Hard Line by Sidney Bell

Author:Sidney Bell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-02-13T20:44:09+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

Tobias’s pancakes were cold, but he didn’t care. He could’ve been eating paper and he wouldn’t have minded.

He wasn’t going back.

Sullivan kept staring at him with mild interest, like he was expecting fireworks to explode out of Tobias’s head or something. It wasn’t a bad read of Tobias’s emotional state; a kernel of revolt burned red-hot in his chest. He wanted a ridiculous number of ridiculous things suddenly—to go on a bender at a grimy bar; to pick a fight in a parking lot against a trucker twice his size; to drive in a random direction for hours with the radio as loud as it could get, not stopping until he hit something golden and strange. He could do any of those things or none of them; the only restraint, he realized, was him. His own limits of have to and don’t be selfish.

It was a small change, objectively. Lots of people dropped out of school. But when Sullivan had mentioned class and that old sense of dread had risen again, it had occurred to him that he could just...not...go. He was twenty-four, not twelve. He wasn’t going to get in trouble. He didn’t have to go, he didn’t want to go, and so he wouldn’t. And with that choice, he’d forged some new, blazing ground inside himself. Maybe he was exploding. It certainly felt like the old Tobias had been permanently destroyed.

He had to clench his fingers around his silverware again to avoid chucking them gleefully through the air. He could only imagine how Sullivan might look at him then, but that wasn’t why he held himself in check. The truth was, if he let any of this feeling out into the world, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to regain control, and thrilling as it might be, the size of it frightened him too.

Who knew what he might destroy before that wildness was sated?

* * *

An hour with the laptop proved that Cindy Jackman had never been married and had no siblings, so the guy who’d used her car to pick up Ghost must’ve been either a friend, a boyfriend, or a car thief who’d politely returned the vehicle when he was done with it. Which apparently meant a stakeout.

They found her exactly where her social media page had suggested she would be—at her job as a receptionist at a small nonprofit serving veterans with PTSD. They pulled into a parking lot that served several businesses in the strip mall and parked far enough away that they wouldn’t attract attention, but close enough that they could see both the beige sedan and the door to the nonprofit.

“It’s nice out,” Tobias said from the passenger seat of the Buick, grateful he’d taken Sullivan’s advice and stopped off at the motel for shorts and a white T-shirt. Jeans would mean heat stroke by this afternoon. “For the moment, anyway. You won’t be alone and bored with me here. I don’t know why you’re so down on this.”

“You are painfully young and innocent,” Sullivan retorted.

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