Resolution: Evan Warner Book 1 by Shawn Underhill, Nick Adams Read Free Book Online

rushed by me in a frenzy to greet his favorite uncle. He hadn’t seen him in over an hour.
    “Well,” Uncle Danny said, looking up at me as he was giving Frank a good scratching. “How does it feel?”
    “My fist isn’t sore at all,” I said, flexing my right hand.
    “I meant, how does it feel to be the man of the hour? The talk of the town?”
    “Oh, that.”
    “You ought to be proud. Aside from nearly putting the driver into a vegetative state, you handled yourself very well today.”
    “Did I?”
    “I’d say so.”
    “You’re forgetting the way I treated the kid’s mother.”
    He said nothing.
    “Was I wrong?”
    “You made a legitimate point. It was just … a little sharp.”
    I laughed to myself.
    He regrouped his positive tone and said, “Maybe you’ll get voted Saulsbury’s Citizen of the Year at the next town meeting.”
    “Sure. Maybe they’ll erect a statue in my honor. Set it up in front of the store. Or out in front of the church. Me, standing there with a bat in one hand and a gun in the other.”
    “I was being serious,” he said.
    “That’s why it’s so funny.”
    “You know, you weren’t this sarcastic as a kid.”
    I didn’t respond to that. Just leaned against the frame of the double doors. I opened a bottle of ginger ale I’d brought from home and took a sip. My stomach was a little sour.
    “Let it go, Evan,” he finally said. He brushed some of the dog hair from his pants and then took up a fine sanding block.
    I kept quiet.
    “Did you hear me?” he asked.
    “Yeah. You want me to forget about Lucy. Like everyone else has.”
    “I don’t want you to forget. I do think you should take a step back.”
    I stared at him. He was giving me some friendly advice. But more so he was telling me to keep my nose out of police business. We’d covered this same ground before.
    Stonewall.
    “Maybe you should go camp out for a night or two,” he said. “Get away from the grounds. Clear your head.”
    “Will that help Lucy Kurtz?”
    “Evan,” he exhaled. “We’ve been over this enough. Haven’t we?”
    “I don’t believe she’s dead.”
    “Statistically she probably is.”
    He was probably right. Statistics, though ugly, were often accurate. Every hour that passes following an abduction drastically reduces the likelihood of a happy ending.
    “I know exactly how you feel,” he said. “Unfortunately there’s no evidence. No trail to follow. I wish to Christ there was. But there isn’t.”
    I said, “It makes no sense. How could a little kid get away on her own? She didn’t even have shoes on her feet.”
    “I hate to say this,” he answered, and I could see the strain in his expression. “Sometimes there’s no sense to be made from these tragic cases. That’s why we call them tragedies.”
    “Go ahead,” I said. “Call it tragic. But it wasn’t an accident. Someone took her.”
    “Obviously.”
    “On purpose, someone took her.”
    “Yes. And on purpose they probably killed her within a few days. That’s what these sick bastards usually do.”
    I shook my head. He was quoting statistics. It wasn’t that I denied their accuracy. I just didn’t want to face them.
    “What do you want me to do?” he asked next. “Kick down every door in New England until I finally get lucky?”
    I kept quiet. The frustration was churning within me, making my stomach worse. But none of it was my uncle’s fault. I had to keep reminding myself of that fact. He hated it as much as I did. Maybe more.
    “Go camp out for a few days,” he said. “I mean it. Today’s incident was highly stressful. You’ve earned the break. Let Willie watch the grounds for you.”
    Maybe he was right. Maybe I needed some distance and separation. Maybe hiking out to the middle of nowhere and sitting by a fire all night would settle me down. It usually did.
    His advice was well intended, but within a few seconds it had the opposite effect. Instead of agreeing to step back, I resolved to step