Read Online The Lonely Mile by Allan Leverone - Free Book Online Page B

here, he would drive straight to his apartment in town and put his feet up, crack a beer, and watch the Sox game.
    Heavy footsteps approached the door, and as it opened inward, Bill found himself staring into the face of his ex. Crow’s feet were beginning to show around her eyes, and a touch of grey was making inroads on her blonde locks, but otherwise, Sandra and her daughter were dead ringers. He felt the familiar ache for just a moment and then swallowed it down, locking it away, pasting a pleasant smile on his face.
    He never blamed Sandra for leaving; not even after the affair she had begun with her now-husband Howard while still married to Bill. He knew it wasn’t easy being the wife of a small business owner, especially when the business in question was a pair of hardware stores continually in danger of being forced into bankruptcy by the big chains. Mom and Pop stores everywhere in the hardware game were disappearing, but through gargantuan effort, Bill had thus far managed to keep his stores afloat.
    That effort came at a price, though. A steep one. All that driving from one store to the other trying to keep his business going with the growing competition from the big box stores translated into time spent away from home. Time spent away from Sandra and Carli.
    Eventually, all those lonely hours, nights, and weeks, had become too much for his wife to endure. She began a relationship with an old high school boyfriend who still lived in the area. Howard Mitchell had never married. He was a successful dentist, complete with a thriving practice, a big house, a pool, and expensive cars. Most importantly, Bill knew, Howard Mitchell was home most evenings for his family, which, to Sandra, translated into a considerable upgrade over her husband.
    It had been two years now since Sandra left him, marrying Howard Mitchell six months after that, but no matter how much time passed, Bill knew he would always feel a momentary tug of sadness, of pain and regret, whenever he laid eyes on his former wife.
    “Bill,” she said in surprise, brushing a stray hair out of her eyes, stepping back into the foyer out of the unseasonable late-afternoon heat. “What are you doing here? Are you all right?”
    “Sure, I’m all right. Why wouldn’t I be?”
    “Why wouldn’t you be? You’ve been all over the news this afternoon. Fighting with that horrible I-90 Killer. You could’ve been killed!”
    “Oh, that, yeah,” he said. “Sorry. I don’t know why, but it didn’t occur to me you might have seen the reports. I mean, I saw all the news trucks and the reporters at the rest area, but it all seemed a little unreal to me.
    “Anyway,” he said, suddenly feeling silly but not letting it stop him. “I was wondering if I could see Carli for a couple of minutes. It’s been…I don’t know…kind of a long day, and I just wanted to say hi to her.”
    She hesitated for half a second and then pulled the heavy door open wider. “Of course. Come on in out of the heat. Wait right here and I’ll get her.”
    Bill stepped inside, and his ex-wife pushed the front door closed. The house felt cool and comfortable, a far cry from the stifling temperatures he knew he would face when he went home. A window fan moving stale air around a second-floor one-bedroom apartment could not compare with the comfort of central air conditioning. He stood awkwardly on the gleaming hardwood floor of the foyer as Sandra brushed past, stopping at the foot of the stairway and yelling upstairs to his daughter. To their daughter. “Carli, your dad’s here!”
    From somewhere down the second-story hallway came a muffled reply. “Be right there,” it sounded like, but Bill could not be sure. She was obviously in her room behind closed doors. Sandra smiled at him, and his heart ached.
    “So, what the heck happened today?” she asked.
    He shook his head. “It all went down so fast, I’m not exactly sure. I was having a cup of Smokin’ Joe’s Coffee at the