Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 89093 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89093 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
“I only spent a couple of hours with him, but I could tell he was a good man.” A grin peeks out from beneath JR’s beard when I mumble, “A little straightforward, but a good man, nonetheless.” The situation goes from needy to serious in two point five seconds, thanks to my next question. “Will you tell me what happened? I tried to find out, but every direction I took led me to a dead end.”
After a reluctant nod, JR places me back onto my feet before he paces to a large window at the side of the room. Although it doesn’t face the land he fought so fiercely to protect, I can imagine he’s picturing it when his hands commence a story that is as painful to hear as it is for him to share.
Chapter Thirty
JR
Twenty-Four Years Old
* * *
My eyes stray from the scenery whizzing past the back passenger door of my father’s SUV to him when the blacked-out sedan following us veers down a side street.
“Where’s he g-going?” Mario rarely leaves my father’s side, so not only am I cautious about today’s change-up, but I’m also fretful. The hospital Cecil is admitted in is in the opposite direction, but the road Mario just went down is the one you’d take if you want to take a shortcut to Cecil’s cabin. “There’s n-nothing out that way but w-woods and bears.”
“Mario has some matters to tie up. Nothing that affects you.”
He’s lying. Not even years of absence has lessened my ability to sniff out the bullshit that constantly spills from his mouth.
“Cecil has n-nothing of value.”
I realize I hit the nail on the head when my father replies with a sneer, “Then he won’t mind Mario taking a look, will he?” He doesn’t give me the chance to answer. He signals for his driver to increase his speed despite him already traveling ten miles over the designated seventy signage.
I knew Sheriff Dumont was full of shit.
When we reach the ‘T’ intersection that either directs you off the mountain or leads you to the numerous ski resorts dotted on sistering mountains, my clipped nails dig into the skin on my palms that show I’m not afraid of hard work. SUVs similar to the one we’re traveling in are parked on the emergency truck ramp in case their brakes fail during descent. The goon who nearly set fire to Cecil’s greenhouse months ago is leaning on the front quarter panel of the lead vehicle. His hair is slicked back, a cigarette is dangling out of his mouth, and his arrogance—that’s at an all-time high—triples when he returns the head bob of my father.
It is the simplest of gestures, but it skyrockets my panic to a never-before reached level.
“You f-fuckin’ prick!”
With my mind shut down and fear for my life not prominent, I slam my fist into my father’s nose hard enough to displace it before I toss off my seat belt, yank open my door, then roll onto the asphalt like the rough road surface won’t shred my skin off my body even more than the flames that engulfed it.
Thankfully, a sloshy embankment softens the blow of my fall. I still get hacked up by the sticks and bushes siding the road, but my roll out of a moving vehicle only keeps me down for half a second. I’m up on my feet and racing through the woodlands like I know them as well as Cecil a nanosecond after a bullet rockets past my head.
I don’t know who’s firing at me, and at the moment, I don’t care. Nothing but reaching Cecil before Mario does is on my mind.
Mario is my father’s go-to goon for punishment, so even if my father is clueless to the value of the land Cecil’s cabin is positioned on, just wrongly believing Cecil hid me from my family the past almost four years is enough of a reason for my father to punish him.
My speed through the dense woodlands is so fast, trees decades older than me blur when I sprint past them. I run like the wind, my pace only slowing when I seek the markings in the trees Cecil pointed out during our sometimes-daily explorations of the woods. He said they’d lead me home if I ever got lost, and they do exactly as promised.
In less than ten minutes, I break through the clearing surrounding the cabin.
“Cecil?” I call out, put off by the eerie silence. There isn’t a single residence within a twenty-mile radius of Cecil’s cabin, but dead quiet isn’t something we often have. The ram watering system I copied off a YouTube video I watched in college is noisy. It bangs and rattles at all hours of the day and night to keep the water moving through the pipes, yet today, it is as quiet as a mouse. “Are y-you here?”