Page 93 of Play Dirty

She turns and goes back to her meal prep.

So I take my attention to my father, who is already sitting in his oversized wingback leather chair, sipping his Scotch.

“What is that?” my father says, nodding his head to my folder.

I toss it down on the coffee table in front of the couch, then pick up my drink from a coaster and take a seat in the matching wingback chair that faces his. “There’s something I need to ask you,” I say, looking down into the glass of dark amber liquid. I consider taking a drink, but then decide not to, and set it back down on the little side table to my left.

“Shoot,” my father says. “What’s on your mind, Jordan?”

I glance at my mother, who is all the way across the large room, still busy doing something with dinner, not paying any attention to us, and then take my full attention back to my father. “How long?” I ask.

He smiles at me. “What? How long what?”

I glance at my mother again, making sure she’s not listening. “How long did you keep Marie Sara Claiborne as one of your little sex slaves?”

His eyes narrow as he calmly tracks them to the kitchen. To my mother. To make sure she’s not listening. “Keep your fucking voice down,” he whispers.

“When did you get her?” I ask. “How old was she? Because when you sent her to me that night in the cabin, she was definitely not eighteen.”

“We can talk about this later, after—”

“Fuck that,” I say. My voice is low. Even. But very clearly angry. “Fuck. That. We’re talking abut it now. Did you kill her? Did you kill that family last year?”

“What fucking family?” my father growls.

“The Thompsons. Because Marie Sara Claiborne turned into Marie Sara Thompson. Funny how you never mentioned that I bought the house they used to live in. Seeing as how…” And I have to stop here. Because this… this was the hardest thing to hear. Of all the revelations Darrel told me on the phone ten minutes ago, this was the hardest. But it needs to be said. “Seeing as how her oldest child was my half-brother.”

That poor fucking kid. He looked like such a good kid. Such a normal fucking kid.

And it kills me now. Knowing I had a chance to… I don’t know, look through his room? Find clues about who he was? And I just threw it all away and sold the rest off in an estate sale.

I sold my only sibling off in an estate sale.

My father glances at my mother again. She’s in the kitchen humming. And I’m not sure if that’s just something she does these days, or if she’s deliberately trying to drown out the conversation going on in her living room. “It was an accident.”

“Fuck you it was an accident. Was bringing Marie up to see me when I was twelve an accident? Was telling her to fix me an accident too?”

“You’re getting this all wrong. I’m trying to help you, Jordan.”

“Help me do what?” I ask.

“Help you navigate your way through the… through the personality issues you have, son.”

I actually laugh. “Personality issues? Is that what you’re calling it? No,” I say, shaking my head. “We’re not gonna talk in code tonight. It’s called bisexual, Dad. I’m bisexual.”

He puts his hand up and says, “Just wait a minute. That’s not what it was about.”

“No? Funny. Marie Sara told me that’s exactly what it was about. I’m supposed to like girls, right? Well, newsflash, I do like girls. I just like them with guys.”

“I’m not judging you, Jordan. I just wanted to make things easier for you than they were for me. What’s wrong with that?”

And that’s when all the shit Darrel just told me slides into place. That folder is thick with evidence he’s collected. My father’s past. His history.

And it looks uncomfortably similar to mine.

“I didn’t judge you when you got involved with those people in LA. I didn’t judge you when you joined that club. I didn’t judge you when you started up this game business. And do you know why I didn’t judge you, Jordan?”

I swallow. Because I do. Only I don’t want to hear it.