Shallow Graves (The Haunted Book 1) Read online

  “You’re firing me?” he gasped.

  Carl shook his head quickly.

  “No, not firing. You’ve been a good employee, Robert. But we are going to have to let you go…Landon is restructuring, and…”

  Robert couldn’t hear the words anymore, could barely hear anything but his heart pounding away in his chest.

  No, not now! Please, not now.

  He swallowed hard, but the lump in his throat seemed to be attached somehow, and it wouldn’t go down. His mind flicked to his wife, who had just left her firm to start her own real estate practice.

  And the house that they could just barely afford with both their salaries, the one that he had pleaded with Wendy not to buy, to settle for something more affordable—that too came to mind.

  “Please,” he mouthed, not sure if any sound came out. But judging by Carl’s reaction, he had spoken…spoken the words in a whisper.

  “I’m sorry, Robert. You’ve done great work for Audex over the years, and it really is a shame to see you go.”

  “Landon…”

  “Landon wished he could give you the news himself, but he had business. Asked me to do it for him. Take care, Robert.”

  Robert gaped as the man pulled the file folder in closer—as if he expected Robert would take it back—and then he opened his laptop again.

  That’s it? Fourteen years busting my ass for Audex and that’s it? To not even be given the courtesy to be let go by the manager, but by the…the fucking gum-chewing, bald office bitch that is Carl Stevens?

  Robert didn’t know what to do or say, so he just turned on his heels and started to leave. His gait, just a few minutes ago springy, was now labored, as if the shitty carpeting had been replaced by thick mud.

  “Oh, and Robert?”

  Robert turned, trying to keep away the tears that threatened to form in his eyes.

  “Yes?” he whispered.

  “Please take your stuff with you tonight. Your keycard will be deactivated after you leave.”

  Robert wanted to run back into the office and strangle the man, to choke his scrawny neck. But instead, he just nodded solemnly and turned, leaving Landon Underhill’s office for the final time.

  Chapter 2

  Wendy Watts closed her eyes and raised her lips up to meet his. The sensation was electric, and his probing tongue only served to send additional shockwaves up and down her body. He tasted meaty, but not in a bad way; in a strong, manly way that she so desperately sought.

  A moan escaped her lips, which also served to part them. The man’s mouth left hers and he kissed her chin, before moving to the soft skin beneath. Eyes still closed, Wendy leaned her head back even further, shuddering with each of his soft kisses as they made a meandering path from her chin to down her throat. When they reached the top of her soft, pale breast, she gasped. When his tongue flicked her nipple, instantly making it hard, she couldn’t help herself. She leaned forward, her hands grasping the back of his head, forcing his entire mouth over her nipple.

  “Yes,” she moaned. “Yes…”

  She was squatting over him, her skirt hiked up high, her blouse thrown somewhere, forgotten. He was sitting beneath her, and she felt his cock harden as he continued to suck on her breast.

  A smile crossed her face.

  “Mom? Mom!”

  The man froze, his lips still pressed to her soft skin.

  Wendy gritted her teeth in frustration, then opened her eyes.

  “What?” she shouted over her shoulder.

  The voice replied from somewhere below them—the family room most likely.

  “TV’s not working, Mom. Says something about not getting a signal?”

  “Fuck,” she grumbled. The man pulled his head away from her chest. “Just try turning it on and off again!”

  “I did! It’s still not working.”

  Wendy looked skyward, and she wondered how she had let Amy become so damn whiny.

  “Look,” the man beneath her whispered. “Maybe this isn’t a good idea—maybe, with—”

  Wendy looked into his brown eyes, her gaze darting from his bearded face to his glistening lips.

  Don’t go soft on me now, Landon.

  She reached down and between her legs and squeezed his manhood.

  Landon grinned.

  “No, it is a good idea,” she assured him. “I need this.”

  “Mom? Can you fix the TV?”

