by John Riley
Bill Hines reeked of sump oil, finally cracking that heap of shit into life, squeezing the throttle tight to keep his dirt bike firing. A throaty goddamn racket screamed from the exhaust pipe ripping into Kate Brannon’s reverie.
She was somewhere else far beyond her reflection in the hallway mirror. She had to go, still holding off, but she had to go.
Bill wiping his hands, kinda wondering, as some did around the garage site facing Kate’s place, wondering about her.
She’d moved in back-end a couple of months ago. Looked a hard bitch to him, like the ex.
Then there was Jess Conway, haunted and kept saying, like he could know, he was soft in the head, anyway, saying he’d seen things. Heard her child had been killed.
Whatever, she’d kept her distance from them, flinty, taken to riling folk up when others only trying to help in that neighbourly way. He crouched down reckoning on checking over the bike idling away sweetly and watching Kate through it.
Just then something heavy thrown into her pickup, enough to catch him off guard. Reckoned it was a post hammer and the clatter following might have been stakes. He waited, saw her climb into the white Chevy; crank it up first time then a gear crunched. She set off kicking up a dust cloud and heading out for some place that kept her focus forefront of her mind and not on some dirt bike rider stirring up a racket.
