The Short Drop by Matthew FitzSimmons Read Free Book Online

hardbound.
    “Bear. No chance,” he said, weighing it in his hands. “It’s too big.”
    “It’s the first book of three!” She was bouncing with excitement.
    “Come on . . .”
    “No, it’ll be good. I promise. It’s an adventure,” she said. “I’ve been saving it for you.”
    Grace Lombard had watched with an amused, pitying smile that told him what he already suspected—no escape for you now, young man. Gibson sighed. How bad could it be? He flipped to chapter one. What the hell was a hobbit? Whatever. He’d read for twenty minutes, Bear would get bored or fall asleep, and that would be the end of it.
    “All right. Where do you want to read it?”
    “Yes!” she said triumphantly and then had to think, not having planned on getting this far. “By the fireplace?”
    She led him to an armchair in the living room. The fire was dying, and Bear built it up until Grace warned her not to burn down the house. Then he’d waited another ten minutes while Bear arranged everything just so. That meant piles of pillows and a throw, hot chocolate for her, a glass of Cran-Apple juice for him. She ran around the room, adjusting the lights so it wasn’t too bright but not too dark either. Gibson stood in the middle of the room, wondering what he’d gotten himself into.
    “Sit, sit, sit,” Bear said.
    He sat. “Is this okay?”
    “Perfect!” Bear snuggled contentedly across his lap and put her head on his shoulder.
    He gave her ten minutes before she’d be asleep.
    “Are you ready?” he said, trying to sound grumpy but failing.
    “Ready. Oh, wait,” she said but thought better of it. “No, never mind.”
    “What?”
    “Never mind,” she said, shaking her head. “Next time.”
    There wasn’t going to be a next time. He opened the book and got comfortable. Halfway into the first sentence, Bear stopped him.
    “Son?”
    He stopped. “What?”
    “Thank you.”
    “You know there’s no way I’m reading this whole thing.”
    “That’s okay. Just as much as you feel like.”
    He read the first thirty pages without a pause. Bear didn’t fall asleep, and it wasn’t even a bad story. There was a wizard and magic, so that was pretty cool. They were still reading when the senator and Duke took a break from their strategizing. Mrs. Lombard led them to the doorway of the living room. Stealthily, like it was a safari, and they might startle the wildlife. Gibson didn’t notice them until the camera flashed.
    A framed copy of the picture had hung in the hall between their bedrooms, and Duke had kept one in his office at home.
    After the surprise photo, Gibson had tried to quit reading, but Bear, sensing trouble, clamped her hands around his arm.
    “What happens next?”
    Gibson found he was curious too.
    They finished The Return of the King two years later, and in the process, Gibson became a reader. Something else he owed Bear. Books helped him keep his sanity first in jail and then in the Marine Corps. He read whatever he could get his hands on: obscure Philip K. Dick stories, pulp Jim Thompson mysteries, Albert Camus’s The Stranger , which he’d found revelatory at nineteen. An ancient copy of Don DeLillo’s Great Jones Street had been a constant companion since boot camp, and he could recite the opening monologue from memory.
    If he was honest, he had never allowed himself to connect the Suzanne Lombard in the security-camera footage with his Bear. In his mind, Bear was a college graduate, living in London or Vienna the way she had always daydreamed. Bear was dating some smart, shy boy who adored her and read to her on Sunday mornings. Bear had nothing at all to do with the long-missing Suzanne Lombard. It was easier to believe that fiction.
    Would she like his daughter? He sometimes caught himself comparing them—the two little girls who figured so large in his life. Not one bit alike—Ellie wasn’t the quiet, introspective type. She was like her dad in that regard, much preferring to climb trees