Watching Amanda Read Online Free Page A

bitter cold, the frigid wind. Where he used to live, on the thirty-second floor of a Manhattan skyscraper with an entire wall of windows, he could actually feel the building shake on windy days, but the wind never sounded so fierce as it did in Maine.
    He liked the sound.
    He listened to the branches rapping against his door again, and then got back to work, fixing the Marrows’ toaster, which probably cost ten bucks ten years ago. His nearest neighbors, a mile and a half down the road, the Marrow family consisted of a widowed father and his thirteen-year-old son, Nick. Around six months ago, Ethan had come upon the kid on one of the trails behind his house; he was bent over a tree stump, poking at wires in a busted CD player with a screw driver. Frustrated and close to tears, Nick threw the CD player against another tree, and Ethan had picked it up. He’d offered to show Nick how to fix it, and the kid let loose for twenty minutes about how his dad used to do stuff like that with him until his mother died almost a year ago, and how now his father mostly sat in the leather recliner in their living room and watched Law and Order reruns.
    Ethan had begun fixing the CD player on that stump in the woods, Nick scowling nearby for a while until he finally came over and watched, asking questions, asking Ethan to undo what he just did so that Nick could try it himself. The next day, Nick had stopped by the cabin on the way to school, beaming with the news that his dad had been so impressed by Nick’s hidden talent that he’d gotten off the recliner and driven Nick to Home Depot to set up a “fix it” shop in their garage. Nick hadn’t mentioned that Ethan had actually fixed the CD player, so now Nick needed Ethan to teach him how to fix other small appliances. Every week or so he turned up with something new. Last week it had been an electric shaver. He’d shown the boy how to fix it, then took it apart again and had the kid take a crack at it. It had taken Nick Marrow an entire week of afternoons after school, but he’d done it.
    Early this morning, when Ethan arrived home from his six-mile run, he found Nick sitting on the top step of the cabin’s porch, slumped over a silver toaster. With tears in his eyes, Nick explained that his mother had bought the toaster a few years ago and had their names engraved on it, something she’d had done after seeing it on an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond . The toaster suddenly didn’t work that morning while his dad was making frozen waffles, and his father burst into tears and left the room and hadn’t said a word since.
    â€œI can’t fix it,” Nick said, tears pooling in his eyes. “I tried for hours in our garage. I can’t even deal with trying anymore.”
    â€œThis one’s on me,” Ethan assured the kid. “I’ll have it ready for you after school. How’s that?”
    Nick’s bony shoulders had slumped with relief and then he ran off toward home.
    Poor kid. Grief was something Ethan knew about all too well.
    Ethan turned the toaster upside down and was about to reach for a screwdriver when the rapping intensified. Ethan glanced up and almost jumped. A young man in his early twenties was knocking on the window and waving frantically at Ethan. His cheeks were almost as red as his hair.
    Who the hell is that? Ethan wondered, rushing over to the door to save the guy from frostbite. It was difficult to get lost in Ethan’s neck of the woods, which really was the woods. If you came down this way, you most likely meant to.
    The moment Ethan opened the door, the guy burst in.
    â€œMan, it is freaking freezing here!” the guy said. “Hey, can I hang by that fireplace for a minute? I can’t even feel my nose.”
    Ethan nodded, and when the guy darted over to the fireplace, hopping up and down to warm himself, Ethan could plainly see a huge SUV parked in the dirt driveway.
    The SUV