The Stranger And Tessa Jones
"More snow on the way." The truck driver, a fifty-something guy in insulated pants and a plaid flannel shirt, fiddled with the radio dial.
The man in the passenger seat made a low sound in his throat, a sound of agreement that discouraged further conversation. He had a killer headache. Talking only made it ache all the harder. And he kept smelling alcohol.
He sniffed the sleeve of his jacket. Definitely. Booze. Was he drunk? He didn't feel drunk, exactly. He just felt bad. Bad all over.
The two-lane road, dangerously slick in spots, treated with road salt and dotted with slushy ridges of brown snow, twisted and turned down the mountain. Piled snow, hard-packed and dirty, rose in twin walls to either side, so the big rig seemed to roll through a dingy white tunnel, a tunnel rimmed above with evergreens and roofed higher still by a steel-colored sky.
The passenger shut his eyes, tuned out the drone of the radio and leaned his pounding head against the seatback. For a while, he dozed. When he opened his eyes again, the walls of snow on either side had diminished. He spotted a sign that said this road was Scenic Highway 49.
With a hydraulic moan an ... read full excerpt from: The Stranger and Tessa Jones ebook
