Free [To Die For 01] - A View to Die For (2012) by Richard Houston Page B

than marijuana. You can’t even…”
    He was interrupted by a woman who had lipstick on her teeth. “Raymond. Let the man eat in peace. I’m sure he don’t want to hear your right-wing views.” By the tone she used on him, I guessed the woman was his wife.
    “I’m sorry,” I said to her and quickly got up to leave. “I must be in your seat.”
    “I can’t leave him alone for five minutes while I go to the little girls’ room,” she said. “I hope he didn’t offend you with his views.”
    “It was a pleasure talking to him, Mam,” I said and made my escape, but not before looking back at the old man. “You take care now, Raymond.”
    Megan’s lie about meeting her girlfriend was still bothering me. I needed time to think, so I took the long way and drove around the lake. The road to Bagnel dam wasn’t bad; however, I had expected to see the lake, but it didn’t materialize until I got to the dam. It was a pretty drive, just the same, and it gave me time to reflect on my life and the events of the last week.
    I was getting nowhere as an over-the-hill programmer back in Colorado, and the pittance I made writing and doing handyman work was getting me there fast; maybe, I needed a new career. My degree in math and computer science had been little help in a state with one of the highest percentages of college graduates. Maybe I would have a better chance where the competition wasn’t so fierce. I could always teach, couldn’t I? Then I thought of my nephew and his friends, before washing that thought from my mind. I’d rather drive a septic truck than babysit kids like that.
    Then there was my love life – or lack of one - that reminded me of the nurse back at the hospital. Was it really possible to fall in love at first sight or had it been the anesthesia? She was beautiful. Her dark hair and violet eyes reminded me of Allison’s mother. I was a sucker for the Cleopatra look played by Elizabeth Taylor in the movie. But Amy already had her Julius Caesar. Although some people told me I wasn’t bad looking, I knew I was no Marc Anthony.
    “How about that sexy waitress at the restaurant?” I asked Fred. “What was her name? Linda? Forget about love. That one was more like lust at first sight.” Fred didn’t bother to answer. But now that he was awake, I had his undivided attention.
    Once I passed the dam, I could finally see the water and was brought back to the present. This end of the lake was huge. And unlike sleepy Truman, it was quite crowded. There were large expensive houses and condos everywhere, and the boats weren’t the little fishing boats and pontoons of Truman – they were yachts. Just one of those monsters must have cost more than I’d make in a lifetime. “What did these people do to make that kind of money, Fred?”
    There were outlet malls, every major fast-food restaurant on almost every corner, and several high-class restaurants that would cost me a week’s wages for a meal. There were shopping centers, banks, and even a couple small theme parks. But what was most impressive were the boat dealers. I never saw so many expensive boats in one place in my entire life. I drove through Osage Beach and Camdenton traffic jams, then headed west on Highway Seven, thinking my sister was one lucky gal to live at the other end of the lake. I would have traded this entire part of the lake for the solitude of her backwoods retreat.
    If the road to Truman had been a roller coaster, this part of Highway Seven was a bob sled on steroids. When I pulled into her driveway some four hours after I had left her in Sedalia, my sister’s house was a welcome sight. I got there just in time to see her crying, and Kevin leaving in the back of a sheriff’s car. Almost as surprising, Taylor’s mother, my nurse from the hospital, was standing next to Megan. I could tell she had been crying too. She wasn’t surprised to see me, so I guessed someone had told her by now who I was.
    Fred went straight to Megan