Page 15 of Seven

“You’re gonna be okay,” I assured him as tears rolled down my face. It was a lie. I knew that. There was too much blood. It was everywhere. I pressed one hand to the wound on his chest, trying to stop it from pouring from the wound, but it just kept coming. “Just hang on, okay?”

“I’m… sorry, Tal.”

The dispatcher assured me that help was on the way, but it wasn’t coming soon enough. I was losing him. I saw our lives together flash before my eyes—him carrying me around on his shoulders, playing ball in the backyard with Rooks, the Christmas mornings when he wore that silly Santa hat, and all the school plays where he sat in the front row, watching me with pride in his eyes. All of that was slipping away, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

“Help is coming. I just...”

His hand shot up and gripped my wrist with surprising strength, and I froze. His lips moved, barely forming words, but I leaned closer. His voice was so faint I could barely make it out as he whispered, “I’m sorry… I shouldn’t have… He’s not…”

“It’s okay, Dad. Don’t try to talk. Just breathe.”

“They will... come... for you... All of you.”

“Who will come?” When he didn’t answer, I repeated, “Who is coming, Dad? Who did this to you?”

His grip loosened, and his breath rattled in his chest as he exhaled one last time.

Then nothing.

Just stillness.

The room seemed to collapse around me—every inch of it suffocating me in the awful quiet he’d left behind. I shook my head and pressed my bloodied hand to his shoulder. “No, Daddy. Don’t go! Don’t leave me.”

But it was too late.

He was already gone.

I don’t know how long I sat there staring at him as the warmth of his blood soaked into my jeans. My mind felt empty, and my body numb. I tried, but I couldn’t process what had just happened. My father was dead, but more than that, he was dead because someone had murdered him.

The sound of shuffling footsteps pulled me from my thoughts.

Ford.

I didn’t want him to see his grandfather like this, so I scrambled to my feet. I wiped the tears from my eyes as I turned toward the door. My blood-slick palms left smudges on the desk as I steadied myself. I rushed over to Ford and wrapped my arms around him. “It’s okay. Everything’s going to be okay.”

Even as I said the words, I didn’t believe them.

Half an hour later, the streets were lined with lights, and the office was filled with cops and firefighters. I stood in the corner and watched as the EMTs rushed in. One of them asked me questions while the others tried to revive my father. Their voices were a distant hum beneath the pounding in my ears. The cold seeped deep into my bones, but it wasn’t from the room. It was from the hollow ache spreading through my chest.

I felt numb.

Disconnected.

Weightless. It was like I was watching it all through a pane of glass. When they carried his lifeless body out of the office, that hollow ache grew to the point I feared it would swallow me up whole.

Once they were gone, a detective came over and asked to speak with me. Seconds later, I was sitting in one of the empty offices answering questions I had no idea how to answer. Someone had called my mother, and she was waiting outside the door with Ford. I was doing my best to hold it together as the detective pushed, “Is there anything more you can tell us?”

“Not that I can think of.”

“You can’t describe either of them?”

“I wish I could, but it all happened so fast,” I explained once again. “I only saw them through the slats in the closet door. I wasn’t able to see their faces.”

“I see,” Detective Joyner muttered as he jotted something down on his notepad. “And about what time did you arrive at his office?”

“I’ve already answered that and all of your other questions.”

“I’m aware, but it’s important that we go over it again. It’s the best way to make sure we don’t miss anything.”