Free The New Elvis by Wyborn Senna Page A

boasted as the men and Nana joined him.
    Michael was glum. “I like the place, I really do, but—”
    Gene moved over to the stairs that led down from the balcony to the beach and unlatched the gate. “Look, direct access.”
    Nana saw the exit and couldn’t resist. She ran across the tiled patio and flew down the staircase.
    “Nana, no!” Ryan shouted.
    Michael was all smiles. “I know about Newfies. They love the water.”
    “Go and get her, Ryan,” Gene commanded.
    The men moved to the edge of the balcony to watch Ryan cajole Nana back to shore. Out about thirty yards in no time, Nana barked as she paddled against the waves.
    Michael grew serious. “I like the house, I really do, but two of the bedrooms don’t face the ocean.”
    “But two of them do,” Gene countered.
    Michael shook his head. “Let’s keep looking.”

Chapter 25
    Logan stood outside in his dirty gray long johns and watched his home, engulfed in flames, save for the corner room where Ramona listened to records on her portable record player. He ran over and tried to peer inside by jumping up and down. After a minute, he gave up. His eyes darted around the yard. A storage box with a firm lid, marked “pillows” in Ramona’s spidery scrawl, was three yards away. He dragged it over to the window, climbed on top, and looked. The window was open, the screen intact. He pushed on the screen, and it sprang forward into the room now filled with smoke.
    He climbed through the open window and landed on the floor with a hard thud. Flames licked at the open doorway. Eyes wild, he searched the room ‘til he located his mother’s albums, stacked on a chair near the record player table. The cover of
Elvis’ Christmas Album
reflected the light from the flames in the doorway. He grabbed it just as the flames crept closer and began to consume the rug beneath his feet. Scampering to the window, he clambered up, fell through, hit the box of pillows, and rolled onto the grass. Then he ran as fast as he could, out through the side gate, out to the front of his house, out to the street. Lamps and lights were popping on across the street, first in one house, then in a second and a third. Someone would call 911.
    Then he saw his dad, three blocks away, in his vintage black Chevelle SS 396, driving like a bat out of hell, barely braking at stop signs. Surely his dad knew the house was on fire and was coming home to save them.
    Just as Jarrod entered the block, a mustard-colored sedan careened around the corner and rammed Jarrod’s car into the curb. A second car, this one a grimy white, nearly mowed Logan down as it rushed past from the opposite end of the block and rammed the Chevelle’s front bumper. Jarrod jumped out as men from both cars sprang from theirs, leaving the doors wide open. One gunshot. Two gunshots. Three. Jarrod fell to the ground behind his open car door. Logan screamed, and the men from the white car turned and noticed him.
    “Get the kid,” the shorter of the two men shouted, and Logan ran as hard as he could, back to the house, back through the gate into the backyard, and back to the chain-link fence separating his yard from Fred’s. He found the gully and shoved the Elvis album beneath the fence before he crawled under it. Then he grabbed the album and hid behind the tree. He heard noise in the yard as the men stumbled over Ramona’s bins and boxes. He cringed, held his breath, and waited. In the distance, he heard sirens.

Chapter 26
    It took Ryan a full hour after school to make it to the North Camden florist shop, select a cylindrical vase filled with yellow tulips and goldenrod, return back home, and head next door to Bea’s house, prepared to tell her how sorry he was and why he’d ignored her these past years. Of course, she probably knew the reason. After he saw her and Kincaid together in the hallway, he never spoke to her again. He had let the time slip by, and here he was, sixteen, ready to man up and apologize.
    The