Man of Wax by Robert Swartwood Read Free Book Online Page A

Maybe have him stop by the house, just in case, though I knew that would be a waste of time. Hadn’t I heard Jen’s voice? Hadn’t I heard her screaming?  
    They cut off my —  
    Yes, Jen? Yes, my darling? Just what the fuck did they cut off?  
    Besides the obvious, I wished she’d never gotten that much out, because in the last six hours all I’d been doing was filling in the blank. While I’d originally thought there wouldn’t be that many possibilities, I quickly realized that wasn’t true. Seems that when you’re under extreme pressure and stress, your mind will think up anything.  
    Then again, I wasn’t being quite truthful with myself. There was something else I’d been thinking a lot about, too, a girl I hadn’t really known in college but a girl who’d haunted me ever since. Michelle Delaney. Son of a bitch, how the hell did Simon know about her? The only person I’d ever told was Jen; even my parents, when they asked why I had dropped out of school, were given some bullshit response that it just wasn’t for me.  
    Another annoying revelation that had dawned on me in the past few hours was I’d been kidding myself before, back in room six of the Paradise Motel, waiting to open up that bathroom door. I’d called it a nightmare and said I’d never had anything like that before, but it was a lie. Nightmares came to me every so often, most times while I was asleep, other times while I was awake. A nightmare so clear and precise it was as if I were reliving the scene again and again. I’d see her there, I’d see Michelle Delaney, and I’d be forced to watch no matter how hard I wanted to wake up. It seemed, just like in real life, I had no control over the matter.  
    Two hours later, now on I-395, I turned on the phone. Doyle was just another mile or so away.  
    For some reason I expected Simon to call in a minute or two of having turned the phone on, but he didn’t. Instead it was in another ten minutes, as I was entering the Doyle State Wildlife Area, that the phone started vibrating.  
    He said, “Having fun yet?” I didn’t answer, just waited, and it took him a few beats to say, “Oh come on, Ben, don’t be like that. We’re friends.”  
    “We are not friends.”  
    “Fine then. We’re acquaintances. Does that sound better?”  
    It was close to seven o’clock in the evening. The light had already been retreating for an hour now, the sky darkening. I’d never driven so long before in my life. Both my legs were starting to cramp; my neck was starting to hurt. I’d done only one road trip with my parents when I was younger—we’d gone down to Orlando, after my parents had scraped enough extra money over the years to do something nice for my birthday—but then I’d been in the backseat, simply a passenger, and had slept or read comic books most of the way.  
    “Ben, it won’t do you any good to not talk to me. After all, I am Simon, and what I say goes.”  
    “What do you want now?”  
    “Now? Now I just want to talk. I figure since you’ve been driving so long you might be feeling lonely.”  
    I didn’t say anything and just continued driving, gripping the wheel tightly with my left hand as I kept the phone glued to my ear with my right.  
    Simon said, “So, Ben, I’ve been wondering something. I want to know why, after having such ambitions to become a lawyer, you instead went back and worked with your father as a painter. Quite a different field of work arguing cases in front of a judge and jury as opposed to mixing paints because the owners don’t exactly like the tint of the beige from the can, isn’t it?”  
    “People are going to realize we’re gone, you know. I might not be a lawyer, but Jen certainly is, and her firm’s probably wondering right now why she didn’t show. The same with Casey’s preschool.”  
    “Relax, Ben. All of that has already been taken care of. You really think we’d forget something like that? Now answer my