by Nicole Snow
Hearing her mention my old man's final days makes me clench the steering wheel tighter. I grit my teeth. Comparing the mid-life crisis he had before his ticker exploded to my very real dilemma is apples to fucking oranges.
I remember how much he pissed me off sneaking around. Came home to his end a kid, barely out of bootcamp, and left with no more illusions in my eyes. It hits me like yesterday. Everything.
The late hours away from our house. The letters from some woman named Judy he tucked into that Cuban cigar box in his office, where mom would never look. I wouldn't have found them myself if I hadn't stumbled home drunk one night from Danny's place after the funeral, and decided I shouldn't let his Cubans go to waste.
I fetched the letters after he died. Threw them into the old ammo box my grandfather left, where I still have the coins from Carson City he gave me as a kid, plus a few old photos.
Sunflower must be in half of them. Growing older, prettier, more irresistible in slow motion.
From the time she was just my bratty little sister's shadow, chasing kids with Supersoakers, to when I started to look at her like I knew I shouldn't. She blossomed into a young woman right before my life changed forever.
I've never opened those letters. Never had the will. If dad was a cheat living a double-life, then I don't want, don't need the fucking proof.
Don't want to know I staked my life on a lie when I gave his eulogy. Swore I'd be a good man, do right by my family, live in his footsteps and make him proud.
I've done that in spite of who he was.
When all this is over, I'm finding that damn box and burning it.
I don't ever need to read those letters. I definitely don't need to see more photos, including the ones with an older Sunflower holding Lizzie. I added those just a couple weeks ago, after our evening trip to Camelback.
We stayed until just past sunset, swapping Lizzie back and forth when she was too tired to walk, hiking to the peak. First real family outing.
Second time we saw those stars together since we were young and innocent and in denial. I thought they'd shine over our love forever.
Last night, they never looked so dull and dead, hanging over Phoenix like antique silver meant to be forgotten.
Yes, asshole. You need to forget a lot of things.
And I do, forcing my brain into combat mode. I need to stop a greater loss before it happens, before I lose my little girl forever.
I'm on the street I haven't traveled in a couple weeks, straight through Black Rhino's gates, when I really start focusing. It takes less than a minute to notice the black vehicles. More here than usual, and a quick drive around the back streets tells me they're parked near every entrance.
Heightened security. I don't see Victor's chopper parked on top of the tower's helipad. It's no comfort.
Wherever he is, he's far from oblivious. He knows my first, second, and third instinct will be to get to him or Sam. But it won't happen here.
I reach for my phone, inputting the address to his private road. He lives further out from the developed areas than I do in the best hills, just outside the valley. His neighbors miles away are tycoons and movie stars looking for a quiet escape from the West Coast hustle.
I haven't visited his place since two Christmases ago, when we tried to put on a brave face for Lizzie's second visit ever with Santa. It takes a half hour to drive out there, and another to find a hidden place in the rocks to park my truck.
Grabbing my binoculars, I peer between boulders, assessing the security situation and looking for weak points, imagining the places inside his sprawling mansion where my daughter might be.
He's light on bodyguards, just like me. Five minutes before I stop moving, a black SUV trawls up the road, pulls through his gate, and drives onto the backroads criss-crossing his property. He's got a patrol, but it's so sparse, he knows he rarely needs it.
It's easy to evade for a man with my skills. Getting through the gate, a little harder.
When I'm on his property, inside the perimeter, I take the path through his gardens. Everything is mausoleum white and overgrown, including the fountain. I stop behind it, listening to a cleaning lady whistling while she sweeps his patio.
It's hard as fuck resisting the urge to break past her. But I do, counting the minutes, hoping I'll find my way in that house without running into the wrong person.
I don't know how long Sam's been back, or what her state of mind is. If she's just come from rehab, odds are good she's there, too. Probably resting, getting help from his household staff, and maybe private doctors.
How do I brace myself to see a ghost? I don't know, but I will.
A late summer monsoon breaks through the sky just after I hear the woman disappear, closing the French doors behind her. I crouch in the rain, counting the minutes I always discipline myself to wait in these situations, a grace period to minimize undesirable encounters.
I'm lucky I remembered to bring my tactical jacket, despite the heat. It keeps me dry, repelling most of the water.
Ten more seconds. When I hit zero, I run, staying low to the ground as I reach the door and cup my hands over my eyes, peering inside.
No one in the hall.
It's a flimsy door. I think it'll be easy to break the lock, but I don't even need to. Fate throws me a bone. I realize it's unlocked as soon as I twist the handle, giving easy access.
I'm in, wracking my brain to remember the basic layout of the house.
There's a hall, a bathroom, a study and several guest bedrooms, I think. Also, the sun room with the old piano, where that lady he hired played us Christmas carols. It's the only place Lizzie would remember, and possibly find comfort in.
I'm almost there, when a soft murmur behind the door in the adjacent room catches my ear. It's a low voice, so hushed I can't make out any words. Someone talking softly, simply, rhythmically like they would to someone barely conscious, or maybe an animal, or a child.
