Take Me There by Carolee Dean

Author:Carolee Dean [Dean, Carolee]
Language: nld
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Published: 2010-08-06T22:00:00+00:00

28

I SPEND THE NIGHT DREAMING OF WHEELS THAT TURN INTO clocks that turn into screams. By the time I wake up, I’m covered in sweat and feeling like I haven’t slept at all. I check my watch. It’s early, only six o’clock. Wade is curled up asleep next to Baby Face. I pull on a pair of pants from the box of clothes my grandmother gave me, rummage around, find a Grateful Dead T-shirt, decide it might not be appropriate, given the circumstances, and then choose a plain blue cotton shirt.

I figure I might as well be on my way to Livingston, since I have nearly two hours of drive time ahead of me. I fire up the farm truck Levida has let me borrow and am heading toward the highway when I spot a sign for Farm Road 66. I remember what Travis Seagraves told me about Jack Golden’s widow and the missing money, and I make a quick turn. I drive about a mile before I see a huge three-story rock house. The sort of place you might find in Beverly Hills or Malibu, not out in the middle of the Texas Hill Country. I think about my father rotting away in prison because of a cop who double-crossed him for drug money, and it makes me want to blow out all the windows in that big fancy house and set the whole stupid thing on fire.

I turn the truck around, hitting the gas as hard as I can. The truck is an eight cylinder and can really move when you push it. I pass the drugstore on Main Street, and through the plate-glass window I see the same old men drinking coffee. Men who have been around. Men who would know the history of the town.

I stop, back up, and park out front, not sure what will happen, not sure what I will say or do, knowing only that my father might be dead soon.

I walk inside. In addition to the old men at the table, there are a host of younger men, farmhands by the looks of them, buying sodas and doughnuts for breakfast.

I order a Pepsi from Dorie. “How’s Wade?” she asks, but I ignore the question. I have more important things on my mind than Wade’s love life.

“I just drove past a mansion out on Farm Road 66,” I say to her, but loud enough so everyone in the place can hear. “I didn’t know you had rich people living here in Quincy.”

“That place belongs to the Golden widow,” Dorie whispers, looking around at the faces of the men, who have all stopped to stare at us.

“The Golden widow!” I say. “She must be made of gold to afford that place.”

“Jack Golden’s widow,” Dorie corrects me. “The dead cop.”

“Now where on earth would a dead cop’s widow get all that money?”

“An anonymous donation,” a man says, stepping out of the crowd. He puts his hands on his waist like he’s trying to intimidate me, but it has no effect.

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