by Riley Ashby
I paused to swallow, running my hands up my face and through my hair as I shifted from foot to foot. His gaze didn’t soften an inch. Shit. “I fucked up, Joseph. I fucked up real bad. But I’m the luckiest bastard in the world, because somehow, your daughter still loves me. And I’ll spend the rest of my life being worthy of her, to prove she didn’t make a mistake giving her heart to me.”
He was silent for so long. Long enough that I thought maybe what I’d said had actually gotten through to him. And then he spoke.
“You think I can fucking let you be with my daughter because you think you love her?” He crossed the room to me too quickly, finger pointing as if he wanted to stab me with it, but I didn’t back away. I wasn’t afraid of him. “Your monster of a father said he loved Eva, too. Told her that while he raped her day after day for years.”
“I know first hand just how evil my father was.”
It was as if he didn’t hear me. “And now you want to tell me that, what, you love each other? That’s not love, you piece of shit. It’s Stockholm Syndrome.”
“That’s not how it happened.” I could feel his anger whipping toward me like a hurricane. He was spinning around me so close to out of control, he nearly swept me up with him. But if I wanted him to believe me, I had to be in control of myself. In the past, I’d always let Conrad blow me over. There was no time for that now. I’d wasted thirty years cowering in fear, but I had the rest of my life now. The rest of my life with the woman I loved and who, impossibly, loved me back. I was going to make that count. “You weren’t here, Joseph. There was more that happened than you realized.”
“I don’t fucking care!” He was an inch away from my face, spittle flecking across my skin like sparks from a bomb fuse. But I didn’t move. “You’re not good enough for her, and nothing you can do can ever convince me otherwise.”
As if realizing how close he was to hitting me, he suddenly pulled back and walked across the room, his back to me. I let out a breath I hadn’t realized was sitting in the bottom of my chest, falling back a step before I got control of myself again and righted my posture.
“I understand why you hate me. I really do. But you need to at least get used to seeing me around, because I’m not going anywhere. And nothing you say will change how I feel about your daughter.”
There was a muffled cough by the door, and we both looked in unison to find Madeline standing just over the threshold. She gazed at her father lovingly before turning to me.
“Mom wants us in the study. We need to talk about what comes next.”
Maddie
We all stared at the smear of blood on the floor, bits of brain and bone spread like jam on a hard piece of bread. Meyer had one hand on the small of my back, and his trembling reverberated up my spine. I reached behind me with both hands to grab his, squeezing his fingers as tightly as he could, until he fell still.
“I thought you were cleaning up,” I said, looking between Joshua and my mother. Joshua looked ready to fall over from exhaustion, but he was still helping. That was something.
“This is part of it,” Mom said. “If I’d managed to kill him with the knife, that would have been easier to explain away. But since there were … complications,” she looked at Joshua quickly and then back at me, “we had to improvise a little.”
“We didn’t want Meyer to be implicated in any of this,” Joshua said. His voice was much lower than usual, further evidence of his fatigue. “If the police found out—”
“That he was complicit in my daughter’s kidnapping?” Joseph hadn’t taken his eyes off Meyer since we entered the room. Even my puppy dog eyes, which usually served to placate him, had no effect at all. His anger filled the room like another person, taking up the space so recently vacated by Conrad. I didn’t like it, but there wasn’t much I could do at the moment. Mom placed her hand on his arm, but didn’t say anything.
“Well, yeah.” Joshua grimaced as he looked at his former employer. “That would extend the investigation considerably. We had to get rid of the bat and the gun completely. There will be no murder weapon for the police to find when they get here.”
“And when will they get here?” Meyer squeezed my hand as he spoke. His concern was me becoming a suspect. It made me love him even more. I overheard most of his conversation with my father, and it had taken most of my self control not to burst in there and physically separate them. The need for me to protect Meyer was still so strong, like a compulsion. But some spell over him had been broken the moment Conrad took his last breath. He’d been strong, even without the normal armor he used to protect himself. He stood up for both of us.
