“He’s upset. Madgie isn’t herself, I guess. Suppose that shouldn’t be any surprise given that a man was found dead at her house this morning,” Henry shook his head. “He said he might come out a little later.”
“Well, we can use all the help we can get. His skinny ass will be better for getting in the tight spots as we monkey with the wiring harness,” Kelly said, forcing up a smile.
“True enough. I’m not that flexible, and, no offense, Kel, but you aren’t exactly petite,” Henry replied with a laugh, smacking him in the shoulder.
Kelly snorted. “I can’t be offended if it’s true.”
“Let’s go get something to eat and warm up for a while before we tackle the harness.” He turned away and went back to the pickup truck.
Though Kelly was still full from their late breakfast not all that long before, he wasn’t going to turn down Henry’s offer. “All right.”
Chapter
48
Ryan stared at the television. Madgie was sacked out in her recliner not far away, Dani on the opposite end of the couch from him. He’d glance at his girlfriend occasionally, wishing she’d agree to go out for a while.
While Madgie was being unusually quiet, the old woman didn’t appear to be in any particular distress despite the morning’s events. Ryan’s instincts were lit up, uneasiness writhing within, and he wanted to get away from Madgie at least for a bit.
Dani felt his stare and slowly turned her head toward him, frowning. He’d expressed his desire to get out several times to her, but she wasn’t willing to let Madgie out of her sight for the time being. Given the tension between her and her grandmother over previous days, simply being in the house again was a relief.
Dani visibly tensed her jaw and got up from the couch, heading into the kitchen.
Ryan followed to see Dani pulling a broom from the pantry. The glass was still on the kitchen floor, and she started to sweep it into a pile.
She ignored him for several moments. When she did finally talk, she kept right on sweeping. “I told you I’m not leaving. If you want to go, Ryan, go.”
“I don’t want to leave you here alone with her,” he said.
Dani stopped sweeping, propping a forearm on the broom handle. “Ryan, I’m getting really tired of this. I’d be just fine here. I don’t need you babysitting me.”
He averted his gaze. “With all that’s happened, I’m not really comforta—”
“Oh for fuck’s sake,” she growled, quiet enough to avoid being heard by her grandmother. “Look, I know, okay? I know that things have been more than a little weird, and I know being the one to find Robert this morning probably didn’t help you out much but come on! The guy was probably stoned off his ass to do what he did in the first place. It’s freaky, I get it, but it doesn’t mean there’s something...what, paranormal? You and Kelly were the biggest complainers about the ghost hunters here, now you’re both nuts. If you want to go play with Kelly, go on. I’m fine.”
“I’d feel a lot better if you just went with me,” he replied, clasping his hands together before his stomach. “We don’t even need to go for very long. Maybe we can bring something back to eat for dinner.”
She shook her head, and her cheeks burned red. “Damn it, Ryan! I’m not leaving her, okay? Just fucking go already!”
He leaned back against the counter, not used to her yelling at him like that. “Never mind, then.”
She let the broom fall to the floor, crossing her arms over her chest. “No, I said go. I don’t need you here right now. I’m trying to get things here back to normal. I’m tired of living out of your house and being with you constantly.”
His brows rose up and he frowned. “Wow, really? Sorry I’ve been so horrible to be around, Dani. If you’re just sick of me, then you could have started out with that and saved us both a lot of trouble.”
“Get the hell out,” she growled before turning and walking out of the kitchen. “You and Kelly are psychotic lately. Come back when you’ve got your shit together.”
Ryan remained where he was, feeling the gut-punch twisting up tighter in his stomach. He heard her run up the old wooden staircase to her room, the door slamming shortly thereafter. While he didn’t want to leave her alone with Madgie, she had just ordered him out of the house. He didn’t want to push his luck and lose her over this.
Several minutes ticked by as he tried to decide what to do. He wandered back into the living room, finding Madgie exactly where she’d been.
