Read (2005) Wrapped in Rain for Free Online Page B

he picked up the tray and smelled each plate, making his taste buds excrete like a puppy with two peters. He held the tray at arm's length, walked to the toilet, methodically scraped the contents of each plate into the bowl, and assertively pushed down on the flush lever.

    The voices screamed with approval as the water swirled and disappeared. In an hour Vicki would saunter in, collect the tray, and saunter out. But even in all that sauntering, she would know. Thanks to the cameras, Vicki knew most everything, but he couldn't stop now. This train had no brakes. Mutt again looked at Clark's. The back porch was full, brown tilting Budweiser bottles sparkled like Christmas lights, servers carrying enormous trays holding eight to ten plates wedged themselves between picnic tables, and mounds of food covered every tabletop. In the water next to the dock swam a few hot-rod teenagers who had parked their Jet Skis just close enough for the eating public to admire and yet not touch, and a collage of skiing, pleasure, and fishing boats waited their turn to go up or down the funnel-necked boat ramp. Mutt knew that even after the sirens sounded, after Gibby had grabbed his syringe and the search teams had been dispatched, no one would suspect this, at least not immediately. He might have enough time.
    Quickly, he grabbed his fanny pack, walked down the hall to Gibby's office, and lifted the fly-tying vise off his desk. He also grabbed a small Ziplock bag full of hooks, spools of thread, and little pieces of hair and feathers. He quickly tied one red Clauser, laid it in the middle of Gibby's desk, and then stuffed both the vise and the bag in his fanny pack. He opened Gibby's top desk drawer, stole fifty dollars from the cash box, scribbled a note, pinned it to the lamp on his desktop, and walked back to his room. The note read, Gibby, I owe you fifty dollars, plus interest. M.
    If he was going on a trip, he would need something to occupy the voices, and they loved two things: chess and tying flies. He stuffed his chess set into his fanny pack next to the vise, along with seven bars of Zest, each sealed in its own airtight Ziploc bag. He lifted his bedroom window, took a last look at his room, and swung one leg out. Contractors had originally constructed the windows to set off a silent alarm at the security guard's desk when opened more than four inches. But Mutt had fixed that too about six years ago. He liked to sleep with it open at night. The smells, the sounds, the breeze-it all reminded him of home. He swung his left leg out the window and took a deep breath of air. The September sun was falling, and in an hour, an October moon would rise straight over Clark's back door.

    He put his foot down and cracked the base of an azalea bush, but he hadn't liked it since they planted it there last year. It made him itch just to look at it. And it attracted bees. So with a smile on his face, he stomped it a second time and hit the ground running. Halfway across the grassy back lawn, he stopped midstride as if stricken with rigor mortis and thrust his hand in his pocket. Had he forgotten it? He searched one pocket, digging his fingers into the fuzz packed into the bottom, and the worry grew. Both back pockets and the panic came knocking. He thrust his left hand into his left front pocket and broke out in a sweat.
    But there in the bottom, surrounded by dryer lint, his fingers found it: warm, smooth, and right where it had been since Miss Ella gave it to him following the first day of second grade. In the dark confines and security of his pocket, he ran his fingers across the front and traced his fingernail through the letters. Then the backside. It was smooth and oily from the years in his pocket. That settled, the fear subsided, and he started running again.

    Running was something he used to do a lot, but in the last few years he had had little practice. His first year at Spiraling Oaks, his walk had looked more like that of a soldier