The Montauk Monster Read Online Free Page A

fun. I wouldn’t want to take that away from you.”
    What a load of crap. He just wanted to get in Adriana’s pants before he was too far away to try.
    Or had he meant what he said and the rumor about him and Adriana was a lie?
    The wondering had Kelly in a slow burn all day. Finally, when her parents went to bed at eleven, she had to find out. She’d never snuck out before and her heart was in her throat from the moment she crept out of her room all the way until the Prius was several blocks from the house.
    When she got to the party, things were in full swing. Kids from three different schools packed into Wendy’s house in East Hampton. Her living room was a haze of hookah smoke. Red Solo cups littered every surface in the house. There must have been over two hundred people there. Wendy’s parents had flown out to L.A. the day before. Her father was a movie producer and her mother was an actress, at least until the latest face-lift hadn’t gone so well and the casting calls dried up. Parental jaunts to Hollywood were always cause for celebration. And the celebrations were always slamming, each one more memorable than the last. Wendy would make one hell of an event planner when she graduated.
    After searching both floors of the house, interrupting several make-out sessions and one blow job in the master bathroom, she found Joey, alone, sitting in a lounge chair outside the pool house. His eyes lit up when he saw her. She couldn’t get into his arms fast enough.
    They talked for hours, with a lot of apologizing from his side. He’d had a change of mind the day after he broke things off, but he didn’t want to come crawling back and make her think he was just messing with her head.
    When she left, he promised to take her out for dinner the next day.
    In just a few hours, she’d gone from miserable, to scared, to angry, to blissful and back to scared. God, she was exhausted. All she wanted to do was slip into her pj’s and sleep until noon. But first, she had to get back in the house without making a noise.
    “You can do this,” she said, easing off the brake.
    It’s not like she snuck out to drink or get high or have sex. She hadn’t even taken a sip of beer. That wouldn’t matter if her parents caught her, if they even believed her.
    She drove to the edge of her long, down-sloping driveway, put the car in neutral and turned the engine off. Gravity pulled the car to the closed garage door. Without power, it was hard to turn the steering wheel but she managed to slip the Prius quietly into its proper place. The garage is where they kept her mother’s Navigator. The nicer car got the better space.
    Slowly closing the car door until it clicked shut, she bent to the side-view mirror to give herself a once-over, in case her mom and dad were waiting for her inside. The last thing she needed was to look like a wreck. They’d think she was trashed.
    Kelly pushed her blond hair behind her ears and straightened her blouse. She was worried that she was so tired her eyes would be bloodshot, but luckily, that wasn’t the case.
    “Okay, in the door, up the stairs and back to my room. Just three easy steps,” she said to her reflection.
    Retrieving her house keys from her purse, she walked on tiptoes to the front door. Kelly looked up. All of the windows were dark. That was a good sign.
    A deep, foreboding growl emanated from behind the bushes to her right.
    Startled, Kelly dropped the keys on the porch. She drew in a sharp breath, worried about what animal was an arm’s length from her and if the keys made enough noise to wake her parents.
    “Grrrrrrrrlllllll.”
    What the heck is that? Kelly thought. Sounds like a drowning dog.
    Keeping her eyes peeled to the bushes, she knelt down, scooping up the keys.
    The branches twittered as something moved.
    Rabies! Didn’t animals foam at the mouth when they had rabies? Maybe that’s why it sounds like that.
    Kelly’s heart trip-hammered.
    She had to get inside, fast, but