Page 37 of Kiss of Wrath

“Yay, we have a Viking nanny!”

“When do I get my sword?”

“I like peanut butter and jelly on my sandwiches, but only strawberry jelly. And no crusts.”

“Can you tell bedtime stories?”

“What’s for dinner?”

“I need help with my multiplication tables.”

“It’s my turn to bring cupcakes for snack time.”

“We’re out of milk.”

“The downstairs toilet is plugged up. I think someone used too much paper.”

Miranda looked at him. “Welcome to my world.”

Seven

Talk about the BFF (best friend forever) from Hell! . . .

Roger Jessup sat fuming in front of an ancient computer sitting on a battered desk in a shared living room of a shabby duplex in Akron, Ohio. It was Heaven’s Gate, the bullshit name for the halfway house he was “sentenced” to. “Hell’s Armpit” would be more appropriate.

During the day, he was employed for minimum wage as a maintenance worker for the city, despite his having been a licensed electrician until a few years ago. Apparently, no one wanted to hire a convicted felon to wire their houses. It wasn’t like he was an axe murderer or anything, but that didn’t seem to matter.

Once a week he had to sit in a class of misfits listening to some jackass teach him anger management. Hah! He had learned a thing or two about anger and how to manage to survive after serving two years in prison. Now, there were some psychos who needed anger management!

No, none of those things were what had Roger’s jock strap in a twist at the moment. It was what he was reading on the computer screen. “Son of a fucking bitch!” he snarled.

“Whassup, Jessup?” Without looking his way, Clarence Farrell chuckled from the recliner where he was watching another of the endless reality TV shows he was addicted to. This one was Amish Strippers. Before that, it was Gay Soldiers. Some days, Roger wished the cable box would explode and stay off, giving those voices in Roger’s head some blessed silence, a chance to think.

“Nothing special,” Roger grumbled.

A person didn’t want to get on Clarence’s bad side. He was a mean-ass repeat offender who’d just served ten years in Ohio Pen for assault with a deadly weapon, rape, kidnapping, robbery, and a long laundry list of other crimes committed against an ex-girlfriend. Caused the woman to lose an eye and sliced one ear half off. Eew! And it wasn’t his first offense. Clarence had been in the halfway house for a year now and would be released about the same time as Roger.

“Whoa! Wouldja look at that? I like it when they bend over like that. Don’t you?” Clarence was licking his big lips.

Roger glanced at the TV set. “I grew up in Ohio Amish country, and I ain’t never seen an Amish woman with tits like that,” he commented, just to be amiable. Or to avoid Clarence’s fist, which often shot out at random for the least offense.

Roger went back to scowling at the computer in front of him, and he might have made a growling noise.

“So, what poker you got up your ass this time, man?” Clarence asked in his usual insulting manner.

Roger gritted his teeth at Clarence’s tone and would have liked to tell him, Bite me! But Clarence might do that, literally. Instead, Roger told him, “My wife’s cousin sold my home while I was in prison, and I just found out from the real estate transfers online that the bitch pocketed a cool two hundred and fifty thou.”

“Whoa! And they call us robbers!” Clarence had the irritating habit of chewing on the ice in his glass after drinking his soda, which he was doing now.

Crunch, crunch, crunch!

Roger felt like clubbing him over the head with the remote Clarence held on to like it was his personal possession. Just because he was bigger than the rest of them, and mean as a junkyard dog, and sported two gold incisors that he claimed to have yanked out of the mouth of a bookie who tried to steal from him, didn’t mean he had the right to hog the TV. And make them all watch these crackpot reality TV shows.

Crunch, crunch, crunch!

Holy hell! I feel like he’s scratching my eyeballs with sandpaper.

Besides that, Clarence had a nerve putting Roger in the same class as Clarence and robbers. Roger had never robbed anyone. All he’d done was smack his wife around a little when she got out of hand. And his kids . . . well, kids needed a good smack once in a while to grow up right.