“About fifteen minutes, maybe less if they drive fast.”
Meyer sighed. “So, what’s our story?”
“The story is, none of us were here.” She swallowed, then took a deep breath. “Conrad asked Joshua to leave him for the evening, then when you and Maddie arrived the next morning to have breakfast with him, he was gone. All you found was this.” She gestured at the swath of remains on the floor. “You called Joshua, who then recommended we call the police.”
“And what are the police going to find?” I wrapped one arm around Meyer’s and leaned on him.
“They’re bringing cadaver dogs, who will trace his body to the pond back behind Meyer’s house.”
“And then they’ll do the autopsy and wonder who bashed in his head before shooting him.” Meyer looked like he was already thinking up ways to explain the wound, make sure I was never here, at least officially.
“No.” She shook her head. “Joshua made sure the man Conrad’s been bribing all these years is going to be taking lead on the investigation. He’ll make sure there’s no autopsy.”
“How do we know he won’t just arrest us?”
Joshua spoke next. “Because we’re going to give him a shit load of money not to. More than Conrad gave him in a year.”
“Great,” I grumbled. “More bribes.”
Joshua frowned. “It’ll keep you all out of a jail cell, so I wouldn’t get too bent out of shape over it.”
I glared at him. “Why don’t you admit to it, Joshua? Save us all a whole lot of trouble.”
“Maybe you should just be grateful I’m helping with this absurd plan instead of turning you in,” he snapped, and a second later Meyer was physically holding me back from leaping at him, Mom was yelling at both of us, and Dad looked like he wanted to shoot everyone in the room.
“Both of you, get yourselves under control,” Dad yelled, but I barely heard him. Meyer was shouting as well, but I was too focused on getting to Joshua for daring to be so disrespectful after everything he’d helped put us through.
And then the doorbell rang.
We all fell silent in an instant, and Joshua quickly buttoned his shirt and tried to smooth away the wrinkles. Mom looked between the three of us. “Can you all be on board with this?”
“Yes,” we muttered in unison.
“Good.” She sighed in relief. “Meyer, you should probably go get the door.”
He nodded and sighed, turning stiff as he released me, the mask of a concerned son slipping into place as easily as a second skin.
“I’ll go with you,” I whispered, grabbing his hand as I followed him out of the room, and he smiled at me gratefully.
He seemed to know the man at the door, and judging by the cautious way they shook hands I figured this had to be the man Conrad had been bribing for the past several years in order to make sure his habits of enslaving teenagers for sex and beating his son didn’t get found out. The man stared at me for a moment, and Meyer sighed a little.
“Detective Brantley, this is my girlfriend, Madeline Sheppard.”
The detective smirked as he shook my hand, no doubt aware of the circumstances that led to me becoming Meyer’s ‘girlfriend’ in the first place, but I only found myself beaming. I stared up at Meyer, trying to keep my goofy grin from taking over my entire face and ruining the supposed solemnity of this situation. Meye
r flashed me a quick grin before stepping between Detective Brantley and me, cutting off our handshake.
“Come this way and I’ll show you what we found.”
The police took photographs of everything, as well as fingerprints from each of us, but Mom didn’t look the least bit worried. Joshua, on the other hand, couldn’t stop fidgeting.
“Tell me again why Mr. Schaf decided to send you away?” One of the detectives, I guessed one who hadn’t been let in on our little farce, was grilling him for the third time in half an hour. He kept saying he didn’t need anything else, then would circle back to him and ask the same questions all over again.
“I told you,” Joshua growled. “Mr. Schaf said he wanted a night to himself. How was I supposed to know he’d invited over his murderer? They probably had some business deal he didn’t want me to know about. Maybe it was related to everything that’s going on with the company.”
