Jackrabbit Junction Jitters by Ann Charles

Author:Ann Charles
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Corvallis Press
Published: 2012-07-09T06:20:47+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

Friday, August 20th

“Here we are.” Butch slowed his pickup to a stop.

Here where? Kate stared through the bug-splattered windshield at an aluminum gate bearing a No Trespassing sign. Utilitarian rather than ornate, the gate barred the end of a gravel drive that crested the top of a small hill covered with orange-brown dirt and patches of scrubby green bushes.

“Be right back.” He grabbed a set of keys from his coin-filled ashtray. Kate watched from his air-cooled truck as he unlocked a padlock that secured the gate to a post, opened the gate, and then blocked it open with a large stone.

“What is this place?” she asked when Butch crawled back behind the wheel and shifted into gear.

“It’s where your sister got shot.”

As they rolled up the drive, Kate sent several sidelong glances Butch’s way. Why did he have a key that opened the padlock on Sophy Wheeler’s gate?

Butch cut the engine in front of a gray, single-story, cinderblock house. Kate followed him out of the pickup, shielding her eyes from the mid-morning sun.

She spun slowly, taking in the surrounding, mostly-barren hills that hid the place. Behind the house, a string of violet mountains outlined the mounds of orange-brown dirt. Wind chimes hung from the porch roof, dinging in the warm breeze winding up through the small canyon. Dust salted the back of Kate’s throat. The place felt barren, full of ghosts.

The drive dead-ended at a shed with a rusty, corrugated steel roof that creaked with each draft of air. A coat of green paint had been slapped on the walls—somewhat recently, Kate guessed, judging from the dried paint splashed on the ground edging the building. On the door, a padlock that was identical to the one securing the gate kept the public out.

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