Damage Read Online Free Page A

on the table behind them. "Exactly how much have the two you had to drink while the rest of us were hard at work?"
    "Nowhere near enough," Correen said. She stood and stretched to kiss her husband on the cheek. "Now, you owe me an anniversary dinner."
    Ray waved them off, Correen barefoot with her red flats in her hand, Evan stick-straight and just as picture perfect as when he had entered the tent. They made a handsome couple.
    The band had long since packed up and gone. Ray finished his beer as servers gathered soiled linens and divided the remaining food and table centerpieces amongst themselves. Watching half empty trays of jumbo shrimp, crab cakes and grilled asparagus being squirreled away by the hired help reminded Ray he was hungry. He checked his cell phone. It was almost five o'clock. If he hustled, he stood a good chance of meeting up with a few of his coworkers who frequented a pub not far from his apartment.
    The idea of the Sunday get-together at the pub didn't usually appeal to Ray. Not only did he see enough of the people from the Citizen-Gazette during working hours, he never seemed to have the same quantity of expendable income as everyone else. A ten dollar entree and a couple of three dollar beers tonight at The Bump & Run Pub would mean bagged peanut butter lunches for the next two days. This evening, however, either because the one beer already in his veins wanted company, or because of his desire to continue the kind of friendly banter he had shared with Correen Wallace, he decided a night at the pub was worth the extravagance.
    The peeling paint on the cinderblock building was complimented nicely by the gravel parking lot that hadn't seen new stone in at least a decade. Wide ruts of bare dirt and clay matched the mottled brown color of Ray's aging car. He bounced it through the lot to an open area where he parked next to the only car he recognized, a pristine yellow Volkswagen Beetle.
    Unlike many of the golf-themed restaurants and shops that served tourists along the streets of Glen Meadows, The Bump & Run Pub was an unsightly dive. The menu listed basic bar fare and the tables were coated with years of grease. On bad days, the pungent odor of unchanged mop water permeated the pub. Those were the days Ray would refuse to stay, regardless if it meant eating alone elsewhere while the rest of the Citizen-Gazette crew happily risked food poisoning.
    He spotted Becky across the dim interior once his eyes adjusted. He passed the only other guests, a pierced and tattooed couple sharing nachos, on his way to the bar.
    "What's up, boss?" he asked, taking a seat beside her and looking around the pub. "Where is everybody?"
    A mass of kinky, light brown hair turned to reveal the pale moon-face of Becky Hussey, managing editor of the Citizen-Gazette and Ray's immediate supervisor.  
    "It's about time one of you showed up," she griped. Her head tilted slightly and a question showed in her narrow brown eyes. "Aren't you supposed to be covering the groundbreaking at Lonesome Pines?"
    "Done," he said. "I just came from there."
    "How was the food?" Becky asked the way someone who hasn't eaten in three days might ask.
    "Better than usual," he answered. "But not as good as it should have been. Way too many smoked items. Apparently, they're expecting a wave of Scandinavian golfing millionaires to settle the neighborhood. So, what happened to the rest of the gang?"
    Becky shrugged her shoulders and held up her hands, letting them drop noisily back down on the bar. From beneath her stool came the muffled rhythm of a techno-pop tune. She picked up her purse and found the phone in time to answer it. The conversation was brief, and Becky's participation curt. She threw the phone back in the purse and dropped it to the floor.
    "Well?" Ray asked.
    "That was Charlie," she said.
    "The non-boyfriend boyfriend?"
    "Watch it," Becky warned. Clearly, she was in no mood for good-natured ribbing. "Everyone's crapping out. Toni's parents