The officer made a few more notes on his notepad and walked away without another word. Outside, a dog started barking wildly, audible even over the howling wind. The officers sprinted from the house, all but Detective Brantley, who watched from the window as they ran across the lawn.
“Mind telling me what they’re going to find out there?” He spoke lazily, as if he didn’t really care what our answer was.
“My hope would be my father’s body.” Meyer frowned. “I wouldn’t expect there to be any others laying around the property.” But he looked at me as he spoke, and I knew we shared the same thought—what had happened to his actual mother when she died in childbirth? Had her remains been too well hidden for anyone to find, or would the police come back with two bodies instead of one? And how would the discovery of her body complicate our little farce we had going on here?
“Well, what is that body going to look like?” Brantley turned halfway, staring at Meyer over his shoulder.
Meyer shrugged. “I wouldn’t know what to expect.”
“Yet you seem to think he’s already dead.”
“That’s brain matter on the floor, Brantley. I don’t think he’s coming back from that.”
The detective turned back toward the window as an officer came barreling back across the lawn, and I took the chance to glare at Joshua. Why was he giving us the third degree if he knew what was going on? Joshua just raised one shoulder and shook his head minutely.
Brantley went to the door to speak to the officer, but it was pretty obvious what had happened as the EMTs unloaded a gurney from the back of their ambulance and started to roll it in the direction of the barking dog. I side stepped until I was next to my Dad, sliding one arm around his waist as he nestled me beneath his shoulder.
“I don’t have Stockholm Syndrome,” I muttered.
He sighed, then turned to wrap me in a bear hug. I sighed and relaxed into him, realizing I never said hello when I saw him at breakfast, or told him how much I missed him.
“You’re a smart woman, Mads. But you’ve been through a lot in the past few weeks. I don’t want you to tie your future to someone who isn’t right for you, just because you shared some trauma. He’s not a refugee for you to save. He put you through hell, when he could have ended it at any moment.”
Over my dad’s shoulder, I saw Meyer watching us out of the corner of his eye. Mom stood next to him, absently running her hand across his back. Joshua sat in a chair in the corner, his face propped on one fist with his eyes closed.
“I know he’s not, Dad.” We stepped away from each other, breaking the hug, but I let him hold me against his chest as we turned and stared out the window together toward the trees at the far end of the lawn. Police officers began to emerge from the brush. “We only got through this because we were in it together. And I know how insane it looks to someone from the outside. He saved me, Daddy, in so many ways.”
He didn’t say anything for several minutes as the yellow gurney made its reappearance, this time with a sheet-wrapped bundle strapped on top of it. Brantley stood watching with his hands on his hips, coat billowing around him in the wind. As the group of officers and EMTs drew closer, we could see the sheet was soaked through, the form of a body clearly visible through it. One of the officers pointed toward the house, at all of us standing in the window watching, and Brantley turned to come back inside. Dad looked down at me, turning away from the window as he did.
“I trust you, baby. I let you run off to New York even knowing how dangerous it was, and look what happened. We almost lost you forever.”
“But you didn’t.” I grabbed his hands, still so much larger than mine. Rough from his years of working long shifts on a factory floor in order to support a child who didn’t even share his DNA. “I’m still here. And for all the shitty stuff that happened, I’m not only alive, I met someone amazing because of it.”
I wouldn’t have noticed the tremble in his lower lip if I hadn’t become so accustomed to watching Meyer’s reactions over the past month. It was so fleeting, so out of place on his face, and he looked away from me as it happened.
“Losing you would have killed us, Mads.”
“I know, Daddy.” I squeezed his fingers, pulling his gaze back to me. “You won’t. Meyer and I will be around. Both of us. And he’ll show you what a good man he is. Far, far better than his father.”
He exhaled loudly through his nose as the front door slammed, then pulled me against his side again. “Your mother says I should give him a chance.”
“I agree with her.” I smiled at him. He finally grinned back, but it didn’t reach his eyes.
