Darynda Jones - Second Grave on the Left

Thankfully, any tears that might have surfaced from the knowledge that my father had practically painted a target on my forehead stayed behind a wall of bewilderment. My lungs were still paralyzed, as if the air had been knocked out of me. They started to burn, and I had to force myself to breathe as I stared in utter disbelief.

My father, a twenty-year veteran of the Albuquerque Police Department, was way too smart to do something so incredibly stupid. And my Uncle Bob knew it. I could see the shock and anger mingling behind his brown eyes. He was just as stunned as I was.

The look on my father’s face was reprehensible. The clueless look on my stepmother’s as her gaze darted back and forth between the two of us was almost comical. But there were three other people in the room who’d figured it out. Uncle Bob I could understand, but I couldn’t believe that even Taft had figured it out. He had planted a surprised look on me that bordered on apologetic.

But the look of incredulity on Gemma’s face was more than I could bear. She stared hard at our father, her face a picture of stupefaction. Her Ph.D. in psychology was paying off. She knew that our father had chosen her over me. Had chosen our stepmother over me.

My feet carried me back until I felt a door handle nudge my hip. I reached behind me and turned the knob just as my father stood up.

“Charley, wait,” he said as I rushed out the door. The hall opened up to a sea of desks with phones ringing and keyboards clicking. I hurried through them.

“Charley, please stop,” I heard my dad call behind me.

And let him see the drooling mess I’d become? Absolutely not.

But he was faster than I’d given him credit for. He caught my arm in his long slender hand and pulled me around to face him. It was then that I realized my tears had broken free. He was blurry, and I slammed my lids shut and wiped my face with the back of my free hand.

“Charley—”

“Not now.” I jerked out of his grasp and started toward the exit again.

“Charley,” he called out again and caught me just as I was heading out the door. He pulled me back inside, and in my attempt to get free, I jerked my arm out of his grip. He grabbed me again and I jerked again, over and over until my palm whipped across his face so hard, the sound echoed throughout the precinct. A silence fell over the room, and every eye was suddenly focused on us.

He touched his cheek where I slapped him. “I deserve that, but let me explain.”

We stood in the hall as a prickly kind of betrayal and humiliation kept me from hearing anything he had to say. I shut down. His words bounced back as though I had an invisible force field protecting me, and after delivering the best glare I could conjure, I turned and tried to walk away again, mostly because I saw Gemma and Denise coming. The thought of dealing with their indifference made me physically ill. I swallowed hard, fighting the bile in the back of my throat.

Dad didn’t grab me this time. He just braced an arm on the wall, blocking my path. He bent down to me, whispered in my ear. “If I have to handcuff you and carry you kicking and screaming back to that room, I will.”

I glowered at him as Denise hastened up to us in a huff. “Did she just hit you?” she asked, appalled.

More than any other time in my life, I wanted to belt her as well. Where was Ulrich when I needed him?

“What are you going to do about it?” she asked my dad. My dad. She glanced around the room, embarrassed that the other officers had seen my tantrum. “Leland—”

“Shut up,” he said, his voice so quiet, so menacing, it left her speechless. For once.

She raised a hand to cover her throat self-consciously. By law, any police officer who saw me hit him was duty bound to arrest me. None stepped forward.

Dad towered over me, his frame thin but rock solid, and I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that if he wanted to wrestle me back, he could. But he would be grabbing a cat by its tail. He would have a fight on his hands, one he would not soon forget.

“Fine,” I said, my voice just as soft as his, “cuff me, because I am not going back into that room so that everyone can feel sorry for me because my father sent a madman to kill his own daughter.”

He sighed, his shoulders crumpling. “That’s not what I did.”

“Isn’t it?” Gemma asked, her voice hard as she stepped forward. “Dad, that’s exactly what you did.”

“No, I mean—”

“She’s so special. She’s so unique,” Gemma said, her words stealing my breath. “She’s so much more than even you know. And you sent him to her?”

“Gemma,” Denise said, and I could feel the betrayal wafting off her, “what are you talking about? He begged that man not to hurt Charley.”

Gemma seemed to be struggling for patience. She closed her blue eyes a long moment, then turned to her. “Mom, did you not hear him?”

“I heard every word.” Denise’s voice was suddenly edged with bitterness.

“Mom,” Gemma said, placing her hands on Denise’s shoulders, “open your eyes.” She said it softly, not wanting to hurt the hag’s feelings.

I had no such qualms. “That’s impossible.”

Denise’s jaw clenched in anger. “See?” she asked Dad, pointing at me just in case he didn’t get it.

I was still floored by Gemma’s reaction. Quite frankly, I didn’t think she gave a crap.

Uncle Bob had been standing back, but he stepped forward now. “Maybe we can take this to my office.”

“I’m leaving,” I said, so exhausted, I thought I was going to be sick. I started out the door again.

“I knew he would lose,” Dad said quietly after me.

I stopped and turned around. Waited.

“I knew he would end up like the others.”

What others? How many did he know about?

He stepped closer to me, leveled a beseeching gaze on me. “Sweetheart, think about it. If he had gone after Gemma or Denise before we found him, they would be dead right now.”

He was right. But that didn’t make what he did hurt less. A twisting pain like I’d never felt in my life burrowed a hole in my chest, blocked off my passageway until I was gasping for air. And then it happened again. The fucking waterworks. God, could I be any more lame?

Dad put a hand on my face. “I knew you would be okay. You always are, my beautiful girl. You have, I don’t know, a power or something. A force that follows you. You’re the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen.”

“But, Dad,” Gemma said in admonishment, “you should have told her. You should have prepared her.” Gemma was crying now, too. I couldn’t believe it. I had entered the Twilight Zone. No more science fiction marathons for me. Gemma stepped to my side and hugged me. Like, really hugged. And damned if I didn’t hug back.

The bitterness and frustration from years of being the fuckup, the odd girl out, the ugly duckling surfaced and I could not, with my most concentrated effort, stop the sobs from racking my body. Dad joined in, whispering airy apologies as we embraced.

I glanced up at Denise. She stood looking around, confused and embarrassed, and I almost felt sorry for her. Only not. Then I motioned for Uncle Bob to join us. He stood with a dreamy smile on his face, but when he saw me motion him toward us, he frowned and shook his head. I stabbed him with my laserlike death stare and motioned again. He blew out a long breath, then walked up and encircled us in his arms.

So there we stood, in the middle of an APD precinct, hugging and sobbing like celebrities in rehab.

“I can’t breathe,” Gemma said, and we giggled like we used to in high school.