Thomas Prescott Superpack Read Online Free Page B

teeth. With him on the railing, I was only a couple inches taller than him and before I knew it, the guy was wrapped around my neck like a koala.
    From previous conversations, I knew Kellon was seven, had a bit of a lisp, and boats were his favorite thing in the, “Wool-wide-wuld.”
    I let him go to work and watched in silence as he jimmied the sails and expertly navigated the boat to my designated slip. It was common knowledge slot 23B belonged to Thomas Prescott, aka, Captain Dipshit.
    The marina manager was Kellon’s dad, and instead of giving him a Franklin, he gave him a Dr. Pepper. What a lame-o. Plus, the kid needed Ritalin, not caffeine.
    I took out my wallet to pay him, but unless Kellon took plastic, he was shit out of luck.
    I hauled the cooler and chair out of the boat and Kellon insisted on carrying the cooler to the car for me. When everything was tucked away in the trunk of my Range Rover I asked him, “What’s your second favorite thing in the whole wide world?”
    He stared at the ground deep in thought, then brown eyes bulging, yelled, “kwytes.”
    Then a kite it was.
     
    I screeched out of the dirt parking lot and onto a long expanse of leaf-checkered road: Maine once again impressing me with the wide spectrum of colors at its disposal.
    I’d grown up near the Puget Sound, which is beautiful in its own right, but couldn’t compete with the majesty of Maine. The road in front of me wrapped around a jutting mountain before straightening out and I floored the gas, putting all 320 of the Range Rover’s horses to work.
    There was a front coming in over the Atlantic and the ocean and sky were beginning to mesh of gray. I squealed around an inlet and thanked God I was off the water. If I were inept when the conditions were perfect, I could only imagine how quickly I would find a way to die if the waves reached two feet. Speaking of the waves, they were beginning to pick up in their intensity, smashing against the rock banks, turning frothy milk white, then vanishing between the cracks.
    I grabbed my cell phone from the glove compartment and the display screen showed I had three new messages. The first message was from my sister’s boyfriend, Conner, reminding me of our rowing engagement the following morning. The second was Lacy relaying she wasn’t, “Hip to cooking,” and for me to pick up  on the way home. The final message blindsided me and I slammed on the brakes, the Range Rover fishtailing twice before coming to rest courtesy of Maine’s many miles of coastal guardrail.
    I replayed the message, it was Caitlin. She was wondering how I was doing and wanted to get together for dinner. I hadn’t talked to Caitlin in over a month. I wonder what had prompted the call. Possibly the anniversary of the first murder. Perhaps my sitting in my car outside her house last night for close to five hours. It could be any number of things.
    Unable to banish Caitlin’s message from thought, I nearly missed the exit for the town of Belfast. I navigated through the small coastal town and saw the bustling of September coming to an end. People were packing up for the winter and businesses were liquidating merchandise. The 25% OFF signs of a week ago had been swapped out for 50% OFF, and in another week those would be replaced with, YOU NAME THE PRICE.
    I stopped at an Italian restaurant called Angelini’s and read the sign in the window: Last day October 10th, see you in May. (Maine literally closed down from mid-October to late May. Technically speaking the population of Maine plummeted from 537 to somewhere around 300.)
    I ordered two meatball sandwiches from Angelina and inquired if there were any bookstores nearby. He directed me to a store in the same complex and said he could have two fresh sandwiches ready for me in about ten minutes if I wanted to check out the store.
    The Bookrack was owned by a fifty-something gal named Margery. Margery had coke bottle lenses held within light pink frames and her