Vile Blood by Max Wilde Read Free Book Online

the beam of hot sunlight that pierced the gap in the curtains; the narrow bed littered with soft toys, way too young for her; the few clothes hanging on the rail in the closet. Skye saw herself in the mirror on the inside of the closet door. She was standing like a girl jock, like one of those hideously athletic bitches who’d shouldered her aside at the school lunchroom. Her feet spread, arms relaxed, spine straight. A new strength in her shoulders.
    Skye adjusted her posture, slumping, bending a little at the knee until she looked more like the person she knew and then she went through to Timmy’s room and gently shook him awake, manipulating his sleep-heavy arms and legs like a puppet as she got him into his clothes.
    When Skye and Timmy walked down into the kitchen, Gene was at the ironing board buttoning his freshly pressed uniform shirt. She glimpsed the jagged scar, like a lightning bolt, running down the ribs on his left side.
    Gene must have overslept and he was embarrassed at being seen like this. T here had been no women in his life since Marybeth. Probably the last woman he’d touched had been the one who’d scarred him, and his retaliation had been brutal. There was talk for long afterward that the coroner had needed two body bags for her remains.
    Skye gave Timmy his cereal and listened to him gabble as he ate. A rambling tale about a boy in his class whose parents took him to the ocean where he swam with fish and was dumped by a wave. Timmy had never seen the ocean.
    Gene fixed himself a second cup of coffee, which was unlike him, pretending to be interested in the breakfast show chirping away on the portable TV on the counter, but she knew he was watching her.
    Skye got Timmy onto the school bus and when she came back into the kitchen Gene was still dawdling over his coffee. This made her nervous and she chipped Timmy’s bowl against the faucet when she took it to the sink to wash up.
    “Last night . . .” Gene said.
    “Yeah?” Keeping her back to him, hands in the foam.
    “How’d you get home?”
    “I walked.”
    “Why?”
    “Minty found herself a beau.”
    “Yeah? Who?”
    Skye shrugged, tilting the bowl into the plastic drying rack. “Just some trucker.”
    “That Minty sure is partial to truckers,” Gene said, like he was just making small talk. A man who never made small talk. “Truckers and bikers.”
    “She’s partial to most anything with two legs and a heartbeat.”
     The words popped out before she could stop herself, and she realized she’d broken character, that for a second another might-have-been Skye had peeped out. She put a wet hand to her lips as if she could reclaim the words and swallow them.
    Gene was staring at her. “You walk home past the roadhouse?”
     “Yeah. Why?” She drained the dish water and dried her hands.
    “You see men in an old Dodge? At the diner?”
    “There were some guys in an old car. They came in for coffee.”
    “They sit down?”
    “No. Earl was closing up, so I gave them coffee to go. On the house.”
    “And these men, how were they?”
    She shrugged. “They were just men. With city ways.”
    “They bother you?”
    “No.”
    “You sure, now?”
    “Yes.”
    “What did they do, after they left the diner?”
    “Took off in the car, up the main street.”
    “And you didn’t see them again, near the roadhouse?”
    “No.” Getting up the courage to look him in the eye. “What’s going on, Gene?”
    “Where are your glasses?”
    She touched a hand to her brow. “I broke them.”
    “How?”
    “Dropped them and stood on them. Last night at the diner. Broke the frame and the one lens.”
    “But you can see?”
    “No. It’s all kinda blurred. I’ll get me a pair at Walmart, till I have new ones made.”
    Gene was still staring at her when his phone rang. He answered it and listened for maybe half a minute then said, “I’m on my way,” never moving his eyes from hers. He stood,  hesitated for a moment, then he took his