Sand Castles by Antoinette Stockenberg Read Free Book Online Page A

he wanted to beat him bloody. If he thought he could obliterate him and get away with it, he'd damn well give it a shot.
    Bastard!
    Bigamist!
    He forced himself to sit until the adrenaline fury subsided and until the couple climbed down from the addition and went around to the front door and entered their house.
    Zack was so unprepared for the possibility that Jimmy and Jim were the same asshole that up until then he did not have a plan. And now suddenly a hundred different options had begun roaring through his brain—so many that they were canceling one another out.
    And he still didn't have a plan.
    One thing Zack knew. Hayward or Hodene or whoever the hell he was—that guy was going to pay. With blood or money or preferably both, but he was going to pay.

Chapter 5
     
    "Good heavens, how can you stand the noise ?"
    "It's music to my ears, Mom," Wendy shouted. "As long as they're making progress."
    Grace O'Byrne Ferro followed Wendy, who had a tray with two mugs of coffee and a greasy, sugared doughboy cut in halves, out of the kitchen and into the living room, as far from the din as they could get.
    "Wendy, there is a table saw on the other side of your kitchen wall," her mother pointed out. "There are strange men wandering in and out of your house all day. There's no place to park a car anymore. And—I don't know if you've noticed it or not —there's a bottle of suspicious- looking yellow fluid sitting outside by the lilac bush."
    "Is it corked?" Wendy asked lightly.
    "I didn't notice ," her mother answered in a deadly voice.
    "Yeah ... it's too bad they haven't installed the Porta Potti yet. I'll ask Pete about it. But, you know? Whatever works. Just as long as they're making progress," Wendy repeated serenely. It was her mantra.
    Exasperated, her mother said, "Why don't you just move out until they're done with construction? For goodness' sake, you can afford it."
    Wendy licked sugar from her fingers and shook her head. "No rush. It won't be bad here — at least, not until they saw through the kitchen wall and open the old house to the new. To be honest, I'm enjoying this. Of course, Tyler's not crazy about having a crew hammering outside his bedroom window, and Jim thinks it's beneath us to stay here, but—I like it. Call me an idiot."
    "You're an idiot. You'll just be in their way."
    "I don't care. Really, I'm fascinated by it. I'm in awe of people who work with their hands to make something out of nothing. Every day I learn something new. Oh! And wait'll you see."
    Wendy jumped up and ran out to the kitchen; when she came back she was holding a rusted horseshoe that was completely encrusted with dark, mysterious matter. "Look what the men found in the cellar foundation when they cut through. Pete says that in these old houses they used to throw anything they could find into the concrete to reinforce it—rocks, bricks, obviously horseshoes. Isn't it cool?"
    "It's junk," her mother said, staring at the thing with distaste. "Throw it out. And wash your hands."
    "It's a horseshoe! It'll bring us good luck."
    "It'll bring you tetanus. You've already had ridiculous luck. Throw it out."
    "I will not. I'm going to nail it above the cellar door."
    "Go ahead, then. Be greedy. See where it gets you."
    "I don't want more money, Mom," Wendy said, embarrassed to be suspected of it. "That's not the kind of luck I meant."
    "You are tempting fate, missy," her mother warned ominously. "I don't know why you can't see that."
    Gracie Ferro had a way of perpetually cutting her kids down to size. It was an old habit, established during the raising of three boys and two girls, none of them particularly timid or shy. Everyone wanted his fair share of everything, and since that wasn't usually possible, Grace O'Byrne Ferro had to use what she had to keep her kids in line: the guilt trip. It was cheap, effective, and in endless supply.
    Wendy had already figured out that sixty percent of the problem she was having with her sudden,