Dead Man's Switch Read Online Free PDF Page B

while Mack and Ella were in Seattle, Ella collapsed without warning on a sidewalk outside a Starbucks. Physicians still couldn’t explain why. All they knew was that nothing could seem to bring her out of a coma. And no one could guess when she might recover. Or if she would.
    With her in a coma, the light in King’s home had been extinguished. The nest destroyed. No metaphor could come close to describing themisery and dejection Mack and King were enduring while Ella hovered between life and death. And both Mack and the Lyon King were helpless to do anything about it.

    In a small workshop behind King’s house, Ella had a pottery wheel and paints and a kiln. She made coffee cups and bowls and vases and jugs and earned a living selling most of them online. She was proud of her independence, but she insisted on handling all kitchen duty as well because she took joy in taking care of her two men.
    But as King walked into the house at supper time, Blake’s iPhone in his back pocket, there was no smell of sizzling sausage to greet him. No singing in the kitchen.
    The kitchen felt dusty now. King and Mack just made sandwiches whenever they were hungry. Since the coma, they had not sat down once for a meal together. The house was silent because the only thing that mattered, the only thing that was worth discussing, was too painful to mention. The silence was an unbearable reminder that the family had been reduced to the two of them.
    Ella also had a thing for cuckoo clocks. Her collection was scattered throughout the house. Little clocks. Big clocks. When the house finally began to sound like a ticking time bomb, Mack had begged Ella to keep only three clocks wound.
    But now even the clocks were silent. When Ella entered the coma, King and Mack let the clocks go quiet. They didn’t need cheerful reminders on the hour that Ella was not around to enjoy the carved wooden creatures that sprang out.
    King needed food. He threw a slice of bread on a plate, slapped some presliced cheese and luncheon meats on it, squirted it with mayo, and covered it with another slice of bread. And yes, he drank milk straight from the carton. He’d always done that when Ella was around, mainly because of her indignant squeal whenever she caught him. Now he drank from the carton because it took less effort than getting a cup from the dirty dishes in the sink and rinsing it.
    When Mack walked into the house, King was standing at the sink, staring out the window and thinking about Ella and wondering what criminal act Mack had committed and letting the depression slowly sink down on him as the night slowly fell on the view outside.
    â€œHey,” Mack said to King. “Good to see you back in time for curfew.”
    Curfew. This echoed in King’s mind. “Trust no authorities. They will hunt you too.” Was that the reason for curfew? Something that Blake had found? That involved Mack?
    â€œHey,” King said in reply without moving. King didn’t know if he could keep his face neutral if he turned. He worried that Mack would see that King had betrayed him, that King no longer thought Mack was nearly perfect, that King could no longer trust the father he had once worshipped and adored just as they both worshipped and adored Ella.
    King waited for Mack to ask about why King had been kicked out of the homeschool writing class. When nothing came, King wondered if Raimer had decided not to report anything to the warden. That made sense. King had been defiant, but making it an issue would raise a lot of other issues that Raimer might not like.
    â€œHungry?” Mack said.
    â€œAlready ate,” King answered. With Ella at the hospital, scheduling decent meals didn’t matter much in the King household.
    â€œGood,” Mack said.
    Just down the road, at their neighbors’ house, a dog named Patches began to bark. Patches didn’t need a reason to bark. Or if Patches needed a reason, it was beyond any