The Invisible Hand - A crime novel

Chapter 108

My mind slips back to that day. The day. One year ago. A cold, windy fall day. Kind of like this one.

My arms mimic the motions played out in the memory. It must look like I'm dancing to the guards outside. But I need this. I need to feel it.

In the memory, I stand next to my father outside the grain bin. It's a couple hundred yards from the house. He slips me a disgruntled look.

"Been a while since you've been home," he says. "You find work yet?"

Work. Always the work questions.

"Yeah. Odd jobs here and there," I say.

He doesn't know the half of it. I'd broken into a storage shed the night before. Stole a bunch of hydraulic fluid for a tractor. Sold it at a discount to another farmer. Then got shitfaced.

"I'd keep you busy around here," my father says. "Put you to work. You know that."

An offer of more work. It's as far as he ever went with being generous.

But he and my mother fight too much. Money. Contracts. Sign this. Don't sign that. It's constant.

I'm too old to stick around through that bullshit. But I'm still too young to turn down an offer of breakfast.

Of course, there's a trade off. I have to help with the grain bin before we eat.

"What's up with the grain bin?" I say.

"Red, the sheriff, he was out here the other day. Wants to rent it over the winter. Might sublet it to Joe for a few things," my father says. "But there's a chunk of ice and grain frozen at the top. Need to get inside. Just get a quick look at the problem."

I survey the grain bin. Old and small. Probably the worst one in our inventory. The grain goes in at the top. Comes out a shoot in the bottom. There's a door on the side for surveying problems inside. Happens a lot this time of year.

"Why's he want to rent this one? Why not one of the newer grain bins?" I say.

This one leaks like a sieve. That's probably what caused the frozen chunk up top.

"Beats me," my father says. "But it's money. Honest money. Not like that funny contract your mother wanted me to sign."

So that's what they've been arguing about lately.

My stomach makes a sound like a coffee grinder. I glance over to the house in the distance.

I turn my head back to my father. He's opening the side door to the grain bin.

I can already tell that something is wrong. There's a scraping sound at the top of the grain bin. I open my mouth to warn my father.

Too late.

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