No Man's Land Read Online Free Page A

down the corridor.
    Driver stood at the front of his cell
and watched Kehoe step through the security gate and join the other
prisoners on their way to breakfast, watched as the torrent of
prisoners instantly split in two, as every man sought to put as much
distance between himself and Kehoe as possible.
4

    The house was shrouded in shadows as
she unlocked the front door and stepped into the foyer. Melanie
Harris could hear the sound of the television floating from the den.
The long, tiled hall was illuminated only by the sudden surges of
electronic light as they bounced off the walls and ceiling. She took
off her shoes and started toward the back of the house. The cold
tiles massaged her feet as she walked.
    Brian was spread out over the
oversized Morris chair with a bowl of microwave popcorn resting in
his lap. She stood beside the chair for a moment, hoping he’d
acknowledge her presence or, better yet, scoot over a bit so they
could sit crammed together, hip to hip like they used to. Instead, he
kept his eyes glued to the TV.
    “Hey,” she said.
    “Hey,” he answered, without
taking his eyes from the screen.
    “Sorry about today.”
    “Yeah,” was all he said.
    She waited another moment, then
crossed in front of him and sat down on the couch at the far side of
the room. “How’d your day go?” she asked.
    “Same shit, different day.”
    The tension in the air was as
palpable as a breeze. She hesitated before she spoke, not wanting to
start the argument they’d so carefully been avoiding these past few
months.
    “Maybe we could make the beach next
week.”
    “I don’t care about the beach. I
can go to the beach anytime I want.”
    “I said I was sorry. What else do
you want?”
    His sudden burst of laughter was
without a trace of humor.
    “Since when does any of this have
to do with what I want?”
    “Something came up. I was busy.
What can I say?”
    “Don’t worry about it. You don’t
have to say anything.”
    She sighed. “Not tonight, huh? I’ve
had a long day.”
    “You’ve always had a long day.”
    Her voice rose. “What’s that
supposed to mean?”
    “Just what I said.” He sat up.
Lobbed the bowl of popcorn onto the coffee table, where it bounced
once before coming to rest. He threw his stiff arms out over the
sides of the chair like a baseball umpire calling the runner safe.
“That’s it,” he announced.
    “I’ve had enough.”
    “Enough of what?”
    “Of all of it. Of L.A. Of the
sponsor cocktail parties. Of the network parties. Of the whole damn
thing. I’m sick to death of all of it.”
    Her voice caught in her throat. “Of
me?”
    “I didn’t say that. Don’t put
words in my mouth.”
    She was on her feet now. “A lot of
people would love to be where we are.” She clamped her jaw shut
before she could blurt out something about being grateful for the
two-million-dollar house in the Hollywood Hills, the matching BMWs,
the maids, the gardener.
    “Yeah . . . well I guess I’m just
not one of them,” he said. Melanie took several deep breaths to
calm herself and sat back down.
    “I’d like to think I’ve done a
bit of good. You know . . . that maybe what happened to Samantha . .
.” The sound of the name stopped her for a moment. She couldn’t
recall the last time she’s said the word out loud.
    Brian waved her off, as if he knew
what was coming and couldn’t bear to hear it again. “That what
you tell yourself? That it’s about Samantha? What a joke.”
    “Oh really?”
    “Yeah, really. Who are we kidding
here? This isn’t about Samantha anymore. It’s about you.”
    “How can you say that?”
    “Because it’s true. Whatever you
could do for children you already did. These days it’s about
ratings. It’s about sweeps week. It’s about what night and what
time slot.” He waved a disgusted hand. “It’s about everything
in the world except what we came out here for in the first place.”
    To Melanie, their past lives in
Michigan were little more