Free Rob Cornell - Ridley Brone 01 - Last Call by Rob Cornell Page B

spun the tires on the dirt drive and kicked up dust.
    “I just got my life back.”

Chapter 7
    I thought I could buy Autumn time with an excuse, but now it looked like I would need to make her disappear for a while.
    About two hours after leaving Sheila’s, we pulled off a remote paved highway and onto another dirt path, this one snaking through dense trees for a mile before reaching a clearing.
    The cabin sat at the far edge of the clearing. Beyond that, Burl Lake glistened in the moonlight. It wasn’t a large lake, but the whole thing and much of the land around it had belonged to my parents. Now it belonged to me. At least for a little while longer.
    I parked on the gravel in front of the cabin and peered through the night. I hadn’t been to the place since I was seven or eight years-old. My parents had some theatre friends that had rented the place, though a few times Mom and Dad had left me with Sheila for a long weekend and had come here for intense song-writing sessions.
    Autumn turned wedding ring around and around with the shaking fingers of her opposite hand. Neither of us had spoken on the trip over. When I climbed out of the car, she followed, and both of us ascended the steps to the sagging porch. Much of the wood had rotted. Black clumps of decomposed leaves from God knew how many Octobers huddled along the cabin’s façade. Even the wood siding had cracked, the natural finish spotted and warped by seasons of neglect.
    I wondered when my parents had come here last. Why had they let it deteriorate?
    “This will work for now,” I said and pulled the cabin’s keys from my pocket. It took a few guesses for me to find the right one to the front door.
    When I swung the door open, a musty smell poured out on us so thick I could practically feel it ooze up my nostrils and into my mouth.
    Autumn scrunched up her face and coughed.
    Holding my breath, I said, “I’ll run in and open the windows.”
    Autumn stayed on the porch while I charged into the cabin to open every available window and door to the outside. I tried the lights, and a few of them actually worked, including a floor lamp in the front room, and one of the two porch lights.
    Back on the porch, I found Autumn sitting on the steps. Lightheaded from holding my breath, I staggered over and plopped next to her.
    The chirping crickets seemed to surround us, the sound everywhere. Probably a nest of them inside the cabin.
    “Is this really happening?” Autumn asked.
    I would have liked to tell her it wasn’t. Against my better judgment, I put my arm around her. She snuggled in next to me, rested her head on my shoulder.
    “It doesn’t seem real,” she said.
    I remembered the call from Sheila telling me Mom and Dad were dead. It had been so long since I’d seen them, they were so far away, they didn’t seem like actual people anymore, just actors playing roles in my memories.
    “It will,” I said.
    “I don’t think I can take it.”
    I hugged her tighter. I shouldn’t have, but I couldn’t help it. I wanted to take care of her. “You’ll be all right.”
    “Don’t lie to me.”
    I reached up, cupped her chin and forced her to look at me.
    “I will make sure you get through this.”
    She tried a smile, but it didn’t stick. Her hand slid along my thigh, gripped my knee. “What are you going to do?”
    “I’ll go back to the house, call Tom, tell him I was looking for you, and found …”
    “Tom’s going to want to know where I am.”
    “Yes. He will.”
    “He won’t believe you don’t know.”
    “He won’t have a choice.”
    A breeze hissed through the trees. For an instant I was eight, playing with my G.I. Joe action figures on the steps. My mother sat on the cabin’s porch, strumming her acoustic guitar and humming, then pausing while she scribbled lyrics into a spiral notebook.
    I shook the memory and stood. “I should get back.”
    I walked to the car, popped the trunk. We’d stopped at a grocery on the way for some