Money Back Guarantee by Hunter Shea

Author:Hunter Shea
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2017-06-29T15:48:39+00:00

Chapter Eight

“Can I go to Jimmy’s and read comic books?”

“No!” Rosemary snapped. She’d been nervously sipping coffee, staring at the front door, waiting—no, pleading for it—to open.

“Why not?”

She saw the bundle of comics tucked under his arm. Outside, there was a light drizzle, the darkening skies portents for worse to come.

“Because I want you home today.”

“Why?”

“Because I said so. And that’s final.”

Dwight looked as if he were about to protest, but the sharp glare he got from his mother stopped him cold. Instead, he snorted and marched back up the stairs.

“Guess I’m back on the shit list,” she said. No matter. There was no way she was letting him out of her sight today. Since breakfast, she’d gone to his room to check on him at least ten times. All he did was act out scenes from The Empire Strikes Back with his figures, getting more and more irritated that she kept barging in on him. At one point, she went to his desk to look at the plastic tank that contained the Amazing Sea Serpents she’d bought for him at Woolworth’s after much begging. The tiny wriggling balls of gray were disgusting. She kept waiting for them to die so she could toss the whole thing out. His room was starting to get a funky smell from them.

Normally, she would have flushed them, but after everything with her destroying his replacement sub, she let it be . . . for now. In a couple of days, she’d need a mask just to be able to stand in the room. It was amazing how Dwight didn’t seem to notice the rotting funk.

Now it was almost noon and Gavin had been gone for six hours. It was time to call the police. She couldn’t wait another second.

Just as her fingers touched the phone, it started to ring, the vibration traveling up her arm. She snatched it up.

“Gavin?”

A woman replied, “I’m calling to confirm a delivery.”

“A what?”

Her doorbell rang.

“Thank you for your time,” the woman said and hung up.

Rosemary dropped the phone and raced to the door. What if Gavin had gone out and gotten hurt? Maybe he’d been run over by a car? That could be the police at her door.

She threw the door wide open.

It wasn’t the police.

It wasn’t anyone.

Just a tall box standing erect like the monolith in that 2001: A Space Odyssey movie.

She didn’t have to look at the label to know what it was and where it was from.

Stepping around the box, she looked up and down the street for any sign of the person who could have left it there. The rain was beginning to pick up. The wet street was devoid of cars, other than the few familiar ones parked on either side.

How the hell could someone have rung the bell and vanished without a trace so quickly?

Breathing heavily, her hair drenched, she walked back to her porch, kicking the box over. The edge landed in a small puddle, splashing rainwater on her legs.

“You son of a bitch.

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