Read Blind Spot for Free Online

was so excited to show me what he’d caught. They found the fish on ice in the trunk.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    “The Lord gives and he takes away. It’s all for a purpose. But that doesn’t make it easier late at nightor when you read something and want to tell your husband about it and you realize he’s not there.”
    Tim just stared at the road.
    “What about you? You have a relationship with him?”
    “I didn’t know your husband.”
    “No, I meant the Lord.”
    Tim turned and looked out the passenger window. “God’s never had much time for me, and I guess I returned the favor.”
    They came to a red light, and Mrs. Rubiquoy looked left to watch the traffic. Her purse was open beside her, and Tim noticed a $100 bill sticking halfway out.
    “Now you keep an eye out for that storage place because it has to be up here somewhere.”
    They drove another mile before Tim spotted it on the right.
    She pulled over and let him out. “The Lord knew you needed a ride, didn’t he?”
    “Yes, ma’am, I guess he did. And I thank you for your kindness. Now look after that antifreeze plug real soon.” Tim got out but leaned back in before he shut the door. The woman had a concerned look on her face. “Everything all right, ma’am?”
    She looked at her purse, then at him. “Let me give you some money to help you get back home.”
    “No way.” He locked the door and smiled. “I’ll be fine. You and the Lord just get home safe, okay?”

Chapter 6
The Notebook
    A MAN WHO LOOKED LIKE a grizzly bear opened the front gate and ushered Tim past barking dogs to a six-story building. It had broken windows and wooden floors and smelled like somebody’s dirty laundry. Surrounding it were smaller buildings that resembled garages.
    The man looked Tim up and down. “You don’t look old enough to have a locker here. You gotta be at least 18.”
    “It’s my dad’s stuff. He passed last October, and I haven’t been able to get here.”
    The man ran a hand through his graying mane and paused. “Your locker’s on the fourth floor, all the way to the back.”
    Tim took the freight elevator to the fourth floor and walked by rows of what looked like locked cages packed floor toceiling with boxes. A few doors were draped with covers, but most he could see in. Some had lawn mowers, gardening tools, and even motorcycles. Bikes hung from the ceiling, tool chests were shoved to the back, and a few had old car parts in them.
    The hall was dark with only a few lights strung here and there. The bare bulbs made the whole place look eerie, as though there were white puddles of light every few yards.
    He found his father’s number and stared through the holes. While other lockers were packed full, there was only a bed frame, a mattress, and a few boxes here. He opened the lock and walked inside, the floor creaking. He pulled the mattress out, placed it near a puddle of light, and sat.
    The first box clattered as he dumped old car parts and gadgets onto the floor. A generator. A side mirror. Nuts and bolts. Tire gauge. An old drill and a box of bits. Stuff his dad just couldn’t bring himself to trash and Tyson evidently didn’t want.
    When he’d scooped all the debris up and put the pile back in the box, he moved on to the second, which was filled with papers and file folders. Numbers on a hospital bill. Tim’s birth certificate along with his footprints. Could my feet have ever been that little? He poked through a pile of newspaper clippings—obituaries with faded pictures, lists of the dead and theirfamilies. People who had been gone so long that no one missed them anymore.
    Tim took out a coffee-stained marriage license. His parents’ names stared back at him. As if they’d always been together. As if nothing had happened between the time they signed this and now. He looked over the license, their names, the seal of the State of Florida, and the name of the pastor who had married them. It listed his father’s full name, Martin