Free Deadly Expectations by Elizabeth Munro Page A

said.
    “And there will be nothing you can do about it.”
    “Uh huh.”
    “Well, I like her Paul.   When she looks at you you’re the only other person in the room.   Lucky bastard.”
    They were still talking when I fell asleep.   Joshua was complaining that he’d never meet anyone in the compound or living with his parents.   His mother pointing at every woman she saw and asking ‘what about her?’   Paul suggested he stop living with his parents.
    Paul found me later and brought me up stairs.   The bed was cold but we were both warm.   His lips tasted of scotch and he pushed the hair off my forehead as I wrapped my leg over him.

 
    Chapter 11
     
     
    I struggled to reconcile what Paul told his brother and his conversation with Ray when we all thought I was asleep.   He and Ray had talked like they were family and our child would be part of that but Ray wasn’t related to him, Joshua was, and Paul hadn’t told him how I’d gotten here or even mentioned the man named Damian.
    Then there was the woman in the mirror.   She’d always been right in her mean way.
    I found some things in the shop I could fix up quickly and a couple of bigger projects including an older four-fifty dirt bike.   It would get me out if I needed it or to help if the woman in the mirror had her way.
    Ray was able to pick up most of the parts I needed on his next supply run so I kept busy making the four-fifty my main project.   Days in the shop and nights with Paul.   He spent time in the shop with me in addition to whatever else he had to do running the camp.   He went out for watch most nights and his cold skin woke me.
    The woman in the mirror had succeeded in getting under my skin.   After days of not thinking about the tarp behind the shed it was now all I could think about.   I quietly worked on my lunch smiling appropriately at Paul when he gave me a little elbow but never really pulling myself free of her words.
    Stashed under the tarp.   Like a delicious forbidden treasure; secret and hidden.   I was by nature observant and cautious which served me in good stead when my wanderings found me alone in rough places.   Also shamelessly curious when I got the idea that someone might be keeping something good from me, a trait I shared with my sister.
    Ray or Denis sometimes cluttered up the shop with their less and more helpful presences respectively but today Ray was in the middle of something and Denis and Paul were both on watch.   Today was ideal.   By the time Paul got the heaters fired back up for me my eyes were itchy with the need to see what they’d hidden.
    I took a bit of time doing a few things that didn’t require a lot of attention; changed the oil on my bike and reconnected some fluid lines on the four-fifty.   Once I was certain I’d be alone for a while I took a quick look up the road then went down the passage between the garages.   She’d said the small one so I looked behind it.   There were several tarps there over various things.   Also a small garbage dumpster and some trash cans.
    The first couple of tarps yielded little including a pile of folded tarps.   I was careful to just peek, only lifting up the edges.   The only thing more satisfying than having my curiosity rewarded was if it also went undiscovered.
    The last one was the size of a large piece of luggage and had a couple of bungee cords hooked around it like the others to keep it in place.   It covered a large plastic tote and after a bit of hesitation disturbed the tarp enough to get the top off.
    “Jesusfuckinchrist!” I exclaimed as I scrambled backward before I found a spot in the snow several feet away and hastily wiped my face on my sleeves and tried to rub my hand clean on my jeans.
    It wasn’t the colour that bothered me really or the non-existent smell my brain tried to imagine in compensation for its frozen absence.   Or even the way the fingers were partly clenched.   It was the first seriously dead person