Read Online Vision by Lisa Amowitz - Free Book Online Page B

take your break.”
    “Sure. Okay. Thanks, Mr. Friend.”
    Bobby’s stomach fluttered. He wondered what he would have done had his boss caught him with his daughter. After that dust-up he’d overheard, Bobby didn’t imagine he’d take too kindly to her fraternizing with the help.
    He hadn’t had his usual burger yet, but still reeling from the close encounter in the supply room he didn’t think he could handle the heavy food. Instead, he walked through the kitchen, grabbed a banana, and headed out the service entrance to the back alley. He needed air. Fresh, cool night air.
    Except the back alley was filled with the rancid smell of rotting garbage. Bobby sank down onto the back step and ate the banana, his heart still racing. His mind ran in circles, his earlier problems with headaches, red blindness and frightening visions forgotten.
    Gabe was going to be the death of him. One spark was all it would take for him burst into flame. But he couldn’t let that happen. One wrong move would seriously impact his finances. He had no doubt that if he laid so much as a finger on Gabriella Sorensen Friend, Max Friend would give him the boot.
    The realization fell like the crack of a gavel. But still, that did little to slow his pulse rate. He was a goner. A stupid, mindless goner.
    Bobby ate the banana slowly, staring at the cracks in the cobblestone alley. He was tired; the only thing keeping his body going was adrenaline. He glanced at his watch. Nine thirty. The restaurant closed in thirty minutes. Then came cleanup, and by eleven fifteen he’d be headed for home and his nice, soft pillow.
    He lived for that moment. Moment by moment. That’s how he would do it. Eventually, he’d be over her.
    His break done, Bobby walked to the Dumpster, tossed the banana peel inside, and turned to go back to work.
    The cries were so soft at first, he thought what he’d heard was the distant yowl of a stray cat. Then his skin began to crawl, the now-familiar throb of a headache drilling its way up the base of his spine. Something was pulling him toward the Dumpster.
    No. Please, no .
    The muffled cries became shrill, pitiful screams. Thin red streaks criss-crossed his vision. The headache bore down on him like a sledgehammer.
    There’s someone in the Dumpster .
    He had no time for the blindfold to shield him from the headache’s aftereffects. Someone needed his help.
    Bobby scrambled up the side of the Dumpster, leapt over the edge, and landed in a heap of stinking garbage.
    He felt the pull of certainty guiding him—someone was buried under the refuse. The cries grew louder, more desperate and raw. There was no time to call for help.
    “Help me! Please, help me!”
    “I’m coming! Hold on!” Bobby dug through the layers of slop, the back of his head blistering with pain. The red streaks were filling in. He was losing it. Losing it.
    By the time his hands bumped against something cold and solid, he could barely see past the red veil. He pulled hard. “It’s okay, I have you!”
    With one last tug, he yanked the wailing victim from under the piles of garbage.
    He screamed, but his lungs couldn’t pull in any more air, sickened and horrified at what he cradled in his hands.
    The last thing he saw before collapsing backward into the piles of garbage was the body of a girl, hair matted with blood, her eyes and mouth covered with duct tape, her throat slit open.

CHAPTER
8
    B obby had no idea how long he lay there in the stinking bed of garbage. With the headache hacking away at the back of his head, he slowly opened his eyes.
    It was as he’d feared. Thick red soup.
    The body. Somewhere in this Dumpster was the body of a girl.
    Nauseated, he groped around for it. Nothing. How would he know if he’d really seen it?
    Oh, God. Oh, God .
    It had been solid in his hands. It was real.
    Bobby rose to his feet and sank knee-deep into the festering muck. Reaching upward for the rim of the Dumpster, he grabbed hold and hauled himself over