She paid him no attention, keeping her gaze fixed toward the television. Whether or not she had an opinion on what she certainly must have overheard in the kitchen wasn’t readily obvious.
Ryan bent down to get into her line of sight. She blinked and slowly focused on him, one of her eyebrows rising up.
“What?” she asked.
“Are you feeling all right?”
She sighed and blinked again. “I’m fine, Ryan. I’m with her about you and Kelly acting like crazies lately. I think you better get out for now before she gets angrier. We’ll be just fine by ourselves for a while.”
He wasn’t satisfied with that. “And you’re not mad at her anymore? You were pretty adamant about her not coming back here after she was with Kelly and me before. Hell, you wouldn’t even let Kelly near the house.”
“Well, I’m over that,” she said, followed with a grunt. “After Robert was here and whatever he did, if it has spread, it’s too late, isn’t it? If there even is something being passed around. The more I think about it, the more insane it all seems. I think you’d do well to go and get out for a while, anyway.”
Ryan stood back up straight again. That was the most she’d said since that morning, and it certainly sounded like something the regular Madgie would say.
“All right. I’m going to go help my dad work on something for a little while. I’ll come back and bring dinner, okay? Spare you guys the trouble of cooking something...unless she doesn’t end up wanting me to come back,” he said, turning to look toward the staircase.
“Well, that’s between you and her,” Madgie replied, shifting in her chair, the frame of it creaking.
“Yeah.” With that, he grabbed his coat from the rack near the door. As he tugged it on, he looked over the living room one more time. Madgie was again focused on the television, and there was no sign of Dani at the top of the stairs.
He pulled his inhaler out of his pocket and took a hit off it before opening the door and stepping out into the cold. Tension remained in his chest, though he didn’t know if it was from his asthma or his heartache. Ending up in the hospital was the last thing he needed, however.
Chapter
49
As Henry and Kelly pulled off the highway and back into the worksite, Ryan’s little white car became visible next to the loader. He was behind the wheel with it idling, having arrived a while before.
Kelly and Henry got out of the truck and walked over, Ryan meeting them about halfway.
Henry could immediately tell something was wrong with his son, arms crossing over his chest. “Are you all right? Seeing Robert this morning mess you up?”
Ryan gave a lax shrug, glancing at Kelly. “It wasn’t one of the better times I’ve had in my life, to be fair. Dani’s pissed at me, though. Guess she’s tired of me being around too much, so here I am.”
“She’s probably just freaked out, too,” Henry said, shaking his head. “Give her a little while, and she’ll cool off. She’s been through a lot lately, too.”
“Yeah,” Ryan replied, looking at Kelly again. Going into it any further with his father wasn’t comfortable.
Kelly offered him a pained smile, knowing just how attached to Dani Ryan was. “It’ll be okay. She’s been stressed. Hell, she hit me this morning, remember?”
“Oh, yeah. How’s your head?” Ryan followed his question with a snorting laugh.
He shrugged. “Meh, I’ll live. It’s not bothering me other than being a little itchy.”
Henry switched his gaze between the two boys and huffed. “Anyway, let’s get this wiring harness done, so we can say we accomplished something today. Ryan, you’re the only one of us skinny enough to reach between the engine and firewall, anyway. There’s a grungy pair of overalls and an old coat behind the seat in the truck if you don’t want to get your clothes all greasy.”
“Good idea. I’m not really dressed for this,” Ryan replied, going past them toward the truck.
Henry turned to Kelly. “He’s real upset.”
Kelly nodded. “Looks like it. I hope they work it out.”
Ryan struggled to get the overalls on without removing his shoes, but he managed. With the old coat on to complete the outfit, he came back over toward them.
“All right, let’s get to it,” Ryan said. “Getting hurt working on this will take my mind off of things for a while.”
“You can’t work on shit without bleeding all over,” Henry replied with a chuckle. “Kel and I have already made our blood offerings to the diesel gods.”
Fifteen minutes later, they had Ryan stuffed into the engine compartment as they worked to get the harness routed. Henry had wandered back to the truck to look at the schematic on his laptop, leaving Kelly and Ryan to it.
