Flee the Darkness (Harmony Grove Series Book 1) by Carol J. Post

Author:Carol J. Post [Post, Carol J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-10-27T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

Chris picked up his phone from the end table and sank into his dad’s recliner. Rufus was stretched out on the couch watching him, head resting between his front paws. His big brown eyes seemed to reflect some of the same emotions that were weighing down his master.

After all the calls Missy had ignored last night, Chris didn’t expect tonight to be any different. But he had to give it a try. He waited through several rings, silently willing her to answer. When her message came on, her voice, pure and sweet, wound its way right into his heart, and he closed his eyes against the sense of loss sweeping over him. He couldn’t have blown it that badly. It was such a minor mess-up. She had to see that eventually.

He left a message, the same as the one he’d left the prior night, then disconnected the call. Rufus was still watching him.

“What am I going to do, boy? She won’t talk to me.”

Rufus raised his head to respond with a soft woof, then jumped down. When he reached the recliner, he lifted a paw to rest it on Chris’s leg.

Chris patted the arm. “Come on up.”

A second later, the dog landed in his lap with a whoomph. One full-grown man and a sixty-pound mutt were a lot to occupy the single piece of furniture, but it wasn’t the first time. If Chris was home, Rufus was pretty well glued to him.

Chris pressed the power button on the remote. Melissa wouldn’t take his calls but he still had Saturday. Though he had no idea what was happening at Mary Holland Park, he’d try to be ready for whatever the day held.

As he reclined the back of the chair, canned laughter filled the living room, the product of some senseless evening sitcom. His mind wasn’t on the characters and their issues, though. He had enough issues of his own.

Three more vendors had cut him off, and now that all the checks had cleared, he wouldn’t have enough funds to make payroll this week without wiping out the last of his personal savings account. Donna saw to that, with two final four-thousand-dollar checks to her phony company two days before she disappeared. The worst blow came when Karen called about the mortgage. Donna had made interest-only payments for the past five years, and the full amount was coming due in four months.

He picked up the remote and advanced the channel. The canned laughter was getting on his nerves. So were the off-color jokes that really weren’t funny. The scene switched from a New York City lounge to the Serengeti Plains. A cheetah stalked a herd of gazelles, pacing back and forth, eyeing one unfortunate female lagging behind.

He laid the remote on the table and settled back in his recliner. The cheetah’s escapades would be far more engaging than Tom’s bumbling attempts at finding George a date. And that soon-to-be-devoured gazelle—he could relate. He would never dig himself out of the mess he was in.

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