Lottery by Kimberly Shursen Read Free Book Online

he never wanted to be with her all the time. He didn’t know what he’d do if she changed her mind.
    After they dressed, he walked her home. She had an early meeting in the morning and Caleb was grateful that she hadn’t wanted to spend the night. He had some serious thinking to do.
    “I can’t believe I’m getting married,” she told Caleb when they reached the door to her apartment.
    “Second thoughts?”
    “No.” Ling shook her head. “I honestly didn’t know if I’d ever get married. I’ve really never let anyone into my life before.”
    “Why me?”
    Ling gazed into his eyes. “My father has never said an unkind word to my mother. He treats her like a queen. I never thought I’d find someone like Samuel Jameson.”
    “There are a lot of jerks out there, so I’m glad you found me, too.” He grinned. How could anyone like
her
be in love with someone like
him
?
    He kissed her goodnight again, wishing he could get the note off his mind.
    Walking back to his condo, he wondered who could have had been on the boat that night. Maybe the person was bluffing, andtrying to squeeze money out of Caleb. No … someone had to have been on the yacht. The person must have seen Caleb take the lottery ticket from Weber’s pocket. Caleb was in deep. Whoever it was would only come back over and over again for more money.
    “Whoever it is, you’ve gotta get rid of them.” Caleb heard and stopped walking. When he saw there was no one around, his heart started to palpitate.
    Maybe he’d overheard a conversation when someone walked by.
    “Take control, O’Toole.”
    The hair on the back of his neck stood on end.
    “You’re such a pussy,” the voice whispered.
    Caleb glanced in every direction, but no one was close enough for him to hear them talking. What the hell was going on? He felt the perspiration trickling from his forehead down his temples.
    “For once, grab your fuckin’ balls and be a man,” the male voice told him.

cKenzie Price tore out a page from the used notebook she’d found on the window sill. She tore the paper in half and laid the two strips close together on the filthy wooden floor of the condemned warehouse.
    Usually there were a bevy of homeless people sleeping head-to-head inside the brick building, but since it was nice outside today, no one was here but McKenzie.
    The windows in the dilapidated warehouse were shattered, and the tattered wood floors were covered in a thick coat of dust. For the past six years, McKenzie had lived on the streets, bartering sex in exchange for drugs. It had been a treat to find a building in the Tenderloin where the cops hadn’t shooed her out, or arrested her for trespassing.
    McKenzie got down on her knees beside the strips of paper before reaching into her pocket to bring out the small plastic sack. Holding the packet up to the light, she smiled at the two light yellow crystals shaped like sugar-cubes. Rummaging through a pile of rags, she found the pipe. It was only a matter of time before her street buddies found her paraphernalia, and, in turn, McKenzie would have to steal someone else’s pipe.
    She hadn’t always been an addict. When she’d graduated from high school, McKenzie had gotten a job, secured an apartment, and even had a nice boyfriend. But that first hit of crack had sent her to a world she’d never been before. The drug had made her forget about the overdue bills, the fact she’d never made her mother happy one day of her life, and that her boyfriend had cheated on her with her best friend. Screw the good life her parents had told McKenzie she would have. It was a fucking zoo out there.
    Her older brother was always preaching about how McKenzie needed to get her life in order. And she’d tried to get straight a couple of times. But the agonizing pain she’d had to go through while weaning off crack, along with the discovery that she was never going to get out of debt, landed her right back to the streets.
    Damn, she thought as she