Next of Kin by David Hosp

Author:David Hosp [Hosp, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780230759381
Publisher: Macmillan

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

It was dark when Shelly Tesco got home. She’d been held up at work, explaining the adoption process to a couple who’d recently learned they were infertile. She could have told them to come back the next day; they walked in just as the office was closing, and she didn’t get paid enough to justify overtime. But she felt like she couldn’t leave without helping them. It seemed as though she could read the entire range of human emotions on their tired faces, from desperation to hope. She couldn’t just send them away. Besides, it wasn’t as though she had anything important waiting for her at home.

She noticed the Mercedes parked up around the corner, but paid it little mind. The Shumleys a few houses over had a son who was an investment banker in New York; he was probably visiting and eager to show off a new toy to his parents. Shelly wouldn’t hear the end of it the next time she ran into Mildred. Bragging about her son’s money had become the woman’s full-time job, almost as though it made up for all the disappointments in her own life.

Shelly parked her car in the driveway. Soon the real weather would arrive, and she would need to park in the garage. But it wasn’t here yet, and she’d have to put in a full day’s work clearing out the single-car space to make room. She’d promised herself she would get to it last weekend, but just hadn’t been able to muster the necessary motivation. Next weekend, she told herself. There would always be next weekend.

She opened the back door to the kitchen. Sometimes she wondered why she even bothered to lock the place up when she left in the morning. There hadn’t been any real crime in the town in more than five years. It would be difficult to find a safer place to live. Reaching out, she flipped the light switch and it gave a loud clack, but nothing happened. She flipped it back and forth three times. ‘Goddamned circuit breakers,’ she muttered to herself.

It had happened before. Too often. Her electrician had told her that she should upgrade her system and replace the board, but she had no money for that. If it meant that she had to venture into the basement a few times a month to reset the circuits, so be it. It was better than spending money she didn’t have.

She felt her way around the cabinets in the kitchen until she reached her utility drawer and pulled out a flashlight. Pressing the switch and having the beam of light to guide her provided some comfort. It was silly; she hadn’t been afraid of the dark since she was a small child.

She walked over to the basement door and pulled it open. It was an unfinished space, cold and damp. The darkness was so complete that her flashlight barely penetrated it. She walked slowly down the ancient wooden steps, each of them creaking under her weight.

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