Vicious Read Online Free PDF Page B

exit. Susan figured everyone in the Arby’s probably thought she was kidnapping him.
    She half expected to see her wannabe Good Samaritan among the patrons, sitting at another table—perhaps trying to hit on another woman, some young mother.
    But Susan didn’t see him at all. There was no sign of him in the parking lot either.
    She strapped Mattie in his booster seat on the back passenger side of her old-as-the-hills but reliable red Toyota. It had a bent antenna, and the indicator handle easily screwed off the steering column—a discovery she’d made while nervously twisting it during a traffic jam. But the old car got her around just fine. Besides, she couldn’t afford a new one.
    She gave Mattie his Woody doll, and he started to calm down. He let her wipe away his tears with a Kleenex from her purse.
    “Is he coming with us?” Mattie asked.
    “Is who coming with us?” Susan was crouched down by the open back door of her car.
    “The man we ate lunch with,” Mattie said. “Is he coming, too?”
    She shook her head. “No, he’s not coming with us, sweetheart,” she said. “I don’t even know him. We won’t be seeing him again…. God willing.” The last part, she muttered underher breath. “Fingers and toes!” she announced, straightening up. Then she closed the car door.
    As she walked around to the driver’s side, Susan took one last look around the parking lot. There was still no sign of the man anywhere. She ducked inside the car, started up the engine, and pulled out of the lot.
    She didn’t look back.
     
    “I have to go potty.”
    Hands on the steering wheel, Susan glanced in the rearview mirror at Mattie. He’d set aside his book and now squirmed in his booster seat. The breeze through the partially open window made a mess of his hair. He impatiently tapped his feet against the back of the passenger seat.
    “Do you have to go number one or number two?” Susan asked.
    “Both,” he whined urgently. “I have to go bad!”
    “Oh, Lord,” she muttered under her breath. Susan gazed beyond the dirty, bug-splattered windshield at the road ahead. The narrow highway weaved through a dark forest and beside a creek. At times, the road took her along the edge of a cliff with only a short guardrail to prevent her from careening into the gulch. Every once in a while, the late-afternoon sun would peek through the tall trees and momentarily blind her.
    After his hissy fit in Arby’s, Mattie had turned quiet. By the time they’d reached Cullen—with its picturesque harbor, quaint shops, and galleries—he’d been mesmerized by the scenery. Checking a MapQuest printout on the passenger seat, Susan had followed the directions here to Carroll Creek Road, north of the town center. That had been a mere fifteen minutes ago, and she’d asked Mattie if he needed to go to the bathroom.
    “Naw,” he’d muttered, distracted by the boats in Skagit Bay.
    Now he acted as if he were about to explode.
    Along the road, there were several signs with symbols that warned of FALLING ROCKS , CROSSING DEER , STEEP IN-CLINES , and HAIRPIN TURNS . Watching for all these hazards, Susan kept glancing back at Mattie. She wondered what the symbol might look like warning drivers of a toddler passenger about to poop in his pants. “Honey, try to hold on,” she urged him, tightening her grip on the wheel. “Allen said there’s a mini-mart on the way to the house. I’m sure it’s coming up soon. I’ll bet they have a bathroom. Have you—have you been looking for deer, sweetheart? The signs say a lot of Bambi’s relatives and friends live here in these woods.”
    And here’s hoping your frazzled mother doesn’t plow into one of them , Susan thought.
    She’d never gotten ahold of Allen. Her fiancé had driven up earlier that morning to open the lakeside rental house and make arrangements for a special “surprise.” So far, the only real surprise was the lack of cell phone reception, probably because of all the