DOMINION Bentley Little (accelerated reader books .TXT) 📖

V8 from the buffet. Dion grabbed a hamburger, a small cup of fries, and two Cokes, one for him, one for Kevin.

“I’ll see you Monday,” Penelope said, heading with her friend over to a cash register. She smiled that radiant smile. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Yeah,” her friend said.

“Yeah,” Dion echoed. He wanted to say something else, wanted to invite the both of them to Kevin’s table, wanted to ask Penelope if she would like to study with him some time, wanted to ensure that they would talk again, but he did not know how. He paid the two dollars, watched the girls walk away.

It was a start, and he should have felt good, but for some reason he felt disappointed, sort of let-down. It made no sense. Things had gone well. It was the first week and they were already talking, but he still felt depressed about the encounter. He made his way through the crowd toward Kevin.

“So,” his friend said, grinning, “how’d it go? She dive for your ding-dong?”

“Asked for it by name,” Dion said, setting down the tray.

Kevin laughed, almost spitting out the sip of Coke he’d taken. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Penelope?” he said, laughing.

Dion smiled, chuckled, and then laughed himself. “Yeah,” he said.

Already he felt better. He picked up his hamburger. “And her friend wants you.”

“In her dreams,” Kevin said.

Dion laughed. He thought of Penelope. Things had gone well, he told himself. Things might work out.

He unwrapped his hamburger and settled down to eat.

8

Lieutenant David Horton used the landlord’s key to open the heavy glass door and stepped inside Something Old. The antique shop was empty, its dead air silent save for the low drone of outside noise. He was followed inside immediately by the two uniforms. “Mr. Williams!” he called out.

He waited a beat. “Anybody here?” His voice died flatly in the stillness.

Horton nodded to the policemen behind him. “Check it out,” he said.

The two officers spread out, taking both sides of the front desk, entering the back room in tandem. They emerged a moment later, shaking their heads.

“Check the aisles,” the lieutenant said. He lit a cigarette, watching his men take parallel paths away from the center of the store.

The antique shop had been closed for a week. No crime there. But it was highly unusual, noted by owners of several of the adjoining businesses.

And when rent had come due a few days ago and the landlord received neither a check nor an excuse from the usually punctual antique dealer, he’d suspected something was up. He’d called Williams’ house, gotten no answer, called Williams’ sister in Salinas, learned that she hadn’t heard from him for over a week. Then he’d called the police.

Disappearances were not that unusual in the Wine Country. Northern California’s reputation for fostering a laid-back lifestyle, combined with outsiders’ perceptions of what life in the valley was like, attracted to the area a lot of flakes and transients, drifters who saw the wine industry only in terms of its alcoholic output, not realizing that mundane work went into producing recreational beverages, that life here was not one long, constant party.

But Victor Williams was not a transient. He was a local businessman with roots in the valley. And Horton had serious doubts that he’d just up and leave on a whim, telling no one, letting his store remain closed. It was out of character, it didn’t fit.

Which meant, Horton thought to himself, that Vic Williams was probably dead.

The lieutenant took a drag on his cigarette, sighed, exhaling smoke.

There had been a time when he’d hated this job, when the novelty of wearing a badge and wielding a little power had worn off, when the fact that his work consisted of looking up society’s asshole day after day had really begun to get to him. He had almost quit then, had almost told the department to Johnny Paycheck it, but he’d realized that he was not qualified to do anything other than police work; he had no other skills and was too old to start over.

Now he just tried not to think about it. He didn’t regret lost career opportunities, didn’t piss and moan that he’d never finished college, didn’t compare himself to other men of his age who were more successful.

He simply put in his hours, did his job, and counted the days toward retirement.

And he bought a lottery ticket twice a week.

A man had to have something to hope for.

“Lieutenant! Over here!”

Horton turned around, taking the cigarette out of his mouth. He saw Deets, the youngest uniform, frantically beckoning him from down the end of an aisle. He dropped the cigarette, stubbed it out, and hurried toward the rookie. “What did you—?” Find, he was going to say, but there was no reason to ask. The floor in this section of the shop was stained brown with dried blood, forming a huge irregular amoeba pattern against the dusty faded slats of the hardwood finish. Small speckles of blood could be seen on the lower portion of a beveled mirror, though the droplets were smeared and it was clear that someone had tried to wipe them away.

Protruding from underneath a piece of furniture was a small, ragged, fleshy segment of torn muscle.

“Jesus,” Horton breathed. He glanced toward McComber, standing on the other side of Deets. “Call the lab,” he ordered. “Get some dusters and photographers over here now.”

The younger cop nodded, frightened, and hurried down the aisle toward the front desk.

“Don’t touch anything,” the lieutenant told Deets.

“Yes, sir.”

“And stop that ‘sir’ crap. This isn’t the goddamn marines.”

“Okay, sir, uh, Lieutenant.”

Horton looked at the rookie, shook his head. He reached into his pocket for another cigarette, pulled out the package, but found that it was empty. He crumpled it up, put it back in his pocket, and looked wistfully up the aisle to where he’d dropped his other cigarette. It was going to be a long afternoon.

9

After dinner, Penelope went out to