Man of Wax Read Online Free

myself.  
    “That’s strange,” I murmured. I held my right hand out in front of me. Nope, it was just there in front of my face, completely still.  
    The gas gauge told me I had three quarters of a tank left. The odometer read close to eighty-seven thousand miles. The radio was turned off. My eyes still kept darting at the glove compartment.  
    After about a minute or two, when I was certain the car wasn’t teasing me, I backed up and started down the drive toward the highway. I glanced only once at the manager’s office. For some reason I expected to see a face watching me from one of the windows, the face of a man who may or may not be Kevin, but there was nobody there. Traffic continued toward me, headed south, and I waited a minute before there was a break large enough for me to pull out.

    •     •     •

    T HOUGH I WAS within just a few miles of the coast, it was another fifteen miles or so before I passed through a place called Crescent City and the highway got close enough and I saw past the houses and trees and tall grass. There it was, the Pacific Ocean, stretching toward the horizon. I’d never seen it before, having always been satisfied with the Atlantic. It really looked no different. Jen had been out to California many times before, back when she was younger and her life was different. Once she married me everything changed for her; she went from being unbelievably rich to being moderately poor. No more glitzy and exotic vacation spots where everyone spoke another language. No more staying in famous and elegant hotels where the help knew your name and smiled and nodded and wished you a good day. No more flying first class, or even coach. For our honeymoon we hadn’t even gone to Florida, where most middle-income couples go. Instead we’d gone to Virginia Beach, and that was only because it was in reasonable driving distance and just within our budget. Thinking of it I remembered our wedding night, while we lay together in our hotel room, and I had broken down, felt like a complete asshole and cried because I couldn’t give her everything she’d had before, and she had held me and told me everything was fine, that she loved me and didn’t care if I had no money at all.  
    “If you could only see me now, Jen,” I whispered, not even realizing it until a few seconds later and feeling quite ridiculous. Then I thought: The only money I have now is five hundred bucks. That and —  
    And again my eyes darted to the glove compartment. I decided enough was enough. Keeping my left hand on the wheel, I leaned over and—now realizing I was trembling—opened it.

 
     
     
    7

    I’d been driving for close to an hour and a half when I decided to stop for food. My stomach had been growling ever since I passed through Redwood National Park. I’d considered pulling off the highway to find something then but kept remembering what Simon had told me, how I had a deadline. And so I continued driving, ignoring the Pacific even when it was nearly touching me. I kept my eyes forward, on the cars in front of me, on the cars passing me. I maintained my speed at an even sixty. The Dodge had no cruise control, and my legs were starting to cramp. I kept my mind on Jen and Casey, on the prospect of seeing them again. It was the only thing that kept me going, the only thing that helped me to forget the revolver in the glove compartment ... that was until, every five minutes or so, my eyes would dart once more to my right and I would remember all over again.  
    My mind tried to process everything that was happening to me, formulate some kind of reasonable explanation. But it was impossible. There were no numbers in the phone, no way for me to contact Simon if and when I needed to.  
    And so I drove.  
    And drove.  
    And drove some more, until finally my stomach’s steady growl became a roar. This was when I spotted a sign for Arcata Airport, then a few moments later saw a plane making its descent from the