Read The Last Day for Free Online Page B

enough to pilfer the stuffed bear. Perhaps he would take more than life.
    In the kitchen he looked at the calendar and used a red pen to circle the anniversary of their child's death. After capping the pen, he noted the glasses in the sink and sniffed the highball glass, detecting the odor of Scotch. He smiled, imagining the gloomy void Ward had been trying to fill the night before. He checked to see if the doctor had purchased any new bottles of the juice she drank, and saw that she had purchased two since the last time he'd visited. Watcher used a syringe to penetrate the cartons and add a thin stream of liquid.
    Watcher lifted the Scotch glass and set it carefully upside down in the sink beside the wineglass. He left the house the way he'd come, the small stuffed bear tucked under his arm.

ELEVEN
    The year before Ward was born, his father purchased eighteen acres of farmland three miles from the Lowe's Motor Speedway complex, which despite being technically located in Concord, was then called the Charlotte Motor Speedway. His father bought the land figuring that even if his business failed, or if NASCAR turned out to be a flash in the pan, Concord and Charlotte would eventually grow together and the land would be a solid long- term investment. In those early years most racetracks were going through tough financial times because ticket sales often failed to cover track expenses. In those days, the big names in racing were, were related to, or were trained by the ex-moonshine runners who had begun racing each other in their overpowered coupes—fitted with tanks for carrying liquid contraband—on small dirt tracks throughout the South. Ward loved the illicit history of his legitimate business.
    The crude structure that had housed Raceway Graphic's first three employees—a two- thousand-square- foot Quonset hut built as an equipment garage in 1937—had since grown into a fifty-thousand- square- foot complex of offices and design studios, an employee cafeteria, the stock warehouse, and shipping dock.
    A tree- lined parking lot in the front was for office employees and visitors while another larger one to the side served warehouse workers and delivery trucks. Picnic tables, protected by a roof, allowed employees to eat lunch outdoors when the weather was pleasant. Ward's father had personally planted a number of the trees.
    Ward had hardly gotten to the reception desk when his uncle waved at him from the mezzanine stairs.
    Mark Wilson, sixty- three years old, had a full head of white hair and a neatly trimmed beard. Ward McCarty Sr., called Wardo by everyone who knew him, had started the company alone. But after a few months, when he'd needed both operating capital and help, he had sold his brother- in- law—then a successful car salesman— forty- five percent of the company's stock for five thousand dollars. Ward Sr. had been a thoughtful introvert with no marketing or sales experience, and no interest in learningany. Mark was the opposite, and together they'd made a dynamic partnership for thirty-eight years.
    Mark and Ward's father had spent most of their workdays together, as well as countless long days and nights on the road during race season, peddling their merchandise at the racetracks from a small trailer.
    Wilson played tennis and golf and knew the names of the coaches and players and the rankings of every professional and college baseball, football, and basketball team in the country, one of which was always sure to break ice with both suppliers and customers.
    “How was your trip?” he asked, slapping Ward's shoulder paternally. Ward had always been the closest thing Mark had to a son, and for the past few years Mark was the closest Ward had to a father figure.
    “Fine,” Ward said. “Same old bunch. My feet hurt as much as my eyes.”
    “Always the same. Bunny enjoyed the slots more than seeing Wayne Newton.” He lowered his voice. “How did your meeting with the video game designer go Saturday