Dying Breath by Wendy Corsi Staub

Author:Wendy Corsi Staub
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Publisher: Wendy Corsi Staub
Published: 2010-11-16T06:58:58.004000+00:00

Chapter Ten

Ike figures he probably shouldn’t be driving in his condition.

What else is new?

He doesn’t have far to go, and he knows these streets as well as he knows his own face in the mirror.

Wait—bad comparison.

Glancing at his reflection in the rearview mirror, he sees an old man looking back at him.

How the hell did this happen?

Some nights, when he’s flying high, sitting in with a band for a set or two, beating those drums and singing his heart out, he feels like he’s twenty again.

Yeah, and some mornings after, he wakes up feeling like he’s ninety and has just been hit by a garbage truck. Smelling like it, too.

The worst is when he has no recollection of what happened the night before.

Well, that’s what you get when you party too hard.

Or when you’re getting too old.

This was one of those mornings.

Last thing he remembers was being on the mainland, somewhere in Manahawkin, jamming with a friend.

That was sometime yesterday...

Or was it?

It’s too damn easy to lose track of time these days. Ike never was one to bother with a watch, much less a calendar, but this is getting ridiculous lately.

Anyway, he was in Manahawkin, and the next thing he knew he was waking up in his own backseat this morning in a familiar parking lot.

So he obviously found his way to Long Beach Island. That was fine with him. He got a greasy egg sandwich for breakfast, then stopped in at a few of his favorite haunts for some hair of the dog.

Then he remembered that it’s summer now, and his daughter and her family are on the island. So he decided to surprise them. It’s been awhile since he’s seen everyone, and a man needs family. Especially when that’s all he’s really got left in the world—just his daughter, his son-in-law, his granddaughter.

And Brenda, wherever she is.

An image flits into Ike’s brain and is gone.

Brenda’s face.

Huh.

Did he see her somewhere again? Maybe last night?

The Brenda in his vision just now was beautiful and young.

Must just be a long-ago memory popping up to taunt him. He couldn’t have seen her. Not looking like that.

She might have been a teenager when they met but she’d be a senior citizen by now. Still beautiful, but sure as hell not young.

Even Ava wouldn’t be young now. She’d be middle-aged. Would Ike recognize her if he saw her?

Probably. She always looked so much like Cam.

Then again, people change. They get older, grayer, wrinkled. They have plastic surgery, dye their hair, gain and lose weight . . .

Hell, half the time, you don’t even recognize yourself in the mirror.

Meaning there’s a good chance Ike wouldn’t know his own daughter, his own wife, if he came face-to-face with them today. That’s why it’s important to look beyond surface appearances.

Because you just never know.

As he pulls up in front of Cam’s beach house, Ike sees her station wagon with the oval L.B.I. sticker in the rear window.

He’s vaguely reluctant to park his crappy old car in

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