Sister Mine by Tawni O'Dell

Author:Tawni O'Dell [O’Dell, Tawni]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780307393593
Publisher: Crown/Archetype
Published: 2007-03-13T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

MY PHONE WAKES ME. It’s Ray’s oldest daughter, Autumn. She and a couple of her friends missed the bus. Can I give them a ride to school? And can I promise not to tell her folks?

I say sure, like I always do, and check my clock. It’s 7:45 A.M.

It takes me a minute to figure out where I am and how I got here.

I made it home on my own. I made it to bed. I made it through the night.

I have a bad headache and a knot as hard and round as a silver dollar throbbing a couple inches behind my left ear, but the headache could be a lot worse and the lump is easily covered by my hair.

My face could be a lot worse, too, but it’s bad enough. I assess the damage in my bathroom mirror. There’s a small bright red cut above my eye and reddish-purple bruising on my left cheekbone and jaw. My lower lip is slightly swollen but not unattractive. There are women who pay cosmetic surgeons good money to get lips like this.

I find some old painkillers in my medicine cabinet left over from a previous injury. I take two and stand numbly in my bathroom trying to collect my thoughts and set everything straight in my mind. When I do, I get a sick feeling in my stomach that’s unrelated to the goose egg on my head.

The man who did this to me is out there, armed, angry, still in full possession of his balls, and looking for my sister with the intent of having a persuasive conversation with her.

I remember she wasn’t here when I got home last night. I tried calling her on the cell phone number Pamela Jameson gave me but got no answer. Shannon told me she doesn’t have a cell. She knew I’d be suspicious right away if the number she gave me didn’t have a New Mexico area code.

My bathroom window faces the side of my house where I park my car. I glance outside and see my yellow Subaru, covered in a dusting of white, and a car parked next to it. I’m relieved at first until I look closer and see that it isn’t Shannon’s car. It’s the blue rental Boris is driving.

I tiptoe across the hall from the bathroom to my bedroom, take my .45 out of the lockbox in my closet, insert a fresh magazine, ease a round into the chamber, then make my way silently toward the living room and kitchen.

Boris is sitting comfortably at my kitchen table with a cup of coffee in front of him, smoking and reading a newspaper. He’s exchanged his white T-shirt for a black one, but other than that he looks exactly the same.

His chrome-plated revolver is lying on the table next to an empty beer bottle he took out of my trash that he’s using to put his ashes in. He taps his cigarette against the lip of the bottle, picks up his gun with his other hand, and points it at me as soon as he hears the floor creak.

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