t believe how dumb Kyle was. Then he bent back down and his face got serious. The intensity of T-Lock’s eyes unnerved