Today's Reading
"We brought him a loaf of bread or whatever we could..." Thayne glanced at Ellie. "Uh, whatever we could find."
She was quite sure he meant whatever he could steal.
Thayne went on. "He swore he was done with the journal for good. He meant it this time."
"He always meant it," Brody said quietly.
"But this time," Lochlan said, sounding distraught, "he threw Grandpa's journal into the stove."
"He burned the journal?" Brody's brows arched nearly to his hairline. "He must've really meant it then."
"Stove wasn't lit." Lochlan shook his head in wonder, but at what? At his father throwing a journal away? Grandpa's journal? What was in it? Ellie had never seen a journal. "He'd never done that before. Anyway, I fished it out of the stove."
"He started screaming at us, Brody." Thayne sounded grim as death. "He threw a chair at us. When it broke, he picked up a leg and threatened to use it on us. He as good as drove us out of the room and told us not to come back."
Elle had the sudden sick feeling that she and Josh shouldn't be listening to this. The MacKenzies were so caught up in their talk that they were saying things she suspected they'd rather not speak of in front of anyone else. The boys certainly hadn't spoken like this up until now.
They'd come along when Michelle had found them at the Child of God Mission, giving her a sad tale of living in San Francisco all their lives, with no home since their pa had run off and their ma had died. Two boys almost too old to count as orphans, especially Thayne. Plenty of sixteen-year-old boys were on their own, doing a man's work.
They ran off from the mission at least once a week, Sister Agatha had told Michelle. They had no change of clothes. Hungry and cold in the late spring. They'd been here two months now, midsummer in California, no mention of a brother or a father who had clearly been alive when the boys left him.
No mention of anything about their past. And no sign of a journal. They were talking about it now. They clearly had it, but they'd been very sneaky. If they'd ever looked at it, it'd been done in secret.
That was exactly like them. Bright, hardworking scamps right down to the bone. Lochlan, the younger of the two, was the worst. But Thayne was always ready to throw in with whatever Lochlan cooked up.
They'd run away twice now and been gone two days the first time, then four the next. Both disappearances had thrown the whole ranch into chaos as search parties spread out looking for them. Both times they hadn't been found. They'd come home voluntarily. Near as Ellie could tell because they'd gotten hungry.
They all reached the house and went inside.
"Can we have something to eat, Miss Ellie? We're starving." Lochlan often did the talking for the two. And they were always starving. But it was near the end of the school day, and Annie always saw that they got a snack.
"I've got chicken in the icebox, and you can have bread and jelly."
Lochlan leapt into the air, both arms high. "I love fried chicken. And can it be apple jelly please? Do you have any?"
Ellie looked at Brody over the tops of the boys' heads. Though it was as well Thayne was a bit ahead because he was as tall as Brody.
He rolled his eyes.
She said, "Growing boys." Then she got busy pulling out the chicken.
Josh came in a pace behind her and went straight to the coffeepot, which was simmering on the stove.
"Grab a seat. We need to talk." Josh grabbed the heavy pottery cups. "Coffee, Brody, or do you want milk? You're probably hungry."
"Coffee sounds good."
The MacKenzies sat with a great scraping of chairs.
"I'd take milk, please," Thayne said with decent manners.
"Me too. I want milk." Lochlan was always a little slower, but he came through when Ellie caught Brody glaring at him.
"Please." Lochlan grinned at his brother. "It's so great to see you, Brody. We gave up on you ever coming home."
"I hadn't had a letter the whole school year, and I wrote plenty."
Lochlan and Thayne exchanged a look. "Ma died early last fall. She was the one who always wrote to you, I s'pose. Thayne and me got jobs."
This excerpt ends on page 23 of the paperback edition.
Monday we begin the book Every Deadly Suspicion by Janice Cantore.
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