Fault Lines by Thomas Locke

Author:Thomas Locke
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Suspense;FIC036000;FIC002000;FIC031000
ISBN: 9781493407187
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2017-05-23T04:00:00+00:00

30

Julio didn’t mind the duty. When Irma had first asked him about playing night watchman, he had made out like it was pure garbage detail. As in, I came six thousand miles for this? But the truth was, he was kind of pleased. Not a lot. But some.

The night was raw for May. The wind blew straight off the huge mountains Julio had only seen once since their arrival. But he could smell them, which was a real kick. He stuck his head out the gatehouse door, the rain falling in a solid sheet off the eaves, and took a big breath. The fragrance of glacier ice as old as history was unmistakable.

The manor gates were rusted open. Which really didn’t matter since the wall was no great shakes, maybe fifteen feet high and so crumbly Julio could have scaled it in about three heartbeats. He had pointed that out to Irma on day one. But she had shrugged and said if he didn’t want the job she’d go find somebody else. Just Irma giving him cop-speak, on account of how there wasn’t anybody else, and they both knew it.

It was his third night on duty, each one colder than the last. The villa’s little stone gatehouse was down by the road. There was no heater and the door wouldn’t shut properly. The wind howled through a crack in the side window. As usual, Irma had sent him off with a thermos of hot coffee and some serious cookies in a box advertising a Como pastry shop.

Truth was, Julio was totally cool with the whole gig. Midnight to seven, he was on duty. After Irma relieved him, he went up the hill and entered a kitchen that smelled like the Italian corner of heaven—fresh-ground coffee and newly baked bread and those little chickadees from all over the globe sitting there in their sleepy-time outfits and singing his name. Good morning, Julio. Are you tired, Julio? Here, take the first cup of coffee, you need it more than me, Julio. He just loved being the center of attention.

But the biggest surprise of all was how much Julio actually enjoyed taking orders from Charlie and Irma both. Before this gig, the one refrain he’d heard from every coach or teacher he’d ever had was, Julio has trouble with authority. But here he was, third man on the totem pole, just digging the scene.

Until this week, he had never been farther from Satellite Beach than the regional surf-offs at North Carolina’s Outer Banks. The other kids called him an animal in the water, fighting for blood and every point and every scrap of wave. He’d always figured surfing was his one and only ticket out of town.

Back when he was little, his dad had started him out on a little thruster, small as a boogie board, the two of them laughing and screaming and sharing waves. Sharing life. Then his dad got sent up and his mom got sick, and by the time

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