Chapter 2
Larry wished he were somewhere else. Anywhere else.
He stood in the middle of Kyle’s house, a snug collection of six rooms, if you counted the bathroom. A plain square building, with no pretentions.
The sitting room was one of the two original rooms, built of waist-thick chestnut logs nearly a century ago by Kyle’s great-granddad. A lumpy horsehair sofa with the sort of dung-toned coarse-weave upholstery that should’ve been outlawed sat beneath two narrow windows. Tobacco-stained walls nearly as brown as the couch held framed photos of Kyle and Jeannette. On their honeymoon, at Myrtle Beach, standing out in the front yard. Normal, happy couple.
The snow outside looked ghostly through the elderly rippled window panes.
Warmth filled the space, both from the ancient bruise-colo
