A Melancholic Black Series (Book 1): The Red Door Read Online Free PDF Page A

don’t know. Shouldn’t we call someone?”
    “No! No! I’m not having her taken away from me. Not again,” Nell snaps back. There has been a sliver of happiness and understandably, she wants to hold on to it. She’s been through enough in her life. She’s keeping this moment alive, no matter how dead Amberly really is.
    “There’s something wrong with her, Nell. Something serious.”
    “Like?”
    “Besides a little girl who hated meat? Staring. Her infatuation with me.”
    “She’s not infatuated. She’s just nosy. She’s always been nosy. Maybe wondering why her father has yet to even bother with her.” For a moment, Rodney might believe her. “The meat? She’s a growing girl. Phases.”
    Rodney sighs. Nothing he says is going to make a lick of difference. Nell is lost in her fantasy world, and she ain’t coming back.

 
     
     
     
     
     
    VI
     
     
     
     
     
    November 11th.
    9:00AM.
     
    The morning school bell rings through the crowded halls of Justice Beacher Elementary School. Dozens of kids pour in to their classrooms, noisy and hectic. Aggravated that they have to be in school, but spirited enough that they get to see their friends.
    The happiest class-and most academically talented-is Ms. Ottenstein’s 4th grade class. High-honors children usually get recommended for Coleen Ottenstein. She has a reputation of finding a child’s strong suit and pushing them to excel. Especially well, too, for nine and ten-year-olds. This was Amberly’s class.
    Coleen loved Amberly. Adored her.
    “My favorite student,” she’d always tell Rodney and Nell. Truthfully, she was Coleen’s favorite.
    Amberly was so easy to get along with, and very easy to teach. With today’s children, who entirely depend on technology, Amberly preferred the “old school” method better: reading a book not a Kindle. Hand-written stories.
    Creative writing, rather. Amberly could get lost in the worlds that she created, and she was so brilliant at creating art with her words, it was easy to follow along. So polished and rhythmical, and most times she wasn’t even trying.
    Rodney and Nell never understood where the talent came from. Sure, they would have loved to distract their brains long enough to escape a moment of their childhood… but they lacked imagination. And patience.
    Rodney cannot even keep his own dick in his pants for the one woman that he swore his life to; Nell never stops to imagine the drawbacks of her deceased daughter coming back to life.
    Yes, impatient describes them perfectly.
     
    CLACK-CLACK! Rodney taps on Ms. Ottenstein’s door.
    Coleen, an attractive blonde, turns her attention to the noise and sees Rodney waving. She looks down in embarrassment and holds up her index finger for him to wait. “Children, give me a moment please. Continue reading. All the way to chapter 5,” she tells the students as they turn their heads between the social studies books and the strange man at the door. A man that some of them know as “Amberly’s Dad.”
    She opens the door and walks out in to the empty hallway. “Mr. Gray, I have nothing more to say,” she states.
    “Call me Rodney.”
    “Okay… Rodney , please, just leave me alone.”
    He sighs. “It’s about Amberly.”
    Coleen is yielded. “It has been.”
    “She talked of you more than anything or anyone else. I’m not here about your husband.”
    “ Ex -husband,” she corrects Rodney. “The bastard’s in prison.”
    “Where he belongs.”
    “I agree, Rodney. I had no idea, of… I don’t have the time to discuss all this—”
    “Please, Coleen,” he begs, cutting her off. “I never got to say goodbye to my baby. I just want to understand her last days… I’m having a hard time coping with all this. Amberly was a fantastic writer. I want that connection again, through her stories. Please.”
    “You never read anything she wrote?” Coleen rightly speculates.
    “Not a lot. She was smarter than I’d ever been. I was embarrassed I