Feral Read Online Free Page B

bad coffee.   He hadn’t showered in two days; he felt like crap, looked worse, and his smell was wilting.   Outside, the morning air had abandoned its comfortable chill.   It was oppressive, heavy, so laden with moisture you could almost drink it.   By the time he made it to his car he was sweating.
    One hundred and fifty miles to go.
    On the highway again, Gordon let himself zone out.   He saw nothing but the blacktop.   Unaware, he began to rub at the long scar that ran from the top of his right cheekbone to his jaw.   He saw himself doing it in the rearview mirror and forced his hand back to the wheel.   It was an old scar, but deep—a jagged ashen line that roughened his profile, adding more years to his face than the three days of stubble he wore.   A woman he had dated many years ago said that the scar was sexy, that it made him look like a scrapper.   He had turned down her invitation to take her home that night, and had not called her again.
    Gordon was all but blind to the world outside his own head, his thoughts centered on a daughter he hadn’t seen in six years, and despite all his best efforts, would probably never see again.
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    A mber had left him six years ago and taken his baby, his Charity, with her.
    He had been hosting a masked Halloween party for his father, who was fighting his last round in a nasty game called heart disease.   Despite the old man’s growing frailty and the certainty that that year’s ball would be his last, or maybe because of that, he insisted on making it his biggest ever.
    Each year, his father’s Halloween parties were grander than the last, and surprisingly festive considering the caliber of snobs and blue bloods that made up the guest list.   Each year the alcohol flowed, fine and expensive food was eaten, and a darkly festive mood was maintained.
    Amber, his wife of five years by then, stayed home sick, a touch of whatever bug had been going around, she had said.   She had canceled the baby-sitter so she could stay home with Charity.   When he left she was wrapped in a wool quilt on the sofa, reading a book about feminism in the nineties with their daughter dozing beside her.   On his return early the next morning they were both gone.
    As it turned out she had been sick—sick of his snobbish family, sick of his old money (though not enough that she hadn’t taken a good bit of it with her), and sick of his pretentious friends.   Most of all, she was sick of him.
    At first he was shocked, theirs had been a pleasant arrangement, stable and beneficial, and they had made a beautiful couple.   She was poor, with a truant father and a worthless lush of a mother, but she was smart, ambitious, and stunningly gorgeous.   He was young, educated, well-bred, with above-average looks, and he was rich.
    She should have been content , he had thought bitterly.   She had it all, anything she could have wanted out of life .   All she had to do was keep playing the part.
    She should have been content .
    Then he understood.   He had been an idiot, a selfish, pretentious idiot.   She would never be content as his trophy wife, and though he had always been faithful and had always assured her of her equality in the marriage, in his family, and in his life, that is what she was.   The fact that he had to reassure her of those things proved that they were a lie.   There was a dignity in her contrary to her humble background that would never allow that.
    After he was finished feeling foolish, he felt sad.   She may have been a showpiece, barely more than a juicy piece of well-mannered eye candy, but he missed her.
    And he missed Charity.
    It was clear she didn’t plan to come back, so he hired the best private investigator he could find to track her down.   He would never be able to get her back, he knew that like he knew the earth was round and the sky was blue, but he would damn well have