Tall Oaks: A gripping missing child thriller with a devastating twist by Chris Whitaker

Author:Chris Whitaker
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Bonnier Publishing Fiction
Published: 2016-04-06T23:00:00+00:00

Manny sat back, watching the sun begin to set, turning the sky a deep shade of purple. His mother was out with the squint-eyed bastard again so he was stuck home on a Saturday night. Not that he minded. He was with Furat.

“Where’s Thalia?” Furat asked.

“In the kitchen. She said she wanted to play with the stove.”

He stretched and yawned, finding the long summer days quite exhausting.

“Isn’t that dangerous?”

“She knows what she’s doing. She’s sick of playing with that toy shit that doesn’t even heat up, just makes noises like it’s sizzling or something, but ten seconds later it cuts off. How the fuck are you supposed to prepare a meal like that?”

“But she’s three.”

He nodded, interlinking his fingers behind his head and praying that his deodorant was winning its battle for control under his armpits, a battle that was hard enough without the addition of a three-piece working for the opposition.

“Three, right. And my mother acts like she’s a baby. Would a baby be in there now trying to get the stove hot enough to make popcorn? No, it fucking wouldn’t. But that’s the beauty of children: the shit that adults forget once they get past thirty. Children are thirsty for knowledge, you know, and the only way to quench that thirst is to let them explore the world around them. And how can they do that if they’re always being told no? That’s why I never say no to her, even when she asked to use the nail gun.”

Furat stared at him.

Manny laughed. “It’s too easy to fuck with you. Should’ve seen your face. Brilliant.”

She punched his arm.

“She’s watching that show she loves, the one with that girl that used to be cute and then turned into a whore bag piece of shit after she found the key to unlock her Disney handcuffs.”

She laughed.

“You looking forward to prom?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“You’re lucky you get to go. They pushed it back twice because of Harry Monroe.”

“What do you think happened to him?”

“I don’t know . . . nothing good,” he said, quietly.

“You know sometimes when I walk around town it seems so safe, almost like we’re in a bubble. But then I think about what happened, and I can’t believe it. It’s so sad. Wherever he is, I hope he’s okay, because I see his mom sometimes, and she looks broken. Like there’s something broken inside of her.”

They settled into silence. It wasn’t an awkward silence, both already more than comfortable in each other’s company.

“Have you heard any more about your sister?”

She shook her head, brushed a bug from her knee. “She’s okay. My mom said she’s okay, that everything is going well with the pregnancy.”

“What’s the guy like?”

“He’s nice enough. I didn’t get to see him much. They’re in love. They’ve got a place together. So that’s something. I know she’s young, but that should count for something, right?”

“Sure.”

“My father doesn’t see it that way.”

“How come you’re not religious, yet he is?”

“My mother. She worried about us fitting in. She said we could make up our own minds once we were old enough.

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