The Ravine by Robert Pascuzzi Read Free Book Online Page A

year. The young couple was especially excited because they planned to surprise Don and Linda with the news that they would be grandparentsbefore the end of the year. They smiled at each other as they watched the garage door open, relieved to have arrived safely after their harrowing eight-hour drive along some very icy and snowy roads.
    Once inside, they disarmed the security system, and they sat down to relax and have a sandwich and a slice of the crumb cake Linda left out with a note: “We can’t wait to see the two of you. Don’t forget your bathing suits! Love, Mom.” At around eleven, Kevin checked all the doors and re-set the alarm system. Missy turned off all the lights (including the lamp on the timer), and the couple went upstairs to Kevin’s old room, which now served as the guest bedroom. As they slid under the cool sheets, Kevin said he expected to “sleep like a stone,” and Missy came back with “like a log!” Kevin laughed and gave her a goodnight kiss. Within a few minutes they were both dead to the world.
    At the same time, at around eleven, Tony and Danny got antsy, and decided to do another drive-by just to make one last check. The coast was clear. “Measure twice, cut once,” Tony said as they drove off to their destiny. Tonight would be the night.

    Tony cut the engine as he glided into the space in front of the Grants’ home. A few minutes later, they heard the signature grind of Bags’s Bug coming down the road, and Danny and Tony rolled their eyes at each other as their fear that they might have a weak link in the chain was confirmed. Now that they were there, really there, ready to do the job, much of their bravado was gone, though neither would admit it. There was no turning back now, in any event, and besides, an easier job was never going to come their way. That magnificent fifty-thousand-dollar figure had burrowed its way into their minds and wouldn’t let go.
    Yet the unspoken, or perhaps unrealized, sense that it was all too good to be true hung in the air. If they had taken the time to thinkthings through, they would have realized that the entire plan rested on a stranger whose last name they did not even know, who was now hundreds of miles away, along with one James K. Bagneski, who barely would have qualified to carry their spikes a few years earlier. But greed, ignorance, and delusion kept those nettlesome thoughts tucked away, out of site, and made certain they were delivered to this very moment.
    So, on the short journey from their home to the Grants’ house, as the pickup seemed to drive itself, the brothers sat in silence, each lost in his own thoughts.
    Tony planned to take his share of the cash and move to another part of the country. He wasn’t quite sure where, but a girl he’d dated had moved to Monterey, and the last time they spoke he promised he would come out for a visit. He figured that was about as good a place as any, and now he would have the money to do it. Who knew? Maybe he would stay there for a while, or go someplace else, but it sure was time he got out of his parents’ house. He needed to start over where no one knew him and had all of these big expectations. He hated the look of disappointment when he told local folks what he was up to these days, which was basically nothing, or nothing he could talk about. Tony knew there had to be something better for him out there, but at twenty-two, he didn’t yet know what it was.
    Danny looked out the window and started to think about the voice. That’s what he called it: “the voice.” This was the voice inside of him that told him what to do and what not to do. He wasn’t sure where it came from, but he knew it was there, knew it was real, and knew it was his friend. When he was alone, driving the pickup or walking in the woods, he would talk out loud to it, but most times it was just there in his head. It really came alive in’78, on the field, when all of a sudden something would seem to take control