Point Pleasant by Jen Archer Wood Read Free Book Online Page B

“Nolan’s dealing with it in the right way. These people get up in arms over anything. Best to keep the civilians subdued.”
    Ben took in the casual way his father referred to the townspeople as ‘civilians.’ His years in the armed forces tended to shine through at the oddest times. “But it’s weird, isn’t it? The disappearances.”
    “Benji, I know you write your little books about the monsters under beds, but there’s not some giant bat carrying cows off into the darkness.”
    “I didn’t say there was,” Ben replied, and he hated the defensive edge apparent in his tone. “But I looked into the reports and found at least thirty other instances of livestock theft in the area from the last ten years. It’s odd.”
    “Odd, maybe. But not unusual. You can get a fair price for sheep and cattle, you know. What are you doing looking into a decade’s worth of police reports anyway?”
    Ben’s lips twitched, and he was unable to find an appropriate response. Keith returned bearing their dinners. Ben was thankful for the momentary distraction.
    “I just thought it was interesting,” he said when Keith left.
    “Ben,” Andrew said, his tone clipped and serious.
    “It is interesting,” Ben replied, and he berated himself for sounding so apologetic.
    Andrew leaned against his side of the booth and regarded his son for a long, unsettling moment. Ben detested the way his father could still make him feel like an awkward teenage boy.
    “So that’s it,” Andrew said finally.
    “What’s it?” Ben asked.
    “That’s why you’re here.”
    Ben shrugged as he pushed at the fries on his plate and did not look up to meet his father’s eyes.
    “If you say you’re here to write about it, I can tell you right now you might as well go back to Boston. There’s no story, and I doubt anyone in town would want to know Point Pleasant ends up painted as the home of some imaginary freak show in your next book.”
    “They wouldn’t know, would they? Because I write under a pseudonym. Your idea, remember,” Ben replied. He sounded bitter even to his own ears.
    Andrew regarded Ben in stony silence.
    Ben exhaled in defeat. “Look, I don’t know if I will even write anything about it, I just thought it would be something to look into.”
    “Yeah, well. I doubt the sheriff will take kindly to you sticking your nose in where it doesn’t belong. You’re not from here anymore, Ben.”
    “Jesus, Dad.”
    “You watch your mouth, Benjamin Andrew Wisehart.”
    The use of his full name made Ben bristle like a worn brush. Andrew picked up his burger and started to eat as if the issue had been resolved. Ben’s appetite disappeared, but he took a bite of his own burger. It did not taste of the happy nostalgia he had anticipated; it was greasy and charred. Maybe it was the best burger in Point Pleasant, but he had eaten better burgers elsewhere during his time away. Andrew was right; Ben was not from here anymore. He did not belong in Point Pleasant.
    Ben dropped the burger onto his plate and wiped his fingers on a coarse paper napkin he yanked from the dispenser at the end of the table. “I don’t want to fight. I know you wish I had a ‘real’ job. But this is what I do. And people like it. I write because of something I believe in, something that happened to me that I saw with my own eyes. If it’s still here, I want to see it again. I want to see if it makes me write better stories. I can keep up my end of your ruse. I can tell everyone I write for a newspaper like you tell them,” he said, and he noted how his father rolled his eyes at the last part.
    Ben had discovered the lie a few years ago from Kate, who had patiently agreed with every word of Ben’s ensuing twenty-minute long ‘Dad’s an asshole’ rant.
    “I can go to the Ashby Hotel and stay there for as long as I need to,” Ben continued. “And then I’ll go back to Boston, and you don’t have to see me again. But I am going to look into this because