They fussed with a few more connectors before opting to wait for Henry’s further guidance. Ryan remained where he was, Kelly leaning against a tire beside him.
“So, it got nasty, huh?” Kelly asked.
Ryan shoved his hands into his pockets, trying to get feeling back into them. “She told me to get the fuck out. I didn’t want to leave her with Madgie at all, and I’m still pretty freaked out about it, but...”
“Yeah, I hear you. Was Madgie still acting weird?” he asked.
Ryan shrugged. “Well, she finally managed to string more than three words together for me before I left. I don’t know, she wasn’t really doing anything creepy, just sitting and watching TV. Still...”
“Look, we’ll get this wrapped up before it’s too late, and I can go with you back over there,” Kelly replied. “I know Dani gets pissed easy sometimes, but she generally gets over it again just as fast.”
“She does, but she’s never come after me like that,” Ryan said. “The only comforting thing about any of it is if Madgie did go after her, Dani should be able to outrun her at just a brisk walk.”
Kelly snorted. “Even I could outrun Madgie.”
Ryan nodded as a brief silence fell over them. He looked up at the overcast sky as a few snowflakes fluttered down. “Is it really going to do this again?”
“Weather said there might be a few flurries when I last heard.” Kelly stepped away from the loader and looked around the cowling, seeing Henry still sitting in the driver seat of the pickup with his computer. “Is he looking at porn or seeing where this damn harness ends up?”
“Don’t talk about porn and my dad in the same sentence,” Ryan replied. “Shit, help me out of here. My legs are falling asleep.”
Kelly offered Ryan his hand. Ryan took a hold of it and stepped onto a frame rail of the loader. There was ice on the rail, however, and his foot slipped. A long threaded bolt sticking out from a clamp caught him in the side, tearing through his coat, coveralls, and shirt beneath.
Kelly did his best to catch him, but both of them were sent reeling back into the snow beside the machine. Luckily, it was enough to help break their fall, but having Ryan land on him wasn’t enjoyable.
“What in the hell are the two of you doing?” Henry shouted, on his way back from the pickup.
Ryan struggled up, his ankle aching from his slip. He hobbled around in a small circle, hissing between his teeth. He clamped a hand over the spot the bolt had cut him.
Kelly got up as well, though he’d fared better than his friend. “You all right?”
Ryan didn’t immediately answer, going over and leaning against one of the loader’s tires. He leaned forward with his hands on his knees, struggling to breathe in the cold air.
Kelly was the first to hear the telltale wheezes. “Where’s your inhaler?”
Ryan waved a hand back toward the pickup. “In the coat I had on when we got here.”
Henry, closer to the truck than the others, raised his hands and spun before running back to it. He returned within moments, passing Ryan’s inhaler over.
He took two quick hits from it before sliding down to sit in the snow. He shoved the inhaler in a pocket of the coat he wore before pulling up the leg of his coveralls and jeans to look at his right ankle.
Henry and Kelly knelt before him. There was already a good swath of purple across the side of his ankle from where it had whacked something after his slip.
“Is it broken?” Henry asked.
“No, just smacked the crap out of it,” Ryan said, sitting back against the tire. “Kelly, you okay?”
He laughed and stood up. “Yeah, you jabbed me in the ribs pretty good with your pointy-ass elbows, but I’ll survive.”
“Well, you are comfy to land on,” Ryan laughed back, though it quickly faded as the pain in his leg and side cut through his levity. “I think maybe we should call it a day. Snow’s getting worse.”
Henry nodded and got up, offering Ryan a hand and hoisting him to his feet. Ryan unzipped the front of the coveralls and lifted his shirt beneath, revealing the already bruising track the bolt had left in his skin. Though it had scraped through the upper layers of his skin, it wasn’t bleeding yet. “That bitch stings...”
Kelly looked and frowned. “Ouch.”
