Free The Lost: Book Two, The Eddie McCloskey Series (The Unearthed 2) by Evan Ronan Page A

Pennsylvania quiet enough to kill a deer.

Twenty-Two
     
    Mitchel l Hollis stood in the doorway and watched Ana Lovsky’s car trundle down the hill as the chill wind made the dead leaves dance.
    Hollis was long used to the damp cold winters of Northeastern Pennsylvania. He hardly noticed it anymore.
    He wondered if Eddie had swallowed his act. Maybe he’d overdone the crazy old coot part.
    It was important to keep up the charade. It kept those disability checks coming in and the nosy out.
    He stood there, framed in the doorway, till the car was out of sight and he could hear it no more. He could smell the damp leaves and taste their earthy smell. The wind hinted of snow.
    The ghostbuster, or whatever he called himself, was a nobody jailbird with a checkered past. He wouldn’t come back but the seeds were planted.
    He stepped outside and petted his dog. The Lab whined happily and thumped its tail against the old tree stump it liked to cozy up to.
    “We did good, Zeus,” Hollis said. “They think my place is haunted too.”
    The dog yawned and rolled to its side, inviting a belly rub. Hollis gave him one, then went back inside.
    He wasn’t having a migraine. Had never had one, actually. That was just part of the ruse. He had the government convinced he was disabled from a car wreck ten years ago. He’d been to the right doctors, so it was difficult to challenge his claims of back and hip pain. He had the normal aches and pains associated with aging but he was far from disabled. The migraines were a nice touch because they were impossible to disprove.
    Hollis lived mostly off the land and was a born spendthrift. His boy frequently sent him cash too, which Hollis greedily accepted as payment for having had to raise such a disappointing son.
    And he was pretty savvy with the computer for an old coot. He piggybacked on somebody’s wireless server to access the internet. The townsfolk would be surprised at how much he was able to find out with his little laptop, despite his hermetic existence.
    That was how he knew all about the ghostbuster. He knew all about the silly ghost stories circulating around town. Knew a lot about a lot, knew a lot about everybody in town.
    He began writing an email to his son.
    There’s a lot doing down here. It’s time you and I talked. It’s time for a lot of things. Give me a call.
    Hollis hit SEND and then went outside to butcher the deer.
    * * * *
    Two-hundred and fifty six miles away, Michael Hollis was getting ready to leave his office when the email arrived.
    He noted the sender of the email, his father, and was filled with a sense of dread. As always, dear old dad hadn’t bothered to put a subject line in the email, making it impossible for him to gauge the importance of the communication. It could be nothing or it could be an emergency.
    He didn’t like his father. Didn’t love him either but tried to engage the old man out of some obligation he could never fathom or explain. Deep down he still had an irrational fear of the old bastard.
    Michael had hoped that the passage of time would provide his father some much-needed distance on things, but that longed-for perspective had never materialized. Dad was dad was dad.
    He figured the email was probably another plea for money or something else unpleasant. Probably nothing earth-shattering. He reasoned that if it was an emergency the old man would call him.
    Michael closed his inbox and shut down his computer. He’d had a good day and didn’t want to ruin it by talking to dad. He wanted to get home and share a nice bottle of wine with his wife. He switched off the light on his way out.

Twenty-Three
     
    “Thank s for almost getting me killed,” Ana said after a tense fifteen minute silence.
    Eddie, lost in thought, wasn’t in an apologetic mood. “The gun wasn’t loaded.”
    “Yeah, but Hollis was. That old head is a pinless grenade.”
    Eddie stared out the window. Maybe he should have listened to Ana. It was a bit reckless,