  Wendy squeezed Landon’s penis again in frustration…maybe a little too hard this time. He grunted and shifted uncomfortably beneath her.

  “No, Amy. Just go outside! Go play in the yard!”

  There was a moment of silence, and then some mumbling that Wendy couldn’t quite make out.

  Ungrateful little shit.

  “It’s starting to rain, Ma!”

  “Goddamn it, Amy! Why don’t you just walk home?”

  Landon propped himself on his elbows.

  “Seriously?”

  “What? It’s only like a twenty-minute walk.”

  “Wendy, c’mon. She’s only nine.”

  “Almost ten,” Wendy corrected him.

  “For real?” Amy hollered from downstairs.

  “Do you know your way?” Wendy asked, her tone softening.

  “Yeah…”

  “Then, yes. Go home. Keep your father company.”

  Wendy waited, ears perked. Eventually she heard the sliding door open and then slam shut. She felt a momentary pang of guilt, but when she turned back to Landon, who was still looking up at her, one eyebrow raised, it was quickly forgotten.

  “Now, where were we?” she asked.

  “I was—”

  “—about to fuck my brains out, I know.”

  Landon smiled.

  “I was about to say—”

  Wendy extended a finger and pushed it against his lips, silencing him.

  “Nuh-uh, no more speaking.”

  Landon started to smile, a lecherous grin, and Wendy felt her heartrate quicken again.

  The sound of her phone ringing interrupted her arousal. Wendy through her arms up.

  “Fuck!”

  Normally her phone was on vibrate, but she had turned it on in case Robert called. A quick glance to the bedside table proved that it was indeed him.

  Wendy rocked her hips again, feeling Landon harden through his slacks beneath her.

  “You going to answer that?” he asked.

  Wendy shook her head and rocked faster.

  “No, it’s just Robert.” She reached down and grabbed his wrists, and put his hands on her breasts.

  “But, maybe you should answer it. I mean—”

  Wendy shook her head again, wondering how and when Landon had gotten so damn sensitive. They had been fucking for nearly six months now, but the last few days he had been acting strangely, asking questions about Robert, of all people.

  “No, Landon. I’m not answering it. Now you better start fucking me before I really get pissed off.”

  Landon seemed to contemplate this for a moment, and one of his hands fell away from her breasts. For a second, she thought that he was actually going to push her off and refuse to give her what she wanted. Worse still was the possibility that Landon himself would answer the phone.

  Thankfully, the man did neither. Instead, his hand crept between her legs, and she felt him fiddle with his zipper. A second later, and she felt his hot cock beneath her, hard and bare.

  Wendy swallowed hard.

  And then he was inside her, and she gasped.

  “I like it when you’re pissed off,” Landon whispered as he thrust his hips, driving his manhood deeper.

  ***

  Wendy tried to smooth her shoulder-length blonde hair in the rearview mirror, but her bedhead refused to listen. After a minute or two, she gave up, and instead applied a fresh coat of lipstick, making sure to wipe the corners of her mouth with her finger afterward.

  It was pouring rain outside, the fat drops pelting the roof of the car like hail. Part
of her, a big part, wanted to answer one of Robert’s dozen or so phone calls and tell him that she wouldn’t be home tonight. Make up some excuse about getting stuck in the rain…she would come up with something, and although Robert would try to convince her to come home, he wouldn’t press.

  She imagined his narrow face and sad eyes.

  “Okay, Wendy. You just be safe, okay?”

  Safe…The word resonated with her. Robert always ended their conversations with that stupid phrase…be safe.

  Fucking pansy was what he was. For once, couldn’t he just act like a man?

  Wendy thought about what might happen if Robert found out about her and Landon. The answer was clear.

  Nothing, he would do nothing.

  Probably just shrug and go on eating his dinner as if nothing had happened.

  Pursing her lips and shaking her head in disgust, Wendy threw the car into reverse and squealed out of the driveway of Landon Underhill’s two-story colonial—the largest on the street, Wendy noted with a distinct sense of pride—spraying water nearly up to the windows.

