PROLOGUE
Ed Blair glowered as he sped up to his garage door, stabbing the remote control and hitting the brakes as he waited for the door to roll up. He was in a stinking mood because events today had conspired to annoy him.
The foreman at the factory where he worked, in Southbrook, Tamarack County, Minnesota, was picking on him. Ed felt sure of it. He'd been unfairly bullied the whole day. The man had been after him as if he was a lazy employee, as if he'd been shirking his tasks.
Ed wasn't lazy. It wasn't his fault that the conveyor belt had jammed, and he'd had to wait while it was fixed. And he'd gone more slowly because his arm was stiff from an injury last week. The foreman should accommodate those reasons. Not just yell at him to go faster, faster, and that he needed to pack more of the tubs of rose-scented skin cream and shampoo, with a sickly floral smell that he hated, which were ready to stock up the shelves for the gift-giving season ahead.
"I should tell him to take his job and shove it. That's what I should tell him," Ed said out loud, his tone defiant.
Of course, getting a new job wouldn't be that easy, and he had been having problems with absenteeism recently. That wasn't his fault. A man had to rest up after getting a cold, with the change of seasons and all.
Ed was a big man, with a build that was muscular but not bulky. His hair was brown, his eyes were blue, and he had a wide smile that took up most of his face when his mood was good.
Now, his mood was bad. Mired in negativity, he narrowed his eyes at the rain spattering down on his windshield, scowling at this reminder that fall had well and truly set in. And that meant that Molly would be on his back about fixing the heating. He had it on
his to-do list! There was no need for her to keep nagging him about it every three months!
The home they rented was a neat, little brick house in the suburbs on the outskirts of Southbrook. Molly loved the area and the house. Ed had ideas they should move. That they should get right out of Tamarack County and start a new life somewhere else. He felt he deserved a new life, and that it would serve him better than this mundane existence where every minute of every day, there was someone pestering him about something.
"Maybe we should split up," he said. They'd been living together for four years and married for three. He thought it was since the marriage that things had started to go bad. Molly had changed, that was the reason why. She sure was a pretty face, and would always be, and she was fun company and a great cook, but he hadn’t realized that she’d become so demanding.
Plus, he wanted a new life. A life where no one told him what to do. A life where he could be his own man. He’d always been independent, and he’d even cheated on her a couple of times. He had felt ashamed at first, but a month or two down the line, he’d justified it to himself. She had started cheating recently too. He felt sure.
Maybe he’d end up agreeing to that divorce she’d asked for a while ago. She’d wanted to go ahead with it, so of course, he’d vehemently opposed it on principle.
The garage door was fully up now. Ed drove in, leaving the car at an angle. He didn't bother to park it right. Why should he? He was home now. He'd spent the whole week working. He'd earned the right to park the car any old way he liked.
Then, his eyebrows raised as he saw that the garage light was on.
"Well," he muttered. So much for being aware of electricity usage. He remembered last week’s talk about saving the planet, very clearly. And now, look? Molly had clearly forgotten to turn it off when she'd left that morning. She wasn't back yet, and in fact, she was spending the night away from home at a work event. But when she got back, he'd tell her that there was no point in her nagging at h
im all day and all night when she couldn't even remember to flip a simple switch.
Ed got out of the car, giving another angry snort as he saw the side door to the garage was open. She hadn't closed that, either. And it was her who always reminded him that security was important and that if they didn't close up and lock up, they might come home to find everything gone.
He couldn't wait to tell her how careless she'd been and see her face as the tables were turned. Molly, who was usually so neat and tidy and thorough. What had she been thinking? Maybe he could ask her that. After all, it was a question she’d asked him more than once in the last few weeks.
As he walked through the side door, a funny prickle chilled Ed's spine. If he hadn't been so wrapped up in his own negative thoughts, it might have occurred to him earlier.
What if somebody had broken in?
He didn't know what had suddenly made him assume that, bringing a flash of unease into his mind, causing that shiver to run through him.
Then he caught his breath as he saw a dark shape on the floor.
Legs, it was legs, sticking out of a tarpaulin, and his heart accelerated in fright.
Someone had been killed here, maybe Molly herself. Someone had broken in and killed her. She was dead. He regretted all the terrible thoughts he’d just had.
And then, the next moment, relief flooded his mind. It was not legs. It was the old pieces of carpeting that he had been supposed to take to the dumpsite that evening.
That was all. Phew! Just carpeting, wrapped in tarps. Not a body and not legs. What an idiot he’d been to think that and to have clean forgotten about this chore. But in any case, it was too late to go to the dumpsite now. He needed a beer, after the day he’d had.
As he headed into the storeroom that separated the garage from the kitchen, stepping around the carpets, he heard a rustle.
He glanced down, assuming that the draft had breezed in and was shifting the tarps. But it wasn’t. The tarps were still.
What if there was another reason for this feeling of unease?
He glanced around quickly in the gloom. His gaze immediately fell on the open door that led into the kitchen. And, listening carefully now, he realized there was definitely a noise, coming from beyond the storeroom, from inside the small kitchen where Molly prepared the meals. It was no more than a shifting noise, a soft rustle, but Ed heard it. And it couldn’t be Molly. Her car hadn’t been in the garage.
He breathed in deeply. This was spooky, making him more uneasy than he'd ever like to admit he was.
Then, he told himself that he was six-two and strong, and that anyone who had tried to break in to steal his hard-earned possessions would regret their actions. He would make sure of it.
Ed reached for the heavy flashlight in the storeroom cupboard. There were dangers in the world, and he would be a fool not to protect himself.
This flashlight was heavy, and he was sure that anyone who tried to attack him would come off worse. It was probably just some stupid kid messing around, but still.
He stepped into the kitchen, feeling as if he wouldn’t mind teaching some kid a lesson with this heavy flashlight. It might, in fact, make him feel better to beat someone up.
He’d hit Molly a couple of times, but never anything serious. Just one or two slaps, but she’d never called the cops on him like she’d threatened to do. Just as well, considering what would have happened then. Perhaps she didn’t have the guts for it, or else, she knew that she’d deserved what she got.
As would this person, whoever they were.
But as Ed looked around the kitchen, a figure leaped out from behind the door, so sudden and fast that Ed yelled in surprise. He raised the flashlight, clumsy with shock, but the figure was holding something that was hissing, and a burning cloud was shooting out from it, and as it seared his face, white-hot pain filled him. His eyes were in agony. He couldn't see. He couldn't breathe.
Coughing, Ed recoiled, now seeing the figure only dimly through a haze of tears. He'd been pepper sprayed, he realized.
Pepper sprayed in his own kitchen. He needed to get out because this was suffocating.
He turned, stumbling as he made for the door.
And that was when he felt the sudden, sharp pain in his back. Then another, and yet another, a pain so swift and deep it took his breath away. Suddenly, it was harder to cough and impossible to walk.
He fell to his knees, trying to puzzle out what had happened, but it was too late. The world was going swiftly dark.
He toppled forward.
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