RUNNING

T. Cooper J.

Description

Reclusive, obsessive, and creative, painter Keith Owen has secrets, dark ones that have affected his family for years. His grown daughter Kinley ignores her artistic talent and shrinks from a romantic commitment with a musician, figuring he'll turn out to be like her father, while her brother Brendan keeps trying to make the family he always wanted out of an impossible marriage. After their mother's death, Kinley and Brendan begin to question the source of their father's behavior. As they search for truth, Keith's life of lies, woven over decades, begins to unravel, putting the entire family at risk. The situation grows dangerous, and there is no way for them to run from the truth anymore.

Sujets

• Thriller

Informations

• Publié par: First Edition Design Publishing
• Date de parution: 15 janvier 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781506903354
• Langue: English

Extrait

RUNNING

Anovel by
J.T. Cooper
Running
Copyright ©2016 J. T. Cooper

ISBN978-1506-902-96-8 PRINT
ISBN978-1506-903-35-4 EBOOK

LCCN2016953269

September2016

Publishedand Distributed by
FirstEdition Design Publishing, Inc.
P.O. Box20217, Sarasota, FL 34276-3217
www.firsteditiondesignpublishing.com



ALL R I G H T S R E S E R V E D. No p a r t o f t h i s b oo k pub li ca t i o n m a y b e r e p r o du ce d, s t o r e d i n a r e t r i e v a l s y s t e m , o r t r a n s mit t e d i n a ny f o r m o r by a ny m e a ns─ e l e c t r o n i c , m e c h a n i c a l , p h o t o - c o p y , r ec o r d i n g, or a ny o t h e r ─ e x ce pt b r i e f qu ot a t i o n i n r e v i e w s , w i t h o ut t h e p r i o r p e r mi ss i on o f t h e a u t h o r or publisher .


Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Cooper, J. T.
Running /
written by J. T. Cooper.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1506-902-96-8 pbk.

