Read Hide and Seek for Free Online

did."
     
    "He's going to Harvard."
     
    "There are plenty of kids at Harvard, dear."
     
    "So where does Kim come into it?"
     
    "Oh, some seven or eight years later. I met her in junior high. I introduced them. His parents and mine and Kim's all became friends eventually anyway, so they'd have met sooner or later. All the same, I take complete credit for putting that together. And I'll tell you, back in high school it was a very heavy thing. They were both sort of... precocious, I guess you'd say. Kim developed quite a reputation.
    Deservedly, of course."
     
    "And they've been together all this time?"
     
    "We have. We've stayed together. Sometimes I feel like we're linked at the hip, the three of us. We've had some rough spots, but they pass. If you want me, you take Kim. And if you want Kim, you take me.
    Steve wants both of us, so it's easy. It's a weird relationship. We've never been lovers, never will be. But he's still sort of possessive of me, you know? And without me, I'm not sure he and Kim would still be together. Like I say, I think he wants us both both together. And he can only get me through Kim.

IDE AND SEEK

"I don't know how it works, actually. But I think I'm the glue in all this, somehow. And to answer your next question, yes, sometimes it is a big pain in the ass. But not usually."
     
    I decided to throw her a curve ball, as long as she was in the mood to put up with my curiosity. I made it very casual-sounding.
     
    "So where does your brother fit in?"
     
    "My brother?"
     
    Whatever it was, it came up fast and mean. I felt I knew how the rat feels when the trap snaps shut it was such a tiny piece of cheese in the first place. There was suddenly something dangerous scuttling around in the car with us.
     
    "Who the hell mentioned my brother? Daddy?"
     
    "I just saw his picture, that's all. In the living room. So I wondered."
     
    She stared at me a moment, and I knew how cold those eyes could be. She twisted the key in the ignition and the car sprang obediently to life.
    She pulled away. The tires screeched at us.
     
    "Let's just forget about my fucking brother," she said.
     
    I made a mental note to damn well try.
     
    There was a local band at the Caribou that night. It was pretty bad.
    Two guitarists, a fat lazy drummer, and a girl lead singer I vaguely remembered from high school. She was small and blond and squeaky, with no breasts at all and the stage presence of a plate of peach preserves.
    Their repertoire was entirely cribbed from Loretta Lynn and Ernest Tubb records. You dreamed wistfully of bad Top 40. We drank our beers and when the boys in front stood up and applauded "Waltz Across Texas" we got the hell out of there.
     
    She wanted to drive around some.
     
    I talked and she listened. There was the urge to tell her everything, to give her the complete thumbnail Clan Thomas. But I held back here and there, wanting to keep it light. I avoided mention of my own brother. I didn't want her to think I was leading back to hers. What I wanted was just to amuse her, but there wasn't much I could think of that was very amusing. And as I talked I realized just how depressing Dead River was, compared to what she was used to in Boston. Compared to anything. But it was all I had.
     

So I told her about Rafferty and the night he and the Borkstrom twins got drunk and crapped in old man Lymon's water tower. I told her about the drag races through Becker's Flats. I told her about the old black dog we used to have who could whistle through his teeth. And I wondered what in the world she was making of all this, and me.
     
    She wanted to know why I'd been caught setting fire to somebody's back lawn. I told her we were napalming plastic soldiers.
     
    But it was uncomfortably close to the other thing.
     
    So I drew her off of that.
     
    It started to rain.
     
    Just a light warm drizzle with a heavy fog rolling in.
     
    We'd left the top down on the Chevy, so we pulled over across the street from the