Beastly Winter — Chapter 29

Before exiting the vehicle parked behind Jenny’s cottage, Lance reached over and picked up the gun lying on the passenger’s seat. As he got out and closed the door carefully, he jabbed the pistol into his waistband. He didn’t know for sure that no one was home, the weather could have kept her from going into work at the restaurant.

The wind gusted brittle snow into his face as he approached the cottage and extracted the key Zellner had given him from a front pocket. He knocked on the front door, waited, then knocked again harder. He heard no sounds of movement from inside, turned the key and poked his head through the crack.

“Hey, Jenny. Your boyfriend sent me up to check on you that you’re okay and if you need a ride to work.”

When there was still no sound that someone was there, he shoved the door wider and stepped inside. It was obviously a female’s place, colorful with doilies on the coffee table and on chair arms. A crocheted throw on the back of the couch had some sort of wild circles of purple and green.

It looked more like a girl’s room than any adult woman but Lance didn’t mind. It reminded him of his teenage daughter’s room before his first wife told him she’d had enough and for him to get out. He’d left but not before leaving them each a couple of reasons to remember him by.