Cold to the Touch by Kerri Hakoda

Author:Kerri Hakoda [Hakoda, Kerri]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

25

He was upside down in the cab of Lindbergh’s burning truck again, his ankle wedged painfully between the seat and the gearshift console. Flames licked around the hood. The cab began to fill with smoke.

A phone rang, over and over, insistent.

“Answer it,” Jolene said, her ashen face set in a frown.

“It’s for you.” Toni pointed at him with her index finger, its manicured nail broken off at the quick.

It was coming from the glove box, barely reachable above his head. He managed to tip the lever to open the compartment. Empty airline-size bottles of booze cascaded around him, and so did an older-model iPhone, the cracked screen lighting up Unknown Caller. He grabbed it and swiped to answer it.

“Hello? Hello?” He heard himself say. The phone kept ringing.

Then there was a rapping at the window. His brother Herc, in faded navy coveralls, squatted outside the upside-down truck, holding a phone out to him, motioning for him to roll down the window.

“Havi? Havi, wake up.”

Beans eyes sprang open. His older brother Herc stared down at him, bleary eyed, stinking of last night’s booze. He shoved the cell phone at Beans.

“You left your phone in the living room. Hell, you sleep like the dead.” He shuffled away, mumbling, “And I’m the one who was drunk.”

The display read APD Dispatch.

He put the phone to his ear. “Sorry about that. Beans here.”

A cool professional female voice said, “Farmer just south of Eagle River called in a DB in his cabbage field. Young female.”

It was the call he had been waiting for but dreading at the same time, ever since the discovery of Hannah’s iPhone yesterday. The phone had just enough juice for them to track it to Hannah’s canvas messenger bag, which they found in a ditch less than a mile from Buffalo Gals Brew. Although the bag appeared to have been dragged and mauled by scavengers, the cell phone had been protected in an inner pocket and weakly pinged its location. Scattered around the bag were her wallet—complete with credit cards and cash, a purse-size can of pepper spray, and a torn paper sack, sticky with maple frosting.

Beans lay in bed until the vision of the burning truck cleared from his mind. Then he threw on some jeans, a flannel shirt, and a down vest. He ran a toothbrush around his mouth, the minty flavor of the toothpaste shocking him into wakefulness. He started to tiptoe past the guest room, but the door was ajar, the room empty. Herc stood in the kitchen in his striped boxer shorts, cracking open a Gatorade in the light from the open refrigerator, while Archie wove around his legs, purring.

An amiable but incorrigible drunk, Herc had gone on a bender the night before. His live-in girlfriend, the well-inked Mindy, did not tolerate his insobriety—so Herc had Ubered to Beans’ house to sleep it off.

“Thanks for letting me crash here, bro. Mindy’ll come around. She always does.” His two days’ growth of dark beard, a grooming attribute he swore drove women mad, made a raspy noise as he rubbed it.

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