Off the Grid by P. J. Tracy Read Free Book Online

from a sprinkle to the clear majority, and to Bully’s way of thinking, his people had gotten the raw end of the deal. The friction was right out there in the open, but of course you never heard about that on the news, either, just like you never heard about the Native mob and the Somali gangs hooking up to share commerce in the sex trade.
    And maybe that was a lesson—two warring tribes would never smoke the peace pipe, but they’d tolerate each other if there was money involved.
    All the do-gooders kept preaching about how great it was when cultures mingled and interacted. And maybe that kind of thing would happen given enough decades. It was the time in between when they didn’t interact that got scary, when they crossed the street to avoid people with a different mind-set. It really hurt here in the heart of the Midwest, where people hugged strangers, smiled, and talked to everyone. You could only hang on to that sense that all people could come together for so long. You could only face so many rebuffs before it wore you down.
    Brady stopped under the shade of an old elm tree, consulted his clipboard, and pointed to a ramshackle little box of a house. “This is our last house on the search grid,” he said despondently.
    “Let’s do it,” Bully said, taking long strides across the badly cracked walk that was more weed than concrete. But his pace faltered when he saw the front door hanging open. His hesitation wasn’t exactly based on sound reasoning, it was more a gut feeling. But if you were a cop and didn’t follow your gut, you could end up a dead cop. He stopped abruptly and put his hand on the butt of his gun, scanning the yard and the front windows, which were all closed tight and covered by dirty venetian blinds. An old air-conditioning unit wheezed in one of the windows.
    “What’s wrong?” Brady asked, stopping beside him.
    “The door’s partially open.”
    Brady frowned. “So? It’s a nice day.”
    “You see an open door at any of the last fifteen houses we visited?”
    “Uh . . . no. I guess not.”
    “That’s because people don’t leave their doors open in this neighborhood, especially with the windows closed and the air-conditioning running. I don’t like it.”
    Brady’s demeanor changed fast, and he was doing a poor job of trying to look like he wasn’t scared. Funny how a little thing out of place like an open door that should have been closed could make your blood run cold.
    “Let’s take a look, Brady. Take it slow, keep your eyes sharp.” He glanced over his shoulder at the young officer, who looked like his shoes were glued to the sidewalk. “Come on, kid. This is what we do.” In the old days, he would have said that and meant it; now it sounded like false bravado, even to him.
    Fifteen years ago, Bully had still been bench-pressing his own weight, he’d had abs like stone steps carved into flesh, and he wasn’t afraid of anything. But now the stone steps had softened into a wheelchair ramp of fat and inside he was shaking like a girl, although he’d never let Brady see that.
    He hesitated at the open door, knocking on the frame, then took a breath, hating his sagging gut and the years of deep-fried onion rings that had probably turned his blood into Crisco, softening him too much for this job. He knocked again.
    Silence.
    “This feels wrong,” Brady whispered, “and something smells funny.”
    Brady was young yet, fit as a fiddle, and now genuinely terrified that all his hours in the gym might not save him from whatever was on the other side of this open door. Funny how this new generation jogged and ate lettuce and thought this would let them live forever. Maybe in this case, Bully was the lucky one. You got to a certain age, watched your body start to deteriorate, then something inside with those spiny teeth that hung on to life so hard finally, finally let go. You didn’t know you’d figured it out until you felt the acceptance seeping into your soul. One