Free Darkness Falls by Keith R.A. DeCandido Page A

attorney-at-law.”
    That actually got a reaction out of Kyle. “You? You’re an attorney? You stole more candy from the five-and-dime than anyone else in the history of stealing.”
    Larry laughed. “That’s why I’m a defense attorney,” he said. “I can appreciate the criminal mindset.”
    For some reason, that put Kyle off. He started to squirm in his chair. “Larry, I should really get going.”
    “What’s the hurry? It’s been twelve years. The least you can do is have one drink. You have no idea what we’ve been through lately.”
    “Yeah, well, that cuts both ways.”
    “Maybe.”
    Larry took a sip of his beer. Kyle, he noticed, had left his untouched.
    “So come on, give,” Larry said. “What are you really here for?”
    Kyle seemed to resent the question. “I came to see if I could help Michael.”
    Laughing a yeah, right laugh, Larry said, “You don’t look like you can help anyone.” He stared at his cousin, and he caught sight of a charm on a necklace Kyle was wearing. Larry shook his head. “Kyle, you know, she’s got a whole life now.”
    “Who?”
    “Caitlin,” Larry said, though he was sure Kyle knew damn well who he meant. “This thing with Mikey has been a big burden. She hasn’t been able to work. She was supposed to get third grade this year.”
    That got Kyle’s attention. “She’s a teacher?”
    Larry nodded. “Yup. And a good one. The kids respond to her better. It’s like she hasn’t forgotten childhood the way most of us adults do, so the kids feel like they can talk to her, y’know?”
    “Yeah,” Kyle said. “Yeah, I know.”
    Kyle had put a lot of weight into those words, which confirmed what Larry had believed from the beginning.
    There was only one reason Kyle had come back to Darkness Falls, as far as Larry was concerned, and her name was Caitlin Greene.
    Ray Winchester gulped down his whiskey, then chased it with that swill from the tap that Dave called beer. He couldn’t afford the good stuff—of course, strictly speaking, he couldn’t afford the whiskey, either.
    But what else was he supposed to do? His life was in the crapper anyhow.
    Every time life kicked him in the ass, he thought it was the worst thing that could happen, and then life would turn him around and kick him in the balls.
    Bad enough he flunked out of college. That got Dad all hot and fucking bothered, that his son wasn’t going to carry on the Winchester tradition of lawyers. Ray had always thought that to be a crock of shit. He never wanted to be a phony-ass lawyer—he left that to punks like Fleishman. No, he wanted to work with his hands.
    So he did. Until he got fired. “Laid off,” they called it. “Budget cuts,” they called it.
    Really, though, he was just fired.
    Then Marie left him. Not even to hook up with some other guy—in fact, as far as he knew, she was still single. She just didn’t want to be with him anymore.
    So he spent his afternoons and evenings in Bennigan’s, his nights sleeping off his afternoons and evenings, and his mornings hung over. It was a nice routine, though it was eating up most of his unemployment check.
    And now, the icing on the fucking cake, Kyle Goddamn Walsh comes back to town.
    One of the reasons he was laid off, as opposed to someone else at the plant, was that Ray was “limited” in what he could physically accomplish. That was because of a back injury he had suffered when he was a kid.
    Thanks to Walsh and a fucking protractor.
    Next to him, Joe Tormolen must have noticed Ray tense up, since he asked, “What’s wrong?”
    Ray pointed at Walsh, who was sitting with Fleishman. “That guy stabbed me in the back.”
    “What, like with a girl?”
    Joe could be such a fucking moron. “No, he literally stabbed me in the back.”
    He gulped down the rest of his beer, got up, and headed toward their table.
    The rest of Ray’s life may have gone to shit, but he was going to get something back tonight, dammit.
    “Hey, jackass!” he