The Collector Book One: Mana Leak Read Online Free Page B

in, fighting the urge to peek around the doorframe first, acting as natural as possible. Something had pissed him off.
    No need to rile him further.
    She discovered him hunched over the sink, shoulders trembling. Beside him, the kettle boiled, and coffee granules lay in and around a large mug. Frank stared out the window at the garden beyond.
    Anne feared to ask him. His fuse had been lit…but she needed to know.
    “Frank?” She cleared her sandy throat. “What’s the matter? What’s happened?”
    He snarled at his own reflection. Anne stepped back.
    “That place. The kids, the…” His fists clenched. “…the staff! Nothing is going my way. Nothing.”
    “Sit down, we can talk about it.”
    “You giving me orders now?”
    He spun away from the sink and faced her. His eyes were pink and swollen.
    “Talking! Everyone today wants to talk. That fat prick Quackenbush had plenty to say earlier. They want me out, Anne, they want me out!”
    He gripped the back of a dining chair, appearing weakened, as if revealing this shame had sapped his strength.
    “Did th-they fire you?”
    He shook his head.
    “Well then,” said Anne. “It’s not that bad. If they really wanted you out, they’d have fired you, wouldn’t they?”
    His fingers clamped tighter on the back of the chair, knuckles paling.
    “Are you so stupid?” he spat. “They’re wearing me down. They want me to quit, the final insult.”
    He shoved the chair away, and it hit the dining table with a heavy thud. Anne worried about what the kids could hear.
    Frank returned to the window. The kettle had only just clicked off. He picked it up and poured the steaming water into the mug.
    “Frank, please. You need to calm down…”
    “Stop telling me what to do!”
    Anne froze, recognising the danger zone of Frank’s temper, the place where fists did the talking.
    “Okay, just tell me what happened,” she said quietly.
    He closed his eyes and billowed out a lungful of air through his nostrils.
    “Quackenbush wants me to take some time off. Thinks I’m losing it, basically.”
    “He said that?”
    “I can read between the lines, Anne.”
    He lifted the mug to his lips and swigged of the hot coffee.
    “Maybe he’s right, dear,” said Anne. “You have been under a lot of pressure recently and you could spend more time with the kids and-”
    The mug hurtled through the air towards her. She dove to one side, and it hit the wall and smashed. The coffee exploded onto the cream wall, dyeing it a light brown.
    “Don’t you dare side with them,” Frank screamed. “Don’t you fucking dare!”
    Anne’s tears pooled along her eyelids. The kids wailed upstairs.
    Frank barged past, pushing her out of his way. Her back thumped the wall beside the coffee stain.
    “Where are you going?” she asked, her voice quivering.
    Not upstairs, please, not upstairs.
    “Out.”
    “But where?”
    “Out!”
    He stomped from the kitchen and seconds later, the front door smashed open again.
    She followed him outside. The Dean twins still sat on the wall across the road, both smoking and gulping from cans of lager.
    “You go, Frank,” shouted one.
    “Give the bitch a slap from me,” called the other.
    Anne ignored them and Frank didn’t seem to acknowledge their presence. He struggled with shaking hands to open the car door. Eventually the key found the small hole and slid home. He opened the door, climbed inside and started the engine. With a squeal of the tyres, he reversed off the short driveway and onto the tarmac of Penny Crescent.
    The Dean twins whooped and cheered, saluting Frank with raised cans.
    With another horse-powered growl, Frank sped off, leaving Anne shaking in the doorway to watch him go.

The McGuires
    1.
    “…and police are looking into the cause of death. Now the weather, and it’s been a gorgeous day today with plenty of sunshine, temperatures in the eighteens and nineteens, and it looks like we can expect the same tomorrow. There’s been a