Free Redemption by Eden Winters Page A

window, door by door, he secured his home as he should have long ago.
    He poked his head into the bedroom. He’d get those windows tomorrow. Bo lay curled up on the bed, Cat Lucky snuggled in the crook of his knees. Lucky pulled the cover up to keep him from getting cold.
    Room by room he surveyed his work, leaving the testing for when Bo wasn’t home. No need scaring the guy with alarm blasts. He made a pot of coffee to keep him company while he kept watch. Tomorrow he’d take Walter up on the offer of a day off.
    God, but he needed… Bo wouldn’t approve, but sometimes… Glancing over his shoulder to make sure Mr. Healthy wasn’t watching, Lucky dug through the hall closet, reaching way, way up on his tiptoes to grab… got ‘em.
    Gun beside him, Lucky sat at the kitchen table, munching his secret stash of Oreos and gluing together the broken pieces of Bo’s dragon.
    Now if only they made glue for people.
    ***
    “I said I’d take you and that’s that.” Lucky got in the car and shut the door. After last night, leaving Bo alone wasn’t an option.
    “And I said I could drive myself.” Even as he argued, Bo folded himself into the passenger seat.
    Please, let the four-wheeled sumbitch start. The engine sputtered a time or two, then rumbled to life. Sooner or later, it’d need a major overhaul.
    They traveled in silence, anger pulsing off Bo in waves. Lucky’s youngest brother Daytona had been in rehab a time or two, so the swinging moods were nothing Lucky hadn’t dealt with before, though, as a teen, Day’s had been a whole lot worse. And he hadn’t taken pains to hide them like Bo did.
    Had the kid ever beaten his habit? By unspoken agreement, Charlotte rarely mentioned the family. Better that way since they’d all disowned Lucky at his arrest over twelve years ago. He didn’t blame them.
    He pulled the Camaro up to a plain brick building a block from the hospital. “I’ll wait for you here.”
    Bo could’ve lit a fire with his hot glower. “You didn’t have to come at all. Didn’t you trust me to keep my appointment?” He got out and slammed the door.
    Lucky watched Bo dragging his feet to the front entrance. When he’d disappeared inside Lucky got out of the car, zipped up his jacket, rammed his hands into his pockets, and rounded the corner to another building.
    He signed his name and took a seat. Two other people came in, but a scowl kept them away. How did nature say, “Do not touch?” Be a hard-assed son of a bitch.
    “Mr. Harrison? You can come back now.”
    Lucky followed a far too cheerful woman into the confines of the building. She handed him a cup and pointed to the bathroom. “Just leave the sample on the sink.”
    If Lucky earned a dollar for every cupful of piss he’d deposited over the years, he could’ve made the down payment on the house with drug test money alone.
    He went about his business and left the filled cup on the sink. The woman waited for him outside the door. “Follow me, please.”
    They marched past several closed doors until they came to an open one. “Have a seat and make yourself comfortable. The doctor with be with you in a few moments.”
    The woman closed the door and he paced the room. Atlanta landscapes hung from the walls. Yeah, he’d been to that park. And that one. The SNB conference room offered a better view of Stone Mountain though.
    He sorted through magazines, discarding them one by one: housekeeping, cooking, golf, piloting. The SNB expected him to spill his guts. The folks on his favorite soap opera confessed all their sins to their counselors and left the session blubbering.
    Lucky didn’t blubber.
    The door clicked open. “Good afternoon, Mr. Harrison, I’m Dr. Libby Drake. It’s very nice to meet you.”
    Blonde, petite. Held herself like someone to be reckoned with. Now if she’d get out from between Lucky and the door. She crossed the floor to a chair and sat. There. Better. “Now, I want to assure you that anything you say in