Page 77 of Girl, Empty
Amanda Pierce.That one hadn't gone as planned.But maybe that was fitting.His father's death hadn't gone as planned either.Wrong person, but dead all the same.
And now, finally, Kevin Wolfe.
Calvin pulled out his phone – one of many, cycled and discarded like tissues – and opened the app he'd built specifically for this moment.Kevin's calendar was an open book, and the Elan building was totally empty today.Soon, Kevin Wolfe would get a notification that there was a critical server error; kind of emergency that would send a control freak like Kevin racing back to check on his kingdom.The security company would get a cancellation notice – false alarm, disregard.
And so Kevin Wolfe would end up here – alone.
All too easy.
Calvin didn’t know the layout of this building like he knew the others, but he knew one part of the building very well indeed.That was where today’s finale was going to take place.
And before Kevin Wolfe finally got what was coming to him, there’d be a confession, and then he’d show Kevin what impossible really looked like.
Time to end this.
Time to prove what everyone had always known but been too cowardly to say.
Kevin Wolfe had killed his father.
And vengeance was coming.
He pulled up the app and pushed the button.
CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR
The antechamber to hell, Kevin Wolfe had long ago decided, was the sound of kids playing board games.
Unlike video games, something about board games ended up with them getting physical.He’d watched his son lose at NFL a million times, watched his daughter die on Tomb Raider constantly and then have to restart the whole level – and neither of them uttered anything more than a frustratedugh.
But set up a board game, and voices raised, arguments broke out, and Kevin was all but convinced that blood would be shed before the day was out.
‘Alright, let’s call it there,’ Kevin said.He was spread out on the floor in sweatpants and slippers.Today was Martin Luther King Day, and that meant nobody did anything.Work was far off his mind, and he aimed to keep it that way.Time with the kids was a rarity, especially as for an older man his kids were young.Kevin Wolfe had been a late bloomer.
‘This is a ridiculous game anyway,’ Chloe said.
'It's not our fault you suck at it,' replied Liam.
‘It’s just Monopoly, guys.No need to cry about it.’
Chloe stood up and dropped her pile of fake money in the middle of the board.The 14-year-old had clearly reached her breaking point.‘I’m done.I’m going to play something less… capitalist.’
Kevin’s wife, Sandra, popped her head around the door.Until now, she’d been crafting one of her mixed meat concoctions that was more meat than carb.Kevin was alright with that.
‘You shouldn’t know what capitalist means at your age,’ Sandra said.
‘Well, I do.’
‘I’ll call you when dinner’s done.It’ll be about 20 minutes.’
Liam said, ‘Fine, I’m out too.’
With the treaty declared, the fragile peace accord held.Chloe and Liam abandoned the geopolitics of the living room floor and retreated to the neutral territories of their bedrooms.Kevin gathered the small plastic houses and pastel-colored money and put everything back in the box, then he followed the scent of roasting garlic and thyme into the kitchen and found Sandra dripping honey onto a cooked chicken.
‘Is that what I think it is?’he asked.
‘This is a Sandra Special.’
‘Huh.It’s been a while since I’ve had one of those.’
