Read My Soul to Take for Free Online

Carlos had called him from New York to ask the favor.
    “Son of a bitch, you know I must love you, right?” his cousin said. He looked sleepy, his gray-streaked ’fro standing as high as Cornel West’s.
    “Drive, okay?” Carlos said. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
    Mo squealed in front of a hotel shuttle, racing for the road that would take them to the freedom of the 105. As the car lurched, Carlos remembered an earlier variation of this drive, when Mo had been stranded during a shoot and called Carlos desperate for a rescue from Simi Valley. Police had been involved. Then, as now, no further explanation was required.
    “Sorry about Auntie Rosa, man,” Mo said, backhanding Carlos across the kneecap.
    Carlos only nodded, mute. For the past two weeks, his consolation had been the odd muting of his grief brought on by constant fear. Only self-survival mattered, in the end. When he rented a car a safe distance from LAX, he would have a four-hour drive to remember why he had flown to Puerto Rico. To remember the police and health departments.
    And what he had seen behind the glass.
    Carlos closed his eyes.
Mami
.
    “You look like shit, Carl-i-to,” Mo said, emphasizing his accent on his name. Mo was from the Harris side of the family, rooted in Florida, but Mami’s nickname for him was a family novelty that followed Carlos across cultures. “Like you’ve seen a ghost.”
    Carlos nodded. “Almost,” he muttered. The memory of his last glimpse of his mother’s face withered Carlos’s blood, shrinking him in Mo’s car seat.
    Carlos’s stomach gurgled, and he cradled his midsection like an expectant mother. He tried not to think about the stories linking the infection to stomachaches.
    “Pick up a li’l bug down there?” Mo said, glancing him over.
    There was only concern, not accusation or fear, in Mo’s voice. Poor Mo had no idea.
    “Nah, I’m just in a hurry to get home to Phee,” Carlos said. “I’m fine.”
    Carlos Harris prayed that he was right.
    Sarge had told Phoenix about Vietnam and how men looked after going to war, but she’d never seen it so clearly until she met her husband’s glassy eyes in their doorway.
    “Anybody come looking for me?” Carlos said, trying to sound casual while Marcus shrieked and climbed into his arms. Carlos wasn’t an actor, so his terror was plain to Phoenix. She just hoped Marcus couldn’t see it.
    “No one for you,” Phoenix said. “A promoter came by yesterday for me.”
    Relief softened some of the hard lines on Carlos’s face, but he had aged in Puerto Rico. She could see where his father’s crow’s-feet would grow soon.
    When Carlos closed the door, he locked both deadbolts and checked the security panel to make sure all the cameras were on. Six cameras monitored their property, and nothing was moving except the Kinseys’ pickup pulling into their driveway below them.
    The east camera was the one that had shocked Phoenix sixmonths earlier, when the coyotes came. A pack. She and Carlos had seen the attack, knowing from the frenzied image that it was too late to intervene on sweet old Graygirl’s behalf. The coyotes were emboldened by hunger and thirst, the guy from animal control said when he came to the house.
    None of them, even Marcus, wanted another dog soon.
Especially
Marcus. He’d stopped wetting his bed two years ago, but he had accidents most nights since Graygirl had died. While Carlos was gone, he’d peed in his bed nightly. Marcus was so excited to be riding in his father’s arms, he didn’t seem to notice what Carlos was hiding. But how could even a child miss it?
    With a loud grunt, Carlos lowered their squirming son back to the floor.
    “Jeez, man, you’re killin’ me,” Carlos said. “You grew like a hundred inches!”
    “A hundred
thousand
inches, Dad,” Marcus corrected him.
    “Yeah—feels like it!” Carlos said.
    Phoenix wondered about a strange clicking sound from Carlos, moving her ear closer to his chest.