Read Online A Stolen Season by Steve Hamilton - Free Book Online Page B

The kind of smile that makes you feel welcome. On a day like this, it was exactly what I needed.
    “Is Tyler here?” I said.
    “He’s in the studio. Come on around.”
    She opened the door farther, and together we walked around the house to the back, where the big garage was. “How do you like this weather?”
    “I think we should all get our money back.”
    “It’ll warm up soon. It always does.”
    “I hope you’re right,” I said. I was thinking maybe I should hang around this woman for the rest of the day. Maybe some of her optimism would rub off.
    Tyler was in the studio, earphones on his head and a cigarette in his mouth. In the daylight I could see out the big picture window. There in the cold water were the two rows of dark wooden pilings leading out toward the point. I couldn’t see the boat, at least not in the water. But there was something on the shore, covered by a large blue tarpaulin.
    “Alex!” he said when he saw me. He took the earphones off. “Did those jackasses pay you a visit, too?”
    “I’m afraid so. It sounds like they were here earlier.”
    “I’m sorry about that, man. I would have called you if I had your number. I don’t think I ever got your last name.”
    “It’s McKnight.”
    “This is Liz,” he said. “The old lady.”
    “The next time he calls me ‘the old lady’,” she said as she shook my hand, “I’m going to throw him in the lake.”
    “Come on outside,” Tyler said. “You gotta see this.”
    We went out to the backyard, to the same spot we had been standing when it all happened the night before.
    “The Coast Guard finally came around midnight,” he said. He started moving the rocks that were holding the tarpaulin in place. “After everyone else had already left. They were gonna put out lighted warning buoys.”
    “Not that anyone else would be stupid enough to go out there,” Liz said.
    “So I told them, just see if you can pull the wreck loose. I’ll tow it closer and then pull it onto the shore with my winch. It was so low in the water, I wasn’t sure they’d get it free. But eventually they did. And here it is.”
    He pulled the tarpaulin off with a flourish, like he was unveiling a great piece of art. Actually, that’s exactly what this thing was—but it was a piece of art that had been rammed full speed into a wooden post. In the light of day, the damage was spectacular. The hull was opened up halfway down the centerline, the planks either broken clean through or splintered in every direction. In some places, you could see the unfinished wood, the way it must have looked decades ago, before it was varnished.
    “Can you believe this?” He ran his hand across the topside, where the wood was still smooth and perfect. “All the work somebody must have put into this thing.”
    “And the money,” Liz said.
    “I had to cover it up last night,” he said. “It’s just obscene. It hurts me to look at it.”
    “Can you imagine how hard they must have hit that thing? I can’t believe those guys lived through it.”
    “I wonder how the driver is. They said he was in the hospital, but they didn’t even know how he was doing today.”
    “Yeah, I wouldn’t be real happy with those guys,” I said, “if they were my friends.”
    “I’m not too happy with them myself. They showed up here this morning and wanted to see the boat. I was thinking they might want to salvage the motor or something, but no, they just started looking inside the thing. Then they started looking on the shoreline. Eventually, God, they must have gone down a half mile in each direction, looking in the water. Going through everybody’s backyards and out on the docks. They even wanted me to get Phil’s boat and take them out to where the wreck happened. I told them there was nothing to see out there. That’s when they started to get weird on us. You know, like when they first got here, they were telling us how grateful they were for the help last night. But then