Damaged Goods Read Online Free PDF Page A

months. They were both just out of high school. Hershel had only recently attained his auctioneer’s license and was working for a man out in Oregon City. The girl he’d married was local, someone he’d known since the seventh grade who had graduated from Sherwood High School the same year he had. Candice was her name. Tiny. Lovely. Homecoming queen. So enamored of Hershel that she would have done anything he asked without question. The marriage ended almost before it gotstarted, though. He slapped her across the cheek when he came home one evening to find their breakfast dishes still in the sink, soaking in cold, gray water. What had she been doing all day?
    “If I wanted to pay for a maid,” he shouted, “I wouldn’t have gotten married.” He cringed now at those words. Hershel leaned forward on his elbows, staring down into the gold liquid in the glass. “Stupid bastard,” he whispered. He’d revisited that moment at odd times in the intervening years. It was the most pertinent lesson of his life—perhaps the reason it was not lost, as so many others had been. The lesson wasn’t that he shouldn’t have hit her; he already knew that. It was the one and only time Hershel had ever hit a woman, and his meek little worshipper had found some cord of strength neither of them knew she possessed. Candice had had the good sense to leave him that very night, under the protective watch of her father. The lesson she taught him, though, was never to underestimate anyone. No matter how mild or weak she appeared.

    Silvie couldn’t stand the cold any longer. It felt as though the dampness had seeped into her bones, putting a freeze over her that she couldn’t shake. She rifled through the single kitchen drawer, finding only a fork and a stubby little paring knife too dull even to peel an apple. But it was something. She took it, pulled the dinette away from the door, and peeked down the wooden stairway into the hulking warehouse. She felt along the exposed studs, tangling her fingers in sticky cobwebs and yanking her hand back. Finally, she found the switch for the bulb above the dusty stairs. The snap echoed, and she was certain that she heard someone downstairs. She stood unmoving as seconds passed, listening with every part of her body. But it was still and quiet, save for the continuous patter of rain on the roof. She gripped the tiny knife and stepped watchfully, letting her weight settle against each tread.
    In the warehouse below, the cavernous room was packed withjunk—garbage, really. It smelled of dust and grease and stale popcorn. She’d taken note of the odd assortment of tires and appliances, furniture and boxes. It seemed that this place had one of everything, no matter what it was. The path from the stairs to the front door was crooked and littered with strange objects at unpredictable intervals. She brushed against things she was afraid to touch, pulling her arms tighter around herself and walking with careful, tiny steps. Too many places for someone to hide, she thought. Near the front door, her foot caught an electric cord, dragging its nameless owner down from its perch with a metallic clatter. Her heart drummed at her throat. Her hands trembled as she fought with the lock, finally throwing the door open and stumbling out into the parking lot.
    She stood in a steady rain, panting, no longer cold.
    “Everything okay?”
    Silvie shrieked. It was
him
. He was standing beside her car, a black shadow against the filbert trees.
    “Hey, I didn’t mean to scare you. You okay?” He walked toward her.
    She held up the little knife. “Don’t come any closer,” she shouted, her voice quavering.
    He halted. Confusion worked over his face. “I’m not going to hurt you. I just …” He turned toward the orchard, then back to Silvie. “I just worried about you being here without any food or … or anything.”
    “Where did you come from?” Silvie demanded. “Where’s your truck?”
    Hershel held up a