Read The Cold Spot for Free Online

it.”
    “You’re taking this lightly.”
    “No, I’m not. It’ll give me a chance to breathe in my last bit of fresh air for a while.”
    “I suppose we can do that. Especially since Molly Mae drove and you done run her off with your peanut cluster heist.”
    Lila tried hard to keep from smiling but couldn’t entirely manage it. She grinned, her chin dimpling, her eyes on him but not looking into his. A rush of warmth brimmed inside him and he thought, Maybe this is how you beat the cold spot, this is how you stay out of that place.
    He said, “It was about as worthy a score as knocking over Bookatee’s Emporium was.”
    “Don’t you tell her that though.”
    So they walked through town toward the police station, and he found himself rambling about how the last three years had gone, saying nothing of Jonah, nothing of his mother’s murder or his old man’s suicide. People waved to Lila and she waved back with her free hand, the snub jutting into his side every once in a while, mostly hidden by her purse. Chase smiled and waved too.
    “Judge Kelton didn’t show much mercy on your friends.”
    “I told you, they weren’t my friends.”
    “Your former crew?”
    “Hardly. When thieves working together aren’t all that tight we call it a string. Those idiots weren’t even that.”
    “You probably shouldn’t have gotten involved with them then, a stand-up professional villain like yourself.”
    “I know it. I needed some quick money.”
    “It’s only an assumption on my part,” Lila said, the “my” coming out mostly as “ma,” “but I’m guessing that’s what every thief says just about every time he’s doing any thieving.”
    It wasn’t true, but he liked listening to her.
    When they got to the police station she marched him up the front steps to the door. A couple of deputies moved in and out. Chase really hoped he hadn’t misread the whole situation, because if he had, he was going to have to cut and run now, and probably take a bullet in the spine.
    He turned and faced her, pressing her back against the brick building. Now the snub was in his belly. He almost went in for a kiss, but veered off at the last second. She’d flattened her lips, still trying to read him and figure out what she was dealing with. It was good to know he wasn’t the only one who was confused.
    “This is a helluva dangerous way to woo a girl,” Lila said.
    “Yeah, but is it effective?”
    “I’ve had worse dates,” she told him.
    “Yeah?”
    “You don’t want to hear about them and I don’t want to relive ’em.”
    “No, I suppose not. Well, here we are at the halls of justice.”
    “Yeah,” she said, showing just a flash of teeth.
    “Time for your just reward.”
    The gun in his guts didn’t hurt that much, but the smile—like a knife in the heart.

A few days later, while they lay in bed in a rough-and-tumble spot called the Skeeter Motel—these people just didn’t think their names through down here—Lila asked him about his parents, how he’d wound up such a young outlaw. He was starting to like it when she called him that.
    Chase had already told her a lot about Jonah, but this was different. He did what he’d trained himself to do, separating himself from his emotions and keeping memories of his childhood as blunt as possible, letting the words drop from him like stones.
    He lit a cigarette and took a couple of deep drags. His voice took on the hollow ring he expected, and he smoked and listened to the person speaking as if it was somebody familiar whom he hadn’t heard from in a long time. The man spoke fast.
    “Nine years ago my mother was murdered, shot through the head in our kitchen. She was eight months pregnant.”
    “Sweet Jesus—did you…?”
    “No, I didn’t see it. I was at school. So was my father. He was a college professor who taught world literature. After her funeral, we’d visit her grave every day. He was wrecked. It was a bad winter, but we’d go out there and