Accidental Evil by Ike Hamill

that Chelsea was raising Jenny to be an exact copy of herself? By the time he’d realized it, the pattern of selfish, entitled bitchery was so deeply ingrained that it was intractable. He loved his daughter, but at this point he was just trying to keep a shred of his sanity intact while he waited for her to be old enough to run off with some unfortunate guy. Maybe in ten years he could re-establish a decent relationship with his daughter. Maybe by then he could extricate himself from Chelsea without losing his shirt.
    These thoughts had worn a groove in his brain. They shot through his neurons so often that they were like a song stuck in his head. It was a terrible song with sour lyrics, but he couldn’t shake it.
    Well, one thing could shake it. A smile passed over his face as he climbed in his car.
    He rolled up next to Lyle and leaned through his window.
    “Make sure everyone clocks out after the last of the supplies are unloaded. I want them back over to the Davis place to make some progress on that roof tomorrow. Then it’s back here for demo. Got it?”
    “Yup,” Lyle said.
    Kirk nodded at him and backed towards the road. Lyle wasn’t always dependable, but at least he was always positive. Kirk headed south and turned on the access road that led up to the golf course. A quick nine was just what he needed to brighten his mood.
    The road up to the course was steep and the gate was closed. It was so steep that Kirk didn’t trust the transmission to hold his car there. He cranked his wheel to the side and then engaged the parking brake. He got out and climbed the hill to read the note.
    He didn’t get to it. One of the guys who worked there—Brett? Bart?—appeared with a radio in his hand. He looked like the world’s least-intimidating Secret Service agent with his blue blazer and the ear piece dangling from his ear.
    “What’s up?” Kirk asked. “Closed on a Wednesday?”
    “Sorry, sir,” the man said. He gestured back up the hill with his radio. “Lightning struck the clubhouse last night. We’ve got downed lines and no power. We’re still waiting on CMP to fix us up.”
    The CMP truck was going to have a hard time up there. Kirk saw the top of a UPS truck just visible over the hill. Apparently, they could still take deliveries.
    “It’s five o’clock. How long does it take them to get out here?”
    The man only shrugged.
    “Call up Harry Frisk. He’s on the board and he knows people over at CMP. He’ll get you squared away,” Kirk said. He had the sneaking suspicion that Harry Frisk didn’t have any pull at all with CMP anymore, but it was important to him that this guy—Brett or Bart—wasn’t just sitting on his ass, waiting. The people who kept the golf course afloat paid way too much money to have their whole facility knocked out by a simple lightning strike. That’s the kind of thing that should have been fixed post-haste.
    “Mr. Frisk has been alerted,” the man said. “In the meantime, could I get you to a better location in case the truck does decide to come? They need to get a running start at the hill, and if you’re in the way they’ll have to back all the way down.”
    “Yeah, I suppose,” Kirk said, grumbling. His legs were already getting tired anyway. It was a bitch trying to stand on that tilted pavement. Whoever decided to make the driveway go straight up like that should have been fired. It wasn’t like they couldn’t have put in a switchback. “Is the lower gate open at least?”
    “Yes, sir,” the man said. “We’ve put a few carts down by the parking lot. You should find a space or two open. Please bear in mind, we don’t have any drink service and the driving range is closed.”
    “Fine,” Kirk said. The limited options ruined his cover, but it would be okay as long as Brett or Bart didn’t ask any questions. It was fine—they knew not to ask too many questions. The members used the golf course for lots of things, and almost all of them required a