As soon as I parked in front of the old Victorian house, I headed straight to the kitchen, poured a mug of bourbon liquor over good vanilla ice cream, raced upstairs, sat at my laptop, and began to type. I wrote a great two-hundred-word teaser about the aloof Svenssons. They were basically feral, having grown up in a cult in the desert, and were now raising their little brothers to be the same terrible, shallow men as they were.
By the time I had sort of proofread it, I was sloshed. It turned out the ice cream didn’t do a lot to mitigate the effect of drinking straight liquor from a coffee mug. I was seeing Halloween spirits by the time I attached the article to an email and sent it to my mother.
"Screw you, Garrett!" I slurred, toasting the sent message with my empty mug. "See how you like this nonskinny bitch."
Then I slowly slid off my chair and onto the floor.
"There's an Oreo under my desk," I whispered. "When was the last time I ate an Oreo?"
"Do not eat that," Morticia said, her black boots appearing in front of me. She slapped my hand away.
I burped.
"I was going to have us start decorating for the Halloween party, but you are clearly not going to be any help."
46
Garrett
When Penny drove away, I was slightly miffed. Maybe she had more work to do and didn't want to wait on me to finish my call. But I couldn’t end it; I’d been waiting days for this call. I was on the phone with one of my contacts out west. I would bury my father.
My contact did not have much information, just speculation. I sat in the library and took notes over the hour-long call. My contact was an old Vietnam vet. He was crazy and lived off the grid. He refused to use the internet. I’d had to personally take him a satellite phone that I’d assured him could not be hacked.
On the call, he told me that my father had taken another wife, and that as far as he could tell, my sisters were still in the compound. He gave me a rundown of descriptions and license plates of everyone who went in and out of the compound. Then he went on a tirade about how aliens were putting metal shavings in his food. It was probably the peyote and sunstroke, but he provided good information.
"Any news from the western front?" Hunter asked as I sat in the club room, stewing over the phone call.
"Still not enough to hang our father."
"Don't drink too much. You have the Halloween party tomorrow. You need to put on a good face for Sebastian. We cannot let the Holbrooks win that company."
"Penny has it under control," I said. That reminded me, why had she been so abrupt in leaving? I needed to call her.
"One more thing," Hunter said, his face cold. "In the future, do not insert yourself into my personal life."
"When your personal life affects me, then yes, I will involve myself," I snapped. "I have given you warning after warning. Your situation with Meg has gone too far. I told you to fix it or I would."
"By buying her coffee?" Hunter said.
"Sometimes these things require a lighter touch," I retorted.
A lighter touch was how I decided to handle things with Penny. She didn't return my calls or text that evening. In hindsight, her question about the type of woman I was attracted to had been leading, and I'd clearly not answered correctly. I had been trying to answer truthfully and then end it with "And of course you're better than anything I could think of." But then my contact had called, and I'd missed that part.
I hoped to talk to her when she was in a more rational mood. She seemed to run hot and cold sometimes. I usually felt I was a good judge of people. Within minutes, I could get a read on them. With Penny, whenever I thought I had her pinned down, she always surprised me.
But the party at her house was tomorrow. I'd have to see her then.
* * *
When I knockedon the door of the large Victorian house the next evening, Penny answered. She was already clearly drunk. There weren't even that many people there yet.
She posed in the doorway. She was wearing a costume that could only be described as sexy witch. Low-cut corset top, fishnet tights, boots, a very short skirt, heavy makeup, and the requisite witch hat that was half pulled over part of her face.
"Am I welcome here?" I asked carefully.
"Where's your costume?" she asked, looking me up and down.
"I—"