  Then she put the car into drive and started down the street, squinting hard to see in the torrential downpour.

  Jesus, where did this rain come from?

  She shook her head, trying to focus. A left turn, then a right and she was on the freeway. A quick glance at the glowing clock in the center console showed that it was nearly nine…Robert had every right to call, she supposed.

  Again, his dopey eyes and perpetually calm demeanor popped into her mind, but she quickly forced this away, instead choosing to think about Landon, his rough hands gripping her hips as he thrust himself inside her from behind. She could see his face, sweat dripping on his forehead, his lower lip clenched between his teeth as he grunted and rocked.

  The image was so powerful that Wendy had to shake it away as well, feeling a tingling sensation between her legs and in the inside of her thighs.

  Landon was heading out of town for the weekend, but Monday…Monday, she had to see him again. She needed—

  Her phone rang, and this time Wendy reached onto the passenger seat and picked it up.

  Robert again? What the—?

  But then she heard a screech, which was immediately followed by a deep, resonating crunch of metal twisting.

  Wendy Watts was suddenly thrust forward, the cell phone flying out of her hand and careening through the smashed windshield.

  Her body followed.

  Chapter 3

  Robert brought the glass to his lips and inhaled briefly before downing the rest of his scotch in one gulp. By the fourth glass, it had stopped burning, and now, on his sixth, it tasted like nothing at all. Just a liquid that went down like water and made him less coordinated.

  As he made his way toward the kitchen, he caught sight of a shadow in the frosted glass that flanked the front door in his periphery.

  What the hell?

  Robert staggered over, trying to stop from swaying. He grabbed the door and pulled it wide, a goofy grin on his face. But when he saw Amy standing there, soaking wet, clutching her stuffed bunny rabbit to her chest, the smile slid off his face.

  “Amy? What the—are you okay?”

  Amy said nothing, and he quickly pulled her inside and out of the rain.

  “What happened? Where’s mom?”

  “I’m fine, dad.” Amy said as soon as she was inside.

  “Where’s mom? And what are you doing outside in the pouring rain?” he asked again.

  “She’s…she’s…are you okay?” Amy asked, flipping the question back to him. Her eyes drifted down to his empty glass, and he subconscious moved it behind him.

  “I’m fine,” he said quickly. “Mom’s still working?”

  Amy nodded, but this did nothing to alleviate the concern on Robert’s face.

  “Why don’t you go upstairs and get into your PJs, get warm? I’ll come tuck you in.”

  Amy smiled then bound past him and up the stairs.

  Robert stood in the entrance way for a moment, trying to figure out what the hell had just happened.

  Why was Amy playing in the rain?

  He shook his head, an action he immediately regretted. Swallowing hard, he pressed his palm flat against the wall in an attempt to ground himself, to stop the spinning.

  The scotch had muddled his mind, and he knew that struggling to make sense of anything now, six drinks deep, would only prove frustrating. So he did what any father would after losing his job and indulging: he shrugged and resolved himself to deal with it in the morning.

  As Robert turned toward the kitchen intent on filling his glass, he thumbed the send button on his cell phone for what seemed like the hundredth time. He didn’t even bother putting it to his ear, assuming that, like the last time and the time before that, it would go unanswered.

  The bottle of Glenlivet 18 was nearly empty, which brought a sour expression to his face. He unscrewed the cap, something that proved unusually difficult, and then poured a finger’s worth of scotch. His eyes turned to the window over the sink, and he was again amazed by how much rain was coming down. He couldn’t even see the back fence, which he knew to be only about ten feet from the window, the rain was so all-encompassing.

  Fuck, I hope you aren’t driving in the rain, Wendy. And why don’t you answer your phone?

  As if in response to his query, he heard the robotic voice through the tinny speaker of his BlackBerry tell him that the mailbox of the person he was trying to reach was full.

