Unleashed Read Online Free Page B

as the ocean. She almost ran back up the stairs.
    It’s okay. It’s normal .
    “Normal” was her new most hated word.
    She edged along the wall, trying not to see the animal heads, and found the entrance to the kitchen. She flicked on the overhead light, revealing a run-down, but clean-looking, kitchen. The dark green paint on a row of cabinets was peeling away, and the countertops were an ugly-white speckled Formica. The front of his ancient white refrigerator was bare except for a calendar with a wildlife scene and writing in just one square. That day. Katelyn was all it said.
    She was thirsty and opened the fridge, looking for a water pitcher or water bottles. There was very little inside except for a six-pack of beer, an open loaf of white bread, and a small bundle wrapped in butcher paper. Blood was seeping through the paper.
    “Gross,” she muttered, and slammed the door. She took a few steps backward, then ran her hand through her hair and looked around for a wall phone. Finding nothing, she started opening drawers. Notepads and pens from realtors, a package of rubber bands, utensils. A dog leash.
    She picked up the leash and vaguely remembered a dog from her visit there as a kid. Then she heard a light scratching on the back door, which was made of wood. Maybe it was the dog.
    With the leash in her hand, she cracked open the door. The kitchen light spilled onto a wide wooden porch that wrapped around the back of the house. Moonlight cast silver spangles on huge maples with dripping branches. The smells of wet earth and wood smoke, so different from the ocean, filled the air as she walked three steps off the porch, onto flat rocks arranged in a path—stepping stones.
    The broad green limbs of the tree directly in front of her rustled. Cocking her head, she toyed with the leash but stayed where she was.
    “Doggie?” she called softly.
    The back door slammed open against the wall, and she nearly leaped out of her skin. Whirling around, she saw her grandfather, a rifle at his side. Her eyes widened and she stumbled backward, toward the tree.
    “Katelyn!” he shouted. “Get in here now!”
    She lifted her chin and showed him the leash. “I was just looking for your dog—”
    “I don’t have a dog.” He looked past her to the trees. “Anymore.”
    “Hello?” a male voice called from the front of the house. “Is this a bad time?”
    Katelyn jumped, startled. Then she heaved a sigh of frustration. She didn’t want to have to be social. All she wanted was a drink of water and a working phone.
    “We have company,” he said. Then, more softly, “Please. Come inside. It’s not safe out here.”
    Not safe? Two feet from the house, and him with a gun? It frightened her to know there were loaded weapons in his house.
    “Grandfather, Grandpa,” she said, trying out names to call him. “I don’t want company. I want to call my best friend. Do you have a phone?”
    “Hello?” the voice called again. “Dr. McBride?”
    “Be right there,” her grandfather replied in a loud voice.
    She stepped up onto the porch and he relaxed slightly.
    “When you were little, you called me Extra Daddy.” Her grandfather smiled very faintly. “You didn’t understand what a grandfather was. So you thought I was an extra daddy. Actually, you pronounced it ‘Eee-di-di.’ ”
    She didn’t remember that. “I’ll call you Ed,” she announced, deciding that the abbreviation for Extra Daddy was about what she could handle.
    “Yes, ma’am.” He tugged on an imaginary hat. “Now, Arkansas is the South, and we got a thing called Southern hospitality. And we have a guest.”
    She huffed. “So if I say hi, then can I call Kimi?”
    “Then you can call Kimi.”
    They walked back into the kitchen, where she wiped the soles of her boots on a faded blue mat that had seen better days. She quickly shut and locked the door. Then she walked with her grandfather into the living room. The front door was open, but the porch