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Chapter Twenty
Hunter
“What do you say when people ask what you do for a living?” Vanessa asked, breaking the silence.
Great. Where was this coming from? “Umm. Usually I say construction or sales. Sales allows for a varied schedule and income.”
“What do you sell?”
“Medical equipment. I use to say insurance, but one time someone wanted a quote. So that didn’t work too well.” He chuckled. What a nightmare that had been to talk his way out of.
“Have you ever thought about doing something else?”
“Sure.” He’d pictured hundreds of job options. Tried to imagine himself there. Especially now that he met her.
When he didn’t elaborate, she asked, “Like what?”
“I don’t know. A bunch of things. I just don’t think I’m cut out for any of them.” He hated to say it, but he couldn’t be something he wasn’t. He didn’t want to lead her on or make her think that somehow she could change him.
She didn’t respond, and he wondered what she was thinking.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sure that’s not what you wanted to hear.”
“I don’t know what I wanted to hear, actually. I mean, if you had a different job, and were made for office work, you wouldn’t be the person you are. And I like the person you are. Too much maybe.”
“I’m not what you and Opal need.”
She sucked in a breath. “I know that. On some level. But when you’re here, it’s so good. You fit into our world. Whatever you think we need, we need safety and security, and you provide that. Wasn’t it clear today in the way Opal reacted?”
“It just made me think that she’s a scared little girl, and I wonder what will happen when I kill her daddy. Will she hate me or be grateful? Or will you just lie about it forever?”
Vanessa stilled and her breathing grew heavier. He realized in her silence that she was still hoping they could send Jeremy to jail instead of killing him.
“If it doesn’t come to that, fine,” he said. “But what if it does? And what if this whole Jeremy thing blows over and everything is great. What happens when the next hit comes in? Are you going to tell her what I do for a living? No. So, you’re going to lie to her. All the time. And I’ll have to lie to her, too, to protect her. She doesn’t deserve that. She deserves a father who can be there for her and be honest and support her family in a way that doesn’t involve breaking the law.”
“But…”
He waited, but she didn’t continue. “Vanessa, you need someone straighter than me.”
“I had that. He didn’t turn out to be anything good at all. On the outside, he was wealthy, from a good, well-connected family. Went to a good school, was going to be successful and all that. And look how that turned out. I don’t think anyone is completely good or bad, and even if you do things most people consider bad, you’re a good person on the inside. I see it and so does Opal.”
“I’m a killer, Vanessa. How good of a person can I possibly be if I take lives and make money doing it?”
“But you don’t kill just anyone. You only kill bad people. You’re probably helping people.”
“You can make excuses for me all day. But at the end of it, the fact is the same. I commit felonies constantly. I could be locked away for life many times over. Then what would you and Opal do? Come visit me in jail?”
“I don’t know. You haven’t been caught yet.”
“But I was once.”
“But that was a long time ago.”
He chuckled. “The statute of limitations doesn’t expire on murder. If they found something in thirty years about something I did ten years ago, they could lock me away. I haven’t been caught. Yet. But that could change. It’s part of the risk I take every time I take a job. It’s part of the job I like. Knowing that every day is borrowed, that at any moment, I could lose it all. It makes me look at life differently.”
“What if we went to some other country where they couldn’t send you to prison if evidence came up?”
“You’d really uproot Opal like that? Move her across the world just to protect me from facing justice for what I’ve done?”
