Free Burn: A Novel by Linda Howard Page B

tomorrow.
    “Good-bye,” she managed to say, a choking sadness keeping her tone oddly gentle, then she turned and headed down the sidewalk. She heard the door bang as Michelle went back inside. The immediacy of the sound told her Michelle hadn’t paused, hadn’t even looked back.
    That was that, then. Hurt congealed in her chest, making it difficult to breathe. Michelle had been there for years, always ready to laugh and party. They’d consoled each other through breakupswith boyfriends, head colds, and past-due bills. They had lived in the same world, but now they didn’t.
    She unlocked the Camry with the remote and slid into the driver’s seat. Her hands trembled as she tried to fit the key into the ignition. She was so tired she wanted only to go home, but she’d just given Michelle every cent she had and she needed to get some cash. She didn’t like not having any cash on her. In the past she’d been broke plenty of times, and she didn’t like it. She’d very quickly grown accustomed to never being without some money.
    There was an ATM in Bird’s—very handy for the bar patrons—but she didn’t want to go back in there. Sadly she realized she’d probably been to Bird’s for the last time, another touchstone in her life that was sliding away into the past. Mentally she searched the area. There was another ATM just a few blocks away, but she didn’t like the neighborhood. Instead, because it felt safer, she drove to the nearest branch of her bank—she didn’t like paying user fees, either, so she preferred using the bank’s—and pulled up to the ATM.
    A cool breeze whipped around her as she got out of the car and approached the machine. She’d withdraw a couple of hundred to replace what she’d given Michelle, and that would be more than enough to tide her over the weekend. She tapped in her account number, and PIN.
    INSUFFICIENT FUNDS .
    She stared at the little screen, blinking at the words as she tried to make sense of them. She knew, roughly, how much she had in her account, but she hadn’t balanced it in over a week. Still, there should be around twenty-five thousand, give or take a few hundred.
    She was tired, though, and upset; she’d probably punched in the wrong number. She tried again, and this time she was very careful, making certain every number was correct.
    The same message flashed on the screen: INSUFFICIENT FUNDS .
    At this hour, the bank was dark and there was no one to help her. She thought a moment, then entered a different request, thistime to see her account balance. Probably this machine was malfunctioning, and was giving the same message to everyone who tried to get money from it. For that matter, maybe the machine was empty, and it was telling her
it
had insufficient funds. The idea was almost funny, and she smiled a little, but then the smile froze on her lips.
    Three dollars and twenty-two cents?
    She stared at the impossible number. She
knew
she had more than that, thousands more than that. What had happened?
    Automatically she got back in the car and started it, put it in gear. All the way home she turned the situation over in her mind, feeling sick as she worked through details.
    Someone—and she had only two someones whom she suspected—had gotten his hands on her checkbook and written himself a check for twenty-five odd thousand. Dylan, or Jerry? It had to be one of them. They knew where she lived, and they were both determined to get something from her. They both wanted their cut of her good fortune, their fair share for—what? Breathing?
    She’d tagged Dylan for a moocher, but she wasn’t sure he’d steal. Even if he did, he wouldn’t be bold enough to take it all. He’d steal a few checks, write one here and there for a couple hundred dollars, hoping she wouldn’t notice, and if she did then he’d hope she’d cut him some slack instead of going to the cops. That was Dylan.
    But her dad … Jerry Redwine would take all he could get and then he’d