“All right, I think you’ll probably live. Let’s close this up. We can get back to it tomorrow,” Henry said, turning away to lower the cowl back over the engine. “I know you probably want to get back to Dani to patch things up, but your mom needs to look at your ankle there. You know she’ll freak out if we don’t let her check it out before you run off.”
“I want a shower in a bathroom that doesn’t smell like fancy old lady soaps,” Ryan replied, starting to hobble toward the car.
Kelly moved to his side and got an arm around his waist to help him along. “You gonna be able to drive the car like this?”
Henry took the initiative to answer for him. “Kelly, you drive him in the car to the house. I’ll follow in the pickup.”
Ryan didn’t protest, knowing it would hurt to drive under the circumstances. He hobbled along at Kelly’s side before breaking away to get into the passenger seat.
Chapter
50
The drive to the McKessels’ house was made in silence. Kelly didn’t really know what to say, and Ryan wasn’t in the mood to talk.
When they arrived, Kelly got out and helped Ryan up. Though Ryan still hurt, it wasn’t as bad as it had been at the worksite. He was able to walk to the front door under his own power.
Ryan’s mom quickly dragged him to the couch and ordered her son to sit. As she checked his injury out, Kelly wandered into the kitchen to help himself to a soda from the fridge.
Henry leaned against the counter, the coffee pot running behind him. “Wait a few minutes, and you can have something a little better than soda to warm you up.”
Kelly looked at the can in his hand before turning around and putting it back in the fridge. “Yeah, that does seem like a better idea.”
“You got plans tonight?” Henry asked, compelled to fill the silence.
“I don’t know. I suppose Ryan will head over to patch things up with Dani. If it wasn’t so damned cold outside, I’d probably try to work on my car to get it running,” Kelly replied, looking past Henry out the window to see it snowing. “I’ve mooched rides for too long.”
“How long has that thing been sitting in your garage?” he asked.
“Seven months?” Kelly huffed. “It wasn’t so bad to walk to the feed store all summer long, God knows I need the exercise, but now that this crap has started, I’m not real happy with myself for putting it off. I’m thinking about getting a new car after the payoff from this job, to be honest.”
>
Henry glanced back over his shoulder at the vehicles in the driveway. “Look, take the beater minivan. I don’t mind if you use it until your car gets fixed or you replace it. I know you’ve been using Ryan’s car a lot, but no one drives that crappy Astro anymore. It’s yours if you want it.”
Kelly went closer to the window, seeing the thirty-year-old minivan sitting on the edge of the driveway. With its faded blue paint and a massive dent in the sliding door, it certainly wasn’t going to impress anyone, but he really had no one to impress.
“You know what? I’d really appreciate that. I feel like a pain in the ass having to call for rides whenever I need to go further than just a few blocks,” he said. “I’ll pay the insurance on it and everything.”
“Don’t worry about that. Consider it a perk of working for me.” Henry pushed away from the counter and went to the small rack of keys near the door to the garage. He pulled down a set and turned around to toss them at Kelly. “Come with me, we probably need to hook the battery charger to it. Hasn’t been fired up in months, but maybe we’ll get lucky.”
Not long after, the van sat idling in the driveway to warm up after its long dormancy. Kelly and Henry had returned to the kitchen and stood with their cups of coffee. Ryan hobbled in, his mother right behind him.
“Well, I don’t think it’s broken,” Clara announced. “I already called Dr. Stevens, and he agreed.”
“I just twisted it,” Ryan mumbled, done with being doted over.
“Good. Hopefully, you’ll be ready to get back to work by the time the machines are all up and running again,” Henry said. “I’m giving Kelly the van to use, so you’re off the hook for giving him rides if you’re too crippled to do so.”
“I’m fine.” Ryan helped himself to a cup of coffee. “Kel, you know chicks like vans, right?”
Kelly snorted. “Oh, I’m totally going to get some.”
“You should just let him keep it,” Clara said. “I’ve wanted that ugly thing out of the driveway for years.”
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