All for One by Ryne Douglas Pearson

Author:Ryne Douglas Pearson [Pearson, Ryne Douglas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, Mystery, Police Procedurals, Thrillers & Suspense, Crime, Murder, Thrillers, Suspense & Thrillers
ISBN: 0615470629
Google: DohbAgAAQBAJ
Amazon: B0044KM16I
Publisher: Schmuck & Underwood
Published: 2010-10-24T16:00:00+00:00

Twenty Two

The front door opened inward and the screen door pushed out just before nine. Mary followed Dooley onto the porch and hugged herself against the cold.

He straightened his coat with a roll of his shoulders and touched the hair above her face. It was mussed, and it looked wonderful.

“I wish you could stay.”

“On a week night? What would your neighbors think?”

“Probably filthy, debaucherous, accurate things.”

“I want to kiss you,” Dooley said.

“You did.”

“I want to kiss you right now,” he clarified. “But that wouldn’t be good.”

“Wouldn’t it?” She reached out and slipped the fingers of one hand over the top of his jeans.

He backed away, her smiling playfully. “Who are you, Mary Austin?”

“Just me,” she said, then blew him a kiss and scooted back to the warmth of her house.

Dooley backed down the walkway, through the gate in the low white picket fence that would have difficulty corralling a dachshund, and spun finally toward his car. Stepping off the curb his foot skidded slightly on a sheen of black ice, the glassy hazard crackling under his weight. He kept one hand ready over the hood and made it to the door, climbed in, and started the Blazer up.

He switched it to four wheel drive right away and drove slow away from the curb. The tires spun twice before the corner, then found good pavement and took hold as he headed down Cougar Mountain.

He turned the radio up loud and sang along with the Eagles, giving himself something to do, something to think about. Because he knew what he’d be doing right then if his brain was simply cruising along at idle, and he didn’t feel like answering to his critical self at the moment. He didn’t want to think at all. Not about the kids, not about their lies, and not about Mary.

The former he could deal with in the morning, in some way he’d yet to decide upon. But her...

Let his head have it out with his heart later. After a glass of wine, maybe. For now, just let it be what it was. Just let it be.

Karen can’t get lucky, but you can? a voice asked silently, accurately.

“That’s right,” Dooley said aloud, coldly, impetuously. His heart talking.

He sped past the ‘Leaving Holly Village’ sign, two characters in lederhosen waving and smiling at him. Why lederhosen, he hadn’t a clue. So he thought about lederhosen and the accusatory voice in his head shut up.

The long, empty stretch from the Holly Village sign was too long, and too empty for traditional Bavarian garb to completely occupy his thinking, so Dooley flipped through the stations in search of something that would grab his thoughts and hold them prisoner. But the mountain had other ideas, and all he got for his trouble was a wash of static at each spot the radio stopped. Soon the display ran through the spectrum endlessly, the faintest signal now gone.

He turned the radio off and gripped the steering wheel. The red brake lights of a log truck curved into the forest ahead.

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