Read Online Dead Girl Moon by Charlie Price - Free Book Online Page A

usual, carrying a heavy sack.
    Groceries.
    “You didn’t work today?” He set the sack on the small table where they usually ate. Lifted out a bag of crushed ice and put it in the cooler on the floor. “Better use that milk tomorrow,” he said. “I’m starting to smell it.”
    He pulled a Bosch rotary hammer drill and a heavy-duty DeWalt power saw from the tote.
    Definitely not groceries.
    Fitz looked out the door to see no one was watching, and then held the saw up to the light, inspecting it. “Barely been used,” he said. He looked around for a place to put it and decided on the canvas duffel where he stored car tools. Saw Mick looking.
    “Just left it lying around that work project up there.” He gestured with his head toward north Main where the local chiropractor was adding a room to his office. “Must be broke,” he said. “I’ll fix it later.”
    Broke. Right. His dad was starting again, in spite of his promise. Mick wadded up a poem he’d been working on. Why bother? And he still hadn’t met anyone to stay with.
    *   *   *
    Years ago, drunk and reminiscing, his dad had told Mick he’d started “finding things” in the army. “Just a little touch now and then to boost my pay.” Usually, his father maintained the fiction that he found things, broken things that others discarded.
    Sometimes Fitz ignored that idea like he’d never said such a thing and stole big. The pickup from the mall parking lot, electronic gear from the warehouse where they’d fought the guard, the tool trailer and generator from the construction site.
    Mick knew from past experience that since his dad wasn’t doing any carpentry work himself, he could have that saw and drill sold by tomorrow afternoon … unless he was planning to wait and boost the whole battery-powered outfit and move it for a kit price.
    Mick never figured out why his dad pretended about the little stuff. He had made Mick go with him twice, so it wasn’t for his son’s benefit. Maybe he couldn’t quite admit it to himself, the kind of person he was. And Mick … could he admit it? Could he live with another family and be done with the man?
    “You didn’t work?” his father asked again, sitting down on the cooler and turning to face Mick.
    “Stores didn’t need anybody today. Restock doesn’t truck in till tomorrow.”
    “You going to make enough to be ready for school? Think they might be charging for extra stuff now.” His dad didn’t usually give him money, like that would undermine Mick’s independence.
    “Don’t need much,” Mick said, “only extra is football, far as I know.” He already had five or six hundred dollars in checks under his mattress and thirty or forty cash under his pillow.
    “Well,” his dad said, “you’re big enough for football.”
    “We found a body today.” Mick didn’t know why he told him. Probably just to goad him. His dad being so smug about stealing—stuck in Mick’s craw.
    “The hell!”
    “Girl,” Mick added, “maybe drowned, or maybe worse. We cleaned up after ourselves and left. Too late to do anything for her.”
    “We?”
    “Me and Grace.” Mick didn’t know why he left JJ and Jon out. Oh. Yes he did. If his dad asked Grace, she’d automatically lie to him. The other two wouldn’t. “East, under the highway bridge on the river,” Mick finished.
    “Didn’t tell anybody?” his dad asked, again checking out the front door to see if they could be overheard.
    Dovey’s trailer was about a hundred feet away, but sometimes she was in the parking area picking up trash the wind had scattered. As clerk, she did most of the paperwork for the justice of the peace and the sheriff’s office. She knew everything that happened in the whole county and his dad thought she was nosy as hell.
    Mick shook his head. He didn’t plan to mention the 911 call.
    “Don’t say another word. Don’t beg trouble.”
    Mick had known that would be his father’s position.
    “Let’s eat,” his