Read Online Cormac by Kathi S. Barton - Free Book Online

belly, he just knew it. “I
asked you a question, Jim. Are you lost?”
    “I’m not a good person.” He didn’t look away
from the woman. He knew who she was, or at least where he’d seen her before. It
was the woman with the gun from today. “I’m just hungry and was waiting on the
trash to be taken out. I didn’t bother nobody. Even though Aunt Hester told me
to find Andi and make her come home, I’m not going to do it. Not anymore.”
    She didn’t say anything for several minutes,
and Jim stood up. He didn’t want to die here in this alley, and he was pretty
sure that she’d do it just to get him out of her way. Before he took two steps,
she told him to wait. He turned to look at her, just knowing that she was gonna
be pointing a gun at him. When she wasn’t, he felt his breath whoosh out of his
body.
    “We don’t keep the leftovers at either place
of business, so there wouldn’t have been any food for you. They’re taken to the
shelter for them to use.” He nodded. Of course they did that. It was a good
thing to do, and here he was thinking to steal it. “Come on with me and I’ll
see that you get something to eat.”
    “I’m Andi’s brother.” She told him she knew. And
then told him her name. “Mrs. Harrison, I don’t want no trouble, if you don’t
mind. I been sitting here thinking, and I know you could just kill me now and
not one person might care about it. But if you’d see to Andi, keep her safe,
I’d be right fine with that happening to me.”
    “Yeah, I would though. Care, I mean. I don’t
kill men because they’re cold and hungry. And Andi is safe.” She moved with him
to the car sitting on the street. There was a big man standing there, the guy
from earlier that had a gun too. Jim paused and the woman laughed. “This is my
husband, Riordan. And if you call me Mrs. Harrison again, I might hurt you.
He’s Riordan and I’m Storm. Got it?”
    “Yes. Are you going to take me to jail? My
dad’s there and he’d be powerfully mad at you…well, he is already, but he’d be
mad at me too if you do that.” She asked him why she’d do that. “Because you
told me to stay away from this place. But to be honest with you, I kinda wish
that you wouldn’t take me to jail but to the other place. Prison. Just don’t
let them put me next to my dad when he’s taken back. He’s…I’ve been thinking.”
    “Thinking is good so long as it’s not going
to get you killed. And that stunt you pulled this morning wasn’t smart and could
have gotten you just where you want to be.” He got in the back seat of the car
and waited while they got in the big limo with him. Storm turned to him when
she was buckled. “We’re going to help you right now, Jim. But if you fuck up, I
will snap your neck like a twig and leave your sorry ass by the side of the
road for the buzzards to pick over.”
    “Yes, ma’am.” Jim felt tears fill his eyes.
His father would have slapped him or taken a belt to his back. Not for what
he’d done but because he’d been caught at it. “I don’t want to do this no more.
I don’t want to be hungry or hurting either. I don’t want to hunt down Andi and
bring her back to that place. It’s evil there. I’m evil.”
    Riordan looked at him then. The man had been
quiet until that moment. “You want to make a turn in your life?”
    “Yes, sir, I do. I really do. I’m not sure
what my aunt will think about that. I’m not…I’ve spent some time in jail.
Stealing and stuff. I could tell you that they made me. Had me go in and take
that stuff so they could they could get paid by some other guy who wanted it.
But I did it no matter what was said. I’ve been mean to Andi. She…never once
did she call me dumb or stupid when we were together. She is a good girl. I
watched her as best I could, but Dad, he’s hurtful when he don’t get his way,
and sometimes I’d have to do what he said.”
    “She’s marrying my brother soon. I guess that
makes us sort of