Rooms: A Novel Read Online Free PDF

in a fine layer of dust. Beside the Bible were two pictures. Micah was in both of them.
    In the first picture five kids and he handed out egg salad sandwiches at Seattle’s Union Gospel Mission. In the second his arm was around his best friend from high school youth group. Micah smirked. He was really into religion back then.
    Almost against his will, he approached another lamp stand. On it was a sheet of paper. He held it up and squinted at it in the dim light.
    Micah gasped. Impossible. Where would Archie have found it? It was a flyer for a concert— the concert—the one he’d gone to on a whim. The one where he’d decided to follow God.
    Sweat covered his palms. This was beyond strange. It was bizarre.
    There’s no way Archie’s builders could have gotten that flyer.
    The pulse in his neck beat double time. He’d never understood people who had panic attacks. How could they go from feeling normal to expecting their body would explode any second? Now he knew.
    He slowed his breathing. No help. Goose bumps broke out on his skin.
    Archie wanted to highlight his career? Fine. Nice display. But the other room? Why dig so deep into his past? Who cares?
    Archie. The words in his letter rang in Micah’s head. “Time to face your past. It is time to deal with it.”
    He rubbed the scar on his hand and made himself breathe slower. Pulling up long-dead memories that were none of anyone’s business. Why go to this much trouble to weird him out?
    His body yelled run, and his mind joined the chorus. But where? Out onto the beach? The highway? Nothing was attacking him. Nothing was after him. So why was he trembling?
    Get control!
    He ground his teeth as he forced himself out into the hallway. He closed the door, and Micah stared at the knob as if the door might open and suck him back in. Make him face—no!
    His breathing calmed but his hands still shook. He shoved them into his pockets. It helped. Slightly.
    What was wrong with him?
    Micah jogged into his living room and burst through the French doors onto the deck. As the ocean wind whipped through his hair, his dad’s comment about the precarious condition of Archie’s sanity came back to him. Which meant one of two things to his father—either Archie was consumed with God, or he had never made any money. The building of the house ruled out the latter, so Micah assumed Archie was, in his dad’s words, a Jesus-freak.
    His dad believed all Christians had a serious crack in their psyche. He wasn’t vindictive about it. To Daniel Taylor it was fact. When Micah started following Jesus during his sophomore year of high school, his dad wanted to send him to a psychiatrist. In the end they agreed to make it a taboo subject, which pushed them even further apart if that was possible.
    During college the world of software captured him, and the whole God-thing had faded. It wasn’t overt, just a slow slide onto the back burner of his life and then off the back of the stove to sit with the dust and grease spots where Micah didn’t miss it.
    But obviously not missed by everyone. Archie had built two shrines. One to Micah’s worldly success, one to his God-stuff past. God was fine at one time. But that time was over. Whoever pulled off this stunt for Archie had stepped over the line. Micah grabbed one of the Adirondack chairs on his deck and tossed it against the railing. The idea of someone digging up his ancient history felt like someone had broken into his mind.
    Micah stumbled down his deck stairs till his feet thudded onto the wet sand. He plopped down on a battered rain-soaked log, not caring about the dampness seeping through his pants.
    In his mind he slapped a roll of crime-scene tape across the door of the shrine room. He’d slaved to create his software empire. He wasn’t going to let some crazy great-uncle slam him for it.
    That night he had a double bacon cheeseburger at Bill’s Tavern & Brewhouse. Afterward he drove up to Astoria and plunked down money for a