Mischief after Midnight by Jennifer Bernard

Author:Jennifer Bernard [Bernard, Jennifer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781945944741
Publisher: Jennifer Bernard

But instead of heading to the gym, he swung the wheel in the opposite direction and drove to the tucked-away neighborhood where he’d spent some of the most miserable years of his life. It wasn’t a trailer park, per se, but several of the homes had once been RVs. The last one in the cul-de-sac belonged to the Rivers family. Lucky for everyone, it was surrounded by a thick grove of ancient spruce that served as a sound barrier.

As old as the trees were, his family’s vintage trailer probably predated them. The neighborhood had grown up around it. No one had lived in it for years before Curt Rivers decided to take it over. Being pretty handy with a hammer, he’d built a bunk bed for Bash, once he got too big for the built-in bunk, but that was about the extent of his parenting.

That, and yelling at him.

“They’re bad news,” the neighbors had whispered about them. It had turned into a nickname. “Bad News” Curt Rivers and his “bad news” family.

He eased his car down the street, past a group of kids gathered in someone’s yard practicing karate kicks. He wondered if they went to Toni’s self-defense class. He still needed to get his ass over to her studio.

Maybe that would impress her as much as Alastair’s manners.

When he reached the end of the cul-de-sac, he slowed to an idle and gazed down the short driveway that led to the old trailer. He knew that his father still lived there because the wedding invitation had come from the same address. He assumed his new wife and child did too.

But he’d never know it. The trailer was quiet and tranquil. Warblers chirped in the alders, adding to the sense of serenity. Bash remembered very few moments of peace in his childhood. Maybe his father’s new marriage didn’t include the kind of all-out warfare that Bash had grown up with.

He saw a curtain move and a face appear in one of the windows. Maybe he should leave before anyone noticed him. He and his father were cool now that they had nothing to do with each other. Would it be better to keep it that way? Would seeing Curt Rivers drag him right back into the old nightmares?

As he rolled out of the cul-de-sac, from the side of the road a little girl waved both arms at him in a “stop the car” gesture. He hit the brakes and jerked to a halt. He rolled down his window and saw what she was so worried about. Two sandhill cranes were just stepping onto the road, ungainly on their stork-like legs. With their long necks and bulky gray-feathered bodies, they slowly strutted across the road, as if they had all the time in the world. They were about as tall as the little girl herself.

Once they were safely across, the girl ran up to his window. She seemed to be about five or six, with creamy brown skin and her hair in two pigtails.

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