1. FICTION / General /. 2. / Suspense. 3. / Thrillers/Crime.

R943
To Jim and Matthew
with love
Chapter One

March 2008

KEITH

He woke up tooearly and shuffled down the dead black hallway to the steps. By touch hescuffed downstairs into the front hall. From there, little lights guided him:amber, green, red. Nearly every electronic device and appliance had lit-up dotsor numbers. So did the security system. He glanced at it for the first ofprobably a dozen times that day. It was armed. Good. Blue numbers on thestove’s clock read four fifty-seven a.m. It was a long time until daylight.
He started a potof coffee, a full one rather than his usual half. His daughter Kinley wouldwant some when she woke up. Years of disappointment hadn’t shaken his wife’shope that their girl, a grown woman now, would come home for a good, long visit.Ironic. Kinley had slept upstairs for weeks now, but Brenda hadn’t been here toenjoy it because Kinley had come home to watch her mother die. Keith grabbed amug and interrupted the coffee’s flow.
He wandered into his studio, a sun porch originally, justoff the kitchen, and inhaled the scents of oils and turpentine. His fingersclawed themselves into the right position for holding a brush. Not yet. Hehadn’t painted at all while cancer devoured Brenda. It was the least he couldgive her. And the most. Even now he couldn’t allow himself to paint as freelyas before her death. He must be vigilant. He was always careful, but now hemust be more cautious than ever. Brenda’s death might rip a hole in the secretshe’d worked hard to conceal.
Like it was any other day, he followed his routine and walkeddown the long driveway to the locked gate where he found the newspaper. He readit while drinking more coffee and eating the oatmeal Brenda said was good forhim. He halfway expected to hear his wife stirring upstairs, getting ready for work.The silence was suffocating. A tremendous aching filled his body and mind. Hecouldn’t give into it. Not yet. He rinsed his dishes and went to the basementto work out and do a mile and a half on the treadmill. He showered. He wasalready tired.
Finally Kinley came downstairs and headed straight for thecoffeepot. “I’d forgotten how gray it is in Cincinnati,” she said. “When wasthe last time there was sun?” She filled a mug.
Keith shrugged like he didn’t know, but he did. It had beenthree days ago, the day Brenda died. The light had been exquisite.
“Seems like it would make it tough for you, Dad.” Kinleysat across from him at the kitchen table. Her long hair, darker than hernatural color, he thought, was caught up into a wide barrette. “You ought topaint in Colorado where it’s sunny most of the time.” She sipped the coffee andgrimaced. Brenda had always said he brewed airplane fuel.
“According to you,everything’s better in Colorado.” He pushed the folded newspaper toward hisdaughter. Brenda’s obituary was in it. Kinley had written and sent it beforehe’d been able to stop her. She’d included his name, only his first name, whichmight lead some people to believe his last was Williams, like his wife’s, buttheir two children were listed as Kinley and Brendan Owen. Too close. It madehim feel like a meteor was aimed at his house.
Kinley gave him a wan smile. “Everything is betterin Colorado. Except for ice cream. No Graeter’s.”
Both Kinley and her brother had gobbled up Graeter’s icecream every chance they got. He liked it too. The chocolate chips were as bigas miniature candy bars. “I might come out there some day,” he said.
Her face said she didn’t believe him. She changed thesubject. “Do you need me to iron you a shirt or something?”
“No.” He tried to make his voice gentle. “You know I’m notgoing to the funeral.”
She didn’t say anything.
“Don’t think for a minute that I don’t grieve for yourmother.”
She pursed her lips. The creases alongside her dark eyeswere deeper now. Adding interest, actually, but she’d turned thirty inDecember, and Keith doubted that she shared his opinion. “Aunt Lily and UncleDave won’t understand,” she said. These were Brenda’s siblings who’d traveled upfrom southern Kentucky for the service. “First they have to stay at a hotelwhen they know good and well how big our house is, and then you don’t show upfor the funeral.” She set her chin. “Brendan and I may not like it, but we’reused to you.” Being eccentric, he finished silently for her. Kinley frowned. “They’llexpect lunch. I don’t guess we can bring them here.”
There was no need to answer her. He went over to thecounter and picked up his wallet. “Here.” He pulled out two hundreds. “You andBrendan choose somewhere nice.”
She didn’t take the money. Instead, she stared at him.Keith figured his veil of secrecy had worn pretty thin with the kids. Head low,Kinley left the kitchen, and Keith tossed the money on the counter.
Later, when he heard the front door open, his heart raced, eventhough it was just Brendan who knew the security code and was coming to pick uphis sister for the funeral. Perhaps Brendan thought he was driving his fathertoo, but Keith doubted it. His son seemed to expect less than Kinley did. Keith’srefusal to go would just be one more rejection, filed away with the soccergames and school plays he’d never attended. Brenda had told him more than once thatit was strange that he could see colors and shapes so brilliantly but couldn’tsee into his children’s hearts. He could. He just couldn’t do anything about it.
Kinley was whispering to her brother, probably informinghim of their father’s latest deficiency. Shoulders sloped, hands in hispockets, Brendan looked at him over Kinley’s head. He said, “People won’t knowwhat to think.” He looked so much like Brenda. The same reddish brown hair. Thesame freckles.
“That’s their problem,” Keith said. He thought he heard atiny snort from Megan. There was something hard about Brendan’s wife, somethingrigid and relentless about the set of her mouth, although he’d never heard hisson complain. Brenda hadn’t liked her.
Brendan turned abruptly to Kinley. “You ready?”
She nodded. She wore a violet jacket over a black skirt. She’dended up with nice legs, just like her mother. Keith wasn’t sure he’d seen hisdaughter’s legs since back when she wore the tiny Easter frocks Brenda used tobuy her. It seemed like she’d always hidden them beneath ragged jeans.
“We’ll be back after the service,” Brendan said.
Kinley shook her head. “After lunch.” She picked up themoney on the counter. Neither of his children ever turned down a buck, but hewas glad to give them money. They couldn’t complain about him being stingy.Megan watched the money disappear into Kinley’s bag but never said a word, notabout lunch, the service, or Brenda.
After making sure the front door was locked, Keith went to hisstudio, now full of gray, pearlescent light. He could do something with that,he thought, something subtle and mysterious, but started stretching canvases. Thework was meant to be mindless, soothing, but he could almost see the nerves jumpingunder his skin. “It was too soon,” he said aloud without meaning to. He shuthis eyes, and, as always, saw pictures, this time of his wife. At first theywere of her in the hospice bed, bald and wizened, dying by inches. He grimacedand blinked those away. He exchanged them with ones of the dozen or so timesshe’d posed for him, always uncomfortable, shy about it even when she wasclothed. She wasn’t an easy model, but she was what he had. And he’d made itwork.
Then he envisioned her as he’d first seen her, in a droopyblack and white waitress’s uniform, handing him a menu at a little restaurantacross the river in Kentucky. He’d immediately noticed the glow of her skin,the apricot freckles on her arms. It had been early summer, only a couple ofweeks after he’d ended up in Ohio.

1976
Cincinnati wasstill a mystery. Keith didn’t have a car but was reluctant to buy one, eventhough he had cash enough to do it. He rode buses to get a little bit of a feelfor the city, graphing the neighborhoods in his head, scoping out the streets. Cincinnatiseemed like a place where it would be easy to be anonymous. He lived in atwo-room dump in Clifton, near the university, because buses were plentifulthere and the population was liquid. He didn’t plan to stay in that apartment.
He knewKentucky was just across the Ohio River; he’d stared at it from the Cincinnatiside and envisioned a picture or two. He’d never been in Kentucky. Never beenin Ohio either until now. At Dixie Terminal he transferred onto a bus thatlumbered across the bridge into Covington. Chili parlors, seedy taverns, brick andframe shotgun houses. It didn’t look much different from Cincinnati. He got offon Madison Avenue and wandered up and down the commercial district. No one paidattention to him, which was good. While he was on the road, he’d chopped offhis hair with scissors and then had a barber trim it up when he arrived inCincinnati. Right away he bought several ordinary white and blue short-sleevedshi