Ghosts and Madmen: A gripping conspiracy thriller (James Tarr Conspiracy Thrillers Book 6) by James Tarr

Author:James Tarr [Tarr, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Vinci Books
Published: 2023-12-13T00:00:00+00:00

Dave stood in the doorway and stared at the spare bedroom. That not even two weeks earlier he’d spent most of a day painting. The heat from the fire, just a few feet away, had buckled the siding on the outside of Lori’s house, and discolored the paint on the inside wall. The smoke had poured in the open window, and turned the white ceiling gray. It had also made the entire room smell like smoke and ash, which is why they kept the door closed. He was glad the master bedroom was on the opposite side of the house. The fire department’s high-pressure hoses had managed to get water inside the window, so it had run down the wall both on the inside and in-between the joists, causing a bit of warping and buckling. Lori hadn’t had the insurance company out yet, but he knew the room would probably need to be completely redone—new drywall and everything—just to kill the smell of smoke. Compared to the fire damage on that side of the house, the dozen rifle bullets which had punched through the walls had done very little damage. Dave would have already spackled them over if he didn’t need to leave them for the insurance company rep to eyeball. They were due out in a day. For her house. For his house…

He’d never gotten insurance. He’d figured if—when—someone finally came for him, he wouldn’t be around afterward to care what happened to the place. It had been a bad assumption. But because he hadn’t been emotionally tied to the house, its loss didn’t bother him as much as it might have. He was glad he’d thought to save his Jeep. The plastic housing around the driver’s side mirror was slightly melted, and the paint on that side very slightly discolored, but that was the only damage.

“I need to get out of here,” he said, shutting the door on the damage. He could still smell the smoke; it was like he couldn’t get it out of his nose. He smelled smoke throughout the day, and he wasn’t sure if he was actually smelling it, or if it was some kind of post-traumatic odor flashback, if that was even a thing. He turned. Lori was sitting at the kitchen table in front of her laptop.

“Out to eat?” she asked. She glanced at her screen to check the time.

“Yeah. Somewhere with people.” He walked over and stood next to her

That surprised her. “Yeah?” Her eyebrows went up. Normally he tried to avoid crowds, and he didn’t like to be recognized.

“Yeah. It’ll help distract me from…” he waved a hand vaguely toward the damaged bedroom and, beyond it, his house, which was a blackened shell.

“What are you in the mood for?”

“Steak,” he said.

She rolled her eyes. “I don’t even know why I asked. Where do you want to go?”

He considered. He couldn’t wear a hat because of the healing burns on his head. He looked more than a bit like a victim of nuclear fallout.

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