Shadowkiller Read Online Free PDF Page A

Boards.
    How , Allison has wondered countless times since, are we ever going to go back there as if none of that ever happened?
    Still . . . it’s not as if she has warm, fuzzy memories of Nebraska, either.
    â€œThat was so long ago, Allison,” Mack said when she brought it up. “It’s not like your parents are still there.”
    â€œFor all I know, my father might be.”
    â€œWell, what are the chances that you’re going to run into him on the street in the town where your brother lives?”
    â€œMack, there are no streets—or towns—where my brother lives.”
    â€œGood. It sounds nice and relaxing. And I’d like to meet your family. That’s probably not going to happen unless we go out there.”
    He’s right about that. Brett and Cindy-Lou have no desire, or money, to travel to New York with their teenagers—even if they could manage to leave behind the farm they’d inherited from Cindy-Lou’s late parents.
    Nebraska it is.
    â€œMaybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea to stop in Centerville,” Mack suggested.
    â€œCenter field . And no, thank you.”
    â€œBut maybe it would help you feel better about things if you could—”
    â€œIt wouldn’t. And there’s no one there I’d ever want to see again.”
    â€œWas it really all bad, Allie? You said you did have a few friends there.”
    â€œAnd every single one of them turned her back on me right after my father left.”
    Well, that wasn’t entirely true, she thought, remembering her next-door neighbor Tammy Connolly. She’d cried on Tammy’s scrawny shoulder quite a few times after her life fell apart. But then Tammy and her mother wound up moving away almost as suddenly as Allison’s father had left. She said she’d write and call, and Allison really believed that she would—but Allison never heard from her again.
    â€œBelieve me,” she told Mack, “there’s no reason to go back to Centerfield. I just want to see my brother.”
    â€œThen that’s what we’ll do.”
    Now, Allison picks up the ringing phone. “Cindy?” She can never quite bring herself to say Cindy-Lou, though it’s what her sister-in-law prefers. Back in the old days, Allison used to call her Cindy Lou-Who—but only behind her back, of course.
    I never gave her a chance. Back then, I just hated her for taking my brother away from us.
    â€œHi, Allison!” Ever cheerful, Cindy’s voice bubbles across the miles. “How the heck do you do that?”
    â€œI told you—we have caller ID.” You’d think basic technology hadn’t made it to the Midwest, the way Cindy-Lou had reacted the first time Allison explained it.
    â€œNo, I mean, how did you know it was me and not Brett?”
    â€œI guessed.”
    She’d based it on the time, knowing that Cindy-Lou likes to call while she’s “washing up the supper dishes,” as she says, while Brett naps in his “Barcalounger.” Indeed, Allison can hear running water and clattering pans in the background.
    â€œAnd here I thought we had a psychic in the family.”
    Allison is as warmed by her sister-in-law’s easy laughter as she is by the word “family.”
    â€œI hope I’m not interrupting your supper, Allison. I know you’re an hour ahead and you all eat later than we do here.”
    Yes, but it’s still early for an evening meal—and of course, even earlier in Nebraska, where it’s barely past four. By the time Mack gets off the commuter train at around eight o’clock in this time zone, Brett and Cindy-Lou will be thinking about bedtime in theirs. The next morning, they’ll be up to tend to their cows and fry up a big, unhealthy, nonorganic country breakfast long before the sun appears on the horizon there—or here, for that matter.
    How , Allison wonders, not for the first time, are