Page 68 of Their Stormy Reunion

She was asleep by the time I left her. I got up and got a washcloth to clean her up, then covered her and wrapped her up under the covers the way she liked. I put on my clothes and went to the living room to wait for Zarek.

Zarek had asked me if I knew what I was doing when I’d left him there to watch over Fallon. I assured him that I did.

I did the speed limit as I drove the seventy-three miles into Knoxville, flashes of Fallon standing up in the lobby of the hospital earlier that day with a bandage on her forehead and her arm in a sling.

A worse memory—the moment I found Fallon gasping for breath amid crushed geraniums, positive she was going to die. Die as I was forced to watch the life drain out of her, the same way I watched when my father squeezed the life out of my mother. Strangling her.

A horn honked behind me, and I realized I was no longer doing the speed limit, I was ten miles below. I sped up and took the exit I needed to get to Sid Martin’s apartment. The closer I got to his address, the worse the neighborhood got. Roan had told me that Sid was working as a sanitation worker at a sausage plant outside of town.

It was ten o’clock when I got to the dilapidated one-story apartment complex. I shuddered. Each unit looked to have a door and two windows. It looked like some motel built in the forties that had been converted into the saddest apartments I’d ever seen. I pulled in and parked my truck under one of the two parking lot lights that worked.

In my walk over to the apartment that was Sid’s I saw two drug deals go down. I ignored them. But it made me realize that around here you would probably be able to find a friend of a friend of a friend who sold exotic animals.

I was careful not to walk directly up to Sid’s apartment, rather, I came around from the side. Both of his windows had sheets over them, and I could see part of the duct tape that held them closed.

Classy.

I pounded on the door from the side, ensuring I couldn’t be seen through the peephole.

“KPD,” I yelled. “Open up.”

I knew from the file that Roan and Simon had put together that Sid worked the night shift, therefore he should be up, getting ready to clean out meat drippings from grinders and drains. Oh joy.

I pounded again. “Knoxville Police Department. Open up.”

“You already cleared me,” Sid was saying as he opened the door.

And there he was, the monster from my childhood. Sid Martin. My father.

The man who used to tower over me, with a voice like thunder that would roar through our little house, making Mom and me tremble. The man who broke bones and split lips.

“Mikey. Nice of you to stop by.” Sid smiled.

How could a monster have a white smile like his? I stared into his gray eyes and I saw them dance with mirth.

“Thought I might get a visit from you, sooner or later.”

I never realized that we had the same face. The same cleft in the chin. The same eyes, the same square jaw. I remembered him being a giant who could, and often did, crush me like a bug. Only now he was thinner. Older. His dark hair was greasy and threaded with gray. Instead of looking like a man who I knew to be fifty-four, he looked over seventy.

Like a puzzle piece snapping into place, I realized why I had always avoided having my picture taken. Because I would end up with mementos around the house that would remind me of him.

“You turned out good-looking. Not like that ugly, useless bitch of a mother.”

“Shut the fuck up. Don’t you dare talk about my mother that way.”

“What are you going to do about it, Mikey? Hit me? Abuse your law-abiding father who deeply regrets his past sins and just wants to live in peace. That won’t play very well with your job.”

My spine locked.

There he was. When he wasn’t ranting and raging, he would sound like this. All tricky and fake. I remember my Mom always loving on him when he sounded like this. But even as a young child I never trusted him like this. I’d known he was a monster, no matter what guise he was in.

I pushed at the door. Hard. Shoving Sid backward, and I slammed the door shut behind us both. “Let’s get some things straight, shall we?”

“Think you’re a big man, do you?” Sid taunted. “Did a little time playing Army, and now you’re playing fireman and you think you can scare me. Well, I’ve met really scary men during my time in prison, and you’re just a pussy compared to them.”

“You stay away from my parents, and you stay away from Fallon. You don’t, and you die. It’s as simple as that.”

Sid laughed. “You won’t kill me. You don’t have it in you. I know you. I saw the woman that birthed you. I saw what a sniveling brat you were. You don’t have it in you to kill me.”