What Breaks a Man

By Kari Kilgore

A Truth too Hard to Face

Only one thing on earth pulls Reggie hard enough to land him in a junked car, in the middle of sweltering Texas.
His estranged son Scotty.
But when the trail goes cold, Reggie faces a hard choice.
Fight for the sweet boy he remembers. Or let the strange man live his life unknown.
How far can a father's love bend before it breaks?

 

An excerpt from What Breaks a Man:

How many last chances does one man deserve?

A click, and Scotty was gone.

Reggie stared up at the fluorescent lights overhead, one buzzing, one out. A scattering of dead bugs dotted the plastic covers. He blinked away tears before the girl could see them, thanked her, and left.

He sat in the car, face in his hands, trying not to shiver in the lingering heat. His damp shirt and the clammy fabric seat didn't help. Neither did the images tearing through his mind.

The last time he'd heard Scotty's voice was the day he'd left home a few months short of high school graduation. A last grand screaming match, and his son disappeared from his house and his life.

Scotty's mother left not long after. Reggie couldn't think of a single reason for her to stay, no matter how long and hard he tried.
They both knew they'd only been staggering along in their marriage for years, hoping they could somehow make their son turn out okay.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Spiral Publishing, Ltd
• Release date: Jul 14, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201887902

Kari Kilgore

Kari Kilgore started her first published novel Until Death in Transylvania, Romania, and finished it in Room 217 at the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado, where Stephen King got the idea for The Shining. That’s just one example of how real world inspiration drives her fiction. Kari’s first published novel Until Death was included on the Preliminary Ballot for the Bram Stoker Award for Outstanding Achievement in a First Novel in 2016. It was also a finalist for the Golden Stake Award at the Vampire Arts Festival in 2018. Recent professional short story sales include three to Fiction River anthology magazine, with the first due out in the September issue. Kari also has two stories in a holiday-themed anthology project with Kristine Kathryn Rusch due out over the holidays in 2019. Kari writes fantasy, science fiction, horror, and contemporary fiction, and she’s happiest when she surprises herself. She lives at the end of a long dirt road in the middle of the woods with her husband Jason Adams, various house critters, and wildlife they’re better off not knowing more about. Kari’s novels, novellas, and short stories are available at www.spiralpublishing.net, which also publishes books by Frank Kilgore and Jason Adams. For more information about Kari, upcoming publications, her travels and adventures, and random cool things that catch her attention, visit www.karikilgore.com.

Book preview

What Breaks a Man

For everyone who struggles between

holding on too long and letting go too soon

What Breaks a Man

Kari Kilgore

Spiral Publishing, Ltd.

What Breaks a Man

Reggie gripped the bottom of the hot, sticky steering wheel, focusing on the ache in his scarred and swollen knuckles. The snarled construction traffic inched forward just often enough that he couldn’t put the car into park and stretch his cramped right foot. The oily stink of exhaust floated through the open windows to compete with the reek of weed and cigarettes ground into the stained, faded cloth seats. Motionless, humid air did nothing to clear out the sweetish aroma of gas from the hatchback.

Now that he was stuck in it, Reggie felt guilty about making his kid drive this heap even after the air conditioner quit working.

The decaying, grubby black padding was missing along the top of the steering wheel, and the dark exposed metal was too hot to touch after baking in the July Texas sun for days. Reggie had yelled when his son picked the rotten foam off when he was sixteen, wondering why he was so stupid even with a fifteen-year-old beater of a car.

Scotty had answered with a shrug, as usual, before slamming his bedroom door. That surly kid hadn’t stopped trying to escape his screwed-up family since the day he was born. Not much different than Reggie, really.

Except Scotty may have finally managed the trick this time.

Reggie leaned forward and pulled his wet t-shirt away from his back even though it was useless with the sweat-soaked seat. The oil-stained work cooler