Read Online Shackled by Tom Leveen - Free Book Online Page B

kept from yesterday. I chewed my lip, waiting for the results to pop up. What I got instead was a request for fifteen bucks.
    â€œSon of a bitch,” I said.
    The site glared at me from my laptop screen, wanting to know if I wished to proceed. I didn’t have a credit card. I’d never really needed it. Mom or Dad made my deposits, and brought back cash for whatever. It’s not like I was out partying every night.
    Just a few clicks and keystrokes, and I could have the name of the man who took Tara. Information the police surely already had but would never share with me.
    What harm could it do? Just to see . Maybe there would be something that would catch in my mental filter that the cops couldn’t possibly know. Some clue, some hint. Something from that awful goddamn day at the mall that I’d forgotten about.
    The scent of pizza wafted in from the kitchen. I guess I couldn’t blame Mom for ordering since I’d abandoned the pasta. I wasn’t hungry anyway. I debated trying to ask for, then to steal, one of her cards, but knew I’d never get her to agree and that I didn’t have the guts to just take one and use it.
    I saved the license plate lookup site to my favorites and shut down my laptop. I didn’t remember anything else until I woke up the next morning on top of my bedspread and still in yesterday’s clothes. I don’t know if I had any dreams, but I knew when I woke up, staring at my ceiling, that I really needed to fix things with David.
    He was the only person I could come close to calling a friend. That might be the best I could ever do if things didn’t change.

EIGHT
    By the time I’d showered and gotten ready for work that morning, the whole idea of trying to find Tara through a stupid license plate website seemed absurd. What on earth could I possibly do that the cops couldn’t? So I’d decided to try to forget about it. Stop intrusive thoughts and all that. It just made me more miserable.
    Plus . . .
    I mean, what were the chances, really ? Of all the quirky snarky indie coffee shops in town—in the state, in the nation—Tara and her kidnapper came to mine?
    Suffice it to say, it was my worst day at the Hole, except for Wednesday. I kept waiting for Tara and that old man to come back in. So I could prove it was them. Then I waited for the old man to arrive alone, but with a gun, mowing us all down because I’d figured him out. Then I waited for Dr. Carpenterto show up with a squad of mental health goons to wrap me up and ship me back to my hospital for ever thinking I’d seen Tara at all.
    I spent five hours at work with my heart pounding its fists inside me, making my sternum quake with each beat. I couldn’t catch my breath. Kept dropping things. I jerked every time the door opened.
    I knew that was dumb. Tara and that creepy old man weren’t coming back here, because it wasn’t them.
    David clocked in an hour before I was scheduled to clock out. We made eye contact as he came around the counter to grab his apron.
    â€œHey,” I said.
    â€œHey,” he said back.
    Okay, well, that was a decent start.
    â€œI’m sorry about yesterday,” I said.
    â€œOkay.” David tied on his apron, looking bored. It seemed forced, though. Like he wanted me to know how unimpressed he was so far.
    â€œCan I—I mean, I want to make it up to you somehow if I can,” I said.
    â€œOh yeah? Like how.”
    â€œI don’t know . . . I could take a couple of your shifts or something.”
    â€œI need the money.”
    â€œWell, okay, then . . . I don’t know, I’ll, I’ll buy you lunch or something.”
    He practically choked. “You’re asking me out?”
    â€œNo, I’m not asking you out! I’m saying that I want to do something, you know, like dinner. Or whatever. Out to eat .”
    I snapped my rubber band, and David watched me do