“I know you do. I’m willing to watch and wait only because I don’t want to push you away. But the minute I sense something off, I’m stepping in.”
I nodded as the Detective stepped back into the room and opened his mouth to speak. “I wouldn’t expect anything else from you.”
*
The police stayed for a couple more hours, asking questions and bagging several items for evidence from Conrad’s office, but the bribe to Detective Brantley somehow also got us out of going down to the station to answer any questions. The on-site investigators said it looked like Conrad had been killed by a gunshot wound to the head, and, God willing, that would remain the official conclusion. The moment the last police car pulled out of sight, Joshua turned on his heel and left the room.
“Do not bother me for at least twelve hours,” he said, and then the sound of his heavy feet on the stairs reverberated throughout the house.
I frowned after him, but Meyer rubbed my shoulders. “Let him sleep. He’s less likely to be cooperative if he’s grouchy.”
Mom grabbed Dad’s hand and pulled him from the room, mumbling about bringing food to Anita. I gasped, remembering someone else who might be hungry.
“What about—”
“Her Majesty?” Meyer grinned. “I stopped by and said hello to her yesterday. The staff have been coming out to feed her, but she’s probably starved for exercise. Let’s go put on warmer clothes and visit her.”
For me, putting on warmer clothes meant layering on another pair of Meyer’s sweatpants, and a couple of hoodies over the t-shirt I was wearing. The cold didn’t bother me as I linked arms with Meyer and we began traipsing across the property toward his house, though he seemed to shiver slightly in the wind.
“Things will get better with my dad,” I promised, my voice nearly lost in the wind.
He chuckled as he moved his arm around me, squeezing my shoulder. “I’m not so sure about that, but it’s okay.” I looked up at his worried profile, the ragged bottom lip he couldn’t stop gnawing on. We needed to get him away from this place. He turned and caught me staring, and smiled. “He’s not totally wrong. This isn’t … conventional.”
“Fuck conventional. Our lives are going to seem super boring in comparison to all this. We have the rest of our lives to fall into routines and worry about bills.”
“Well, we won’t have to worry about bills.” He leaned over and kissed me quickly, like he couldn’t help himself. “
But yes to routines. Yes to boring weekends and planning trips to…” He thought for a moment. “Myrtle Beach? Is that a place normal people go for vacation?”
I giggled. “Well, I’ve never been, so I guess we’ll find out.”
“I hear it’s warm there.” He put his other hand in his pocket as his house came into view, the stable not far past it. “Maybe we’ll move south. Somewhere it never snows.”
“Would you like that?”
He was quiet for awhile as we walked up the gravel road to the stable, then finally stepped into the warmth of the barn. Her Majesty poked her head out of her stable, and began whinnying at the sight of us.
“I’ve had enough cold nights to last a lifetime.”
He watched me carefully as I put the lead on Her Majesty and led her out of the stall toward the attached pasture. Instead of going around to the outside, Meyer followed me out and leaned against the fence on the inside. I let her off the lead and she instantly took off running, sprinting to the end of the pasture and then making a sharp turn back.
“Guess she was pent up,” I said, walking over to stand next to Meyer. I snuggled up against him as we watched her run off all the energy she’d built up over the past week.
We were a little blocked from the wind on this side of the main house, and with our shared body heat he finally seemed to warm up.
“You don’t love the cold anymore,” I asked, though as the words left my mouth I realized they weren’t a question. Something had changed inside him the moment his father’s heart stopped beating. The ice around his heart was almost melted, and without that chilling his entire being he suddenly felt the external cold more acutely than ever before.
“I don’t think I ever really enjoyed it. I just got used to it.” He pulled me in front of him so that my back rested against his chest, and stuck his hands in the pocket of my hoodie where mine rested. I twined my fingers through his, tugging him tighter against me.
“Well, if you want to go somewhere warm, we can. I always hated those midwestern winters.”