Nathan's Run by John Gilstrap

Author:John Gilstrap [Gilstrap, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: USA
Publisher: Kensington Publishing Corp
Published: 2011-12-26T13:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY

Kendra and Steve Nicholson hadn’t spoken to each other in the last hundred miles. It had been Steve’s idea to drive straight through for their return from Disney World, thinking it better to get the driving—and the attendant whining from the kids—out of the way in one endless marathon, rather than prolonging the agony over several days, the way they usually managed their longer trips. Even after thirteen years of parenthood, he was surprised at just how miserable kids could become during an eighteen-hour drive.

Somewhere in South Carolina, Kendra had reached the end of her rope, and had begun lobbying for a stopover for the night. Steve talked her into going just another hundred miles, and once that was done, another hundred didn’t seem so unreasonable. But as Norfolk disappeared in the rearview mirror and Richmond remained a distant goal, Kendra reached her breaking point and just stopped talking.

Steve was on a quest now. And even though he knew that the drive home would in all likelihood be the only part of the trip that Kendra would remember five years hence, he had made a commitment to drive straight through, and by God, he was going to do it, even if it killed them all. As morning approached afternoon and the misery of the dark hours faded from memory, Steve sensed that the tension was easing a bit. And now, as they got within a mile of the house, Kendra would start warming up again. He was sure of it. He hoped.

“There it is!” he announced to the family as their house came into sight. “Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.”

The kids—Jamie and Amy—bolted upright in their seats and cheered as they saw their house.

Steve playfully squeezed Kendra’s knee. “There. Now aren’t you glad we’re not still somewhere in South Carolina with five hundred miles left to go?”

Kendra’s response was a blistering glare. Okay. So he’d pushed too hard. She’d come around.

Steve piloted the Range Rover into the driveway and pressed the visor-mounted garage door opener. Even as the weather seal parted from the concrete floor, he recognized that something was wrong. Curiously, the first thing he noted was the cover shroud on the floor. I didn’t leave that there, he thought. It all crystallized for him an instant later, but it was Kendra who spoke his thoughts.

“Where’s the car?” she gasped.

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