  Robert growled and hung up. Then he poured the rest of the bottle into his glass.

  Fuck it—if there was ever a time for drinking, it was now.

  As he sipped the scotch and stared out into the blurry rain, his mind began to wander.

  Wendy was going to lose her lid when she found out that he was fired. Absolutely lose it. She had become increasingly short with him over the past three months, which he had chalked up to the stress from buying their house…the one in which he now stood, in a kitchen with a massive Viking gas stove, an aluminum hood that was so polished and shiny that it could double as funhouse mirror, and a fridge with not only an icemaker built into the door, but a goddamn computer screen that somehow knew exactly what they had in the fridge at any given moment.

  Figure that one out.

  And to think that neither of them was particularly fond or adept at cooking.

  But Wendy just had to have this three-story twenty-five-hundred-square-foot palace. She just had to—even though as an accountant, Robert knew the numbers; he knew that it was only just affordable, and that was only with some rather hopeful assumptions regarding Wendy’s house sales—assuming she managed to actually sell a house, which she hadn’t done since going solo.

  “You just had to have this place, didn’t you, Wen’?” Robert said to the rain, his words slurred.

  They could afford it, but just barely.

  But that was before that weasel Carl had fired him.

  Robert, anger seeping into him, took a big gulp, and this time the scotch did burn. He grimaced, trying to return to thoughts about their financial reality.

  They were late on this month’s payment, and they had been late last month, too. He had no idea how they would make the next few months’ mortgage payments after he received his final check from Audex. Wendy had to sell a house. And soon.

  Audex.

  His mind shifted, and he began thinking about his previous employer. He supposed the writing had been on the wall: the company had shifted to a younger workforce over the years, electing to snafu green accountants immediately after they finished their CAs instead of hiring someone with more experience. It made sense, in a way. They were green, but capable, and most of all they were eager for work…any work, at any salary. None of them stuck around long, preferring to gain experience and then seek greener pastures. Still, there was an endless supply of them, which rendered the higher-payed, more experienced accountants expendable.

  A group to which Robert cle
arly belonged.

  “Fucking Carl, fucking Landon.”

  A massive bolt of lightning illuminated the sky, followed immediately by a deep, rumbling roll of thunder that seemed to shake the very kitchen in which Robert stood.

  “Jesus,” he said, instinctively taking a step backward. He licked from his wrist the drops of scotch that had spilled either from the shaking of the house’s foundation or from him jumping back.

  The lightning had afforded him a glimpse of the backyard, and he realized that the rain, which had started only an hour or so ago after he had left the office, had come with a vengeance. The corner of the lawn was starting to turn into a muddy mess, the new sod that had recently been laid not quite set yet. Robert had glimpsed the gutter downspout, and the water that poured from it looked like the goddamn Niagara Falls.

  His first inclination when he hadn’t been able to reach Wendy and when he’d seen that her car—a fancy 5 series BMW (couldn’t be a 3 series, of course; couldn’t give these nonexistent clients the wrong impression)—wasn’t in the driveway, he had thought that maybe she was in the middle of a sale, that she was holding out for dinner and was finally closing her first solo deal, which would also explain Amy coming home without her.

  But now, seeing the sheer veracity of the rain, he realized that that was ridiculous. No one in their right mind would buy a house in a tsunami. After all, you’d want to wait to see if the place flooded or was swept away by a storm like this, wouldn’t you?

  Robert shook his head and pulled his eyes away from the window.

  He took another sip of scotch and headed back toward the family room, thinking it a good idea to distract himself with a little television.

  Stranger Things…I’ll watch another episode of Stranger Things.

  He thought about this for a moment as he lowered himself awkwardly onto the couch.

  Wendy won’t care, he thought, trying to convince himself. She falls asleep halfway through or spends more time texting than watching anyway.

  Still, as he turned on the TV, he decided to watch something else instead. Breaking the news of losing his job was going to put her in a fit, and—

  A knock at the door interrupted his thoughts.