Time Games by Rex Bolt

Author:Rex Bolt [Bolt, Rex]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-09-11T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18

Monday at school was a little awkward. For various reasons Pike tried to avoid interacting with Hannamaker, Anthony, Cathy, Foxe and Jocelyn.

Andrea he wasn’t sure about, but he figured don’t go out of your way there either.

Jack had slept on that couch like he was drugged. Pike went down there around 1 on Sunday and he was still snoring away like an old man, and still with his shoes on.

At that point Pike woke him up, and directed his attention to The Box, which now needed some serious repair. Jack glanced at the big hole with no expression, cleared his throat hard like he was bringing up phlegm, and left without saying anything.

Pike went for a light jog after that, over to the old cemetery and back, and on the way home he made his decision to go Arizona.

Sometimes when you exercise, especially outside, your head becomes real clear and the riff-raff and clutter fall away and you can think simple and straight, and taking a little trip emerged as the right choice.

Partly it was the lunacy of the other night with the impromptu party that told him a change of scenery would be good, but more than that it was the deteriorating dynamic he was seeing between his parents.

And he missed Audrey, there was no denying it, and Christmas in Beacon with all the familiar sentimental stuff would only accentuate it.

Wednesday would be the last day of school before vacation . . . so . . . why not leave on Thursday?

He had a couple papers left to write, but he had the technique down pretty good, you just let it rip with as many extra words as you could so that you were turning in a paper longer than the requirement, and that normally got you a B. And you also wanted to write as fast as possible. He’d tried taking his time once and that didn’t go over any better, in fact he was pretty sure he got a worse grade.

But forget all that for now. What Pike wanted to do today was drop in on his friend the librarian, and as soon as 8th period ended that’s where he went.

Frankie was at her desk and looking a little stiffer than normal. “I’m glad you came by,” she said. “Though I may not have as much leeway as I did. They canned the head librarian.”

“The one who was never here?” Pike said.

“Exactly. And they elevated someone else. A younger man, more hard-nosed.”

“I’ll get right to it then,” Pike said. “If someone happened to change their name . . . how do I locate them? Any ideas on that?”

“When?”

“When did they do it? Let’s say 20 years ago, roughly.”

“Where, what state?”

“Could be any of them . . . But how about California.”

As usual, Frankie didn’t ask any more questions than necessary, and she stuck to the task at hand. Though she did give Pike a look that said she wouldn’t mind knowing more, if he volunteered it.

“These are the Chico people,” Pike said.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.