Page 94 of Play Dirty

“That’s right,” he says. “I had those relationships too. I had clubs like that too. I played my own games back in my day.”

“You killed her,” I say, hurling the accusation with absolute calm. “You killed her, and you killed her family, and then… then what? Did you somehow convince me to buy that house? Is there evidence there? Was that…” Oh, shit. I want to throw up. “Was that house your… club?”

He glances at my mother again. And now I’m sure she knows we’re in here discussing things. I’m sure she’s hiding in her kitchen. I’m sure she’s pretending she can’t hear this conversation.

Because she’s been doing it her whole adult life. Pretending that Jack Wells was a pretty good catch.

I don’t need an answer. Because I already know. In the three seconds since those words came out of my mouth everything fell into place.

My father had a sex club. Only it wasn’t husbands and wives looking to swing or add a third or fourth. It wasn’t consensual. It was… something sick. Something poisonous. Something that led to Marie Sara being driven up to the Washakie Ten cabin to service a twelve-year-old when she was only a kid herself.

It was games, all right. It was dark secrets, and dark places, and my mother. Here, in this house, pretending it wasn’t happening.

I just stand up and say, “Mom. I can’t stay. I just got a call and I…I have to take it. It’s an emergency. But I’ll… I’ll come by next weekend or something, I promise.”

“Jordan!” she calls after me.

But my father cuts her off with a sharp, “Go back in the kitchen, Janet,” and follows me to the front door.

I swing it open, letting it bang hard against the doorstop, and just hop down the front steps towards my car.

“It’s not what you think,” my father says. “And frankly, some of what you’re saying sounds insane. Just ludicrous.”

“Is it?” I say, halting my escape so I can turn to face him one last time. “Then tell me what I’m missing.”

He shakes his head a few times. Standing there, looking down at me from just across the threshold of the doorway, trying to find the words.

He’s never going to find them.

There are no words that can excuse what he is.

“I didn’t have anything to do with you buying that house. I have no idea what possessed you to purchase it.” He stops to stare at me. And for a second I see the dad I thought I knew. The one who taught me how to play t-ball with me in the back yard. The one who showed up for parent-teacher conferences in second grade. The one who took me turkey hunting the fall I turned ten.

“Where did you go?” I ask him. “What happened to you? How could you do this? To me? To them? How?”

“I… I don’t know what you’re talking about. Just… Jordan, listen to me. Just… just let it go. Dragging things up from the past rarely fixes things. I know that better than most. But I was desperate, that’s all. I’m sorry. Just move on and forget about them. You got along just fine before they came back. You can do it again. Just—”

“Wait, what? What did you just say?”

“I said you got along just fine. You were doing just fine. I’m sorry. I should’ve left well enough alone. I see that now. I just… I didn’t want you to buy that building.”

“What?”

“You need to let that place go, Jordan. Just like I did when my partners and I sold it.”

“What? You and your—”

Holy fucking shit.

I did have it wrong. My father wasn’t running a sex club in the mansion.

He was one of the original owners of Turning Point.

I just shake my head at him. “I feel sorry for you.” And then movement over his shoulder catches my attention… and there’s my mother, standing in the hallway, wiping her hands on her apron. Her eyes lock onto mine and she frowns.

My father follows my line of sight, turns, and snaps, “Go back to the kitchen, Janet!”

She turns away without a word and then he’s talking again.