My kid. Son of a bitch.
I press my ear against the wood, straining to hear more. The voice isn't much clearer, its words indistinct. It sounds more like a song. A story being read from a book, perhaps. I wait as long as I can stand, assuring myself there's only one person in there with her. Not with much confidence.
Please, God, do me this favor. Let there be one.
I hated Victor and his wretched daughter before. Now, I want to send them to the darkest corners of hell for what I have to do next, scaring my little girl.
It's a small mercy I don't have to kick down the door. I throw it open, stepping inside, and see my little angel sitting cross-legged on the floor, a coloring book in her hand. She looks up excitedly for a second when she sees me, her tiny lips moving.
“Daddyyyyy!” She stands, wide-eyed, and comes running as fast as her stubby legs can take her.
I haven't forgotten the danger we're in. But damn if I don't allow myself this, scoop her up, and press her tight to my chest, kissing her forehead.
She's alone. For now. The voice in the room was Pebbles the fucking Dinosaur, singing a song about rainbows on the TV mounted in the corner.
I couldn't be more relieved. Too bad it doesn't last long. There's no way she's been alone for long.
Whoever's looking after her probably just stepped out for a smoke, a drink of water, or a bathroom break, maybe.
I haven't thought this far ahead, as crazy as it sounds. Didn't think I'd get to her this easy.
As much as every instinct in my bones is howling go, go, go, I can't just carry her out of here with a court order hanging over us. Not if I want to avoid a frenzied trip across the Mexican border next, and a very messy attempt to start a new life elsewhere, with fake names and a lot of suppressed memories.
No, damn it, it's too easy. I can't scar my little girl like that.
And if I'm being brutally honest, I can't walk away from everything else that should be mine.
Not Black Rhino. Not ma and Jamie.
Not Sunflower, as bad as I've
salted the earth where we were supposed to water our future, and watch it come alive.
“How you been, peewee? Missed you like crazy.” Who the hell were you with? I want to say, but I can't just bark questions like she's an adult. “Are you with grandpa? Maybe Sam? Anybody?”
She shakes her head when I run through the list, smiling. I'm grateful she doesn't understand any of this. She can't hear my heart slamming my ribs like an engine spooling up to a hundred miles an hour, and I'm glad.
She shakes her little head. “Just her, daddy. Her.”
I think this is the first time I don't find her cuteness vague. In fact, it's a little creepy.
Too bad. I calm her with a soft bounce in my arms, then head into the hall, wondering how long it'll take us to encounter someone in this house.
A door opens on the other side of the level. Slowly, haltingly, I move toward it, squeezing my baby girl tighter, pressing her face to my chest. Servant lady stumbles out of what looks like the laundry room a second later.
Instant screaming.
I hear a hodge-podge of English and Spanish flying from her lips. I can't make out a single word, but the tone sounds like a plea for mercy. I lift my hand, careful to keep Lizzie close to my chest, shielding her as much as possible from this sideshow.
“Easy, lady, I'm not here to hurt anyone. I just need to talk to your boss. Where's Victor? Sam?”
“Ms. Wright?” she clucks, turning around, her soft brown skin nearly drained of its color. On second thought, it doesn't sound like a question. “This man...”
The woman stops, retreating behind the door. I hear a heavy sigh inside the laundry room, a chair scraping as somebody gets up, and footsteps that send my heart higher in my throat.
A second later, she's in front of me. Samantha Wright, my biggest mistake, the ghost who tortured me for four fucking years.
“Knox?” she says, looking me up and down like she's struggling just as much as I am with what's in front of her. “You're faster than I thought.”
That's when I notice it. Something's off.
Maybe it's the soft, almost restrained tone in her voice. But it's her appearance, too. She's Sam on the surface, but she isn't the same rebel who called to my drunken, stupid body like a siren when we conceived Lizzie in the bar. She's also not the haggard looking woman chained to her addiction I saw in the photos from LA.
More than anything, it's the hair that's changed. It's jet black, bangs cut short, just like I remember, but the color...it's the wrong shade of purple.
She's either had serious plastic surgery, or something a thousand times more fucked up than I imagined is happening. “Lizzie, listen to daddy. I want you to put your hands over your ears and cover them until I say we're good. Okay?”
“K.” My little girl knows not to mess around. She presses her tiny hands as tightly as she can to her head. I pull her closer, forming a protective shield with my body before I step up to the stranger in front of us.
Fake Sam looks scared now. She backs against the wall when I'm still a few feet away, her cheeks twitching. “Hey, hey, let's not get crazy here. Not in front of Lizzie. We had to do it. I'm really sorry you're not taking this well, but you didn't leave us much choice. We –“
“Shut up. It's my turn for question time,” I growl, reaching for her head with one hand. She whimpers when I grab her hair, ball it in a fist, and don't stop pulling until I know there's no escape. “You're not Sam. You just look like her. Who the fucking hell are you?”
She stops cringing and looks at me, licking her lips. Whatever twisted secret she's holding in, I want it out in the open. Now.
Preferably before I have to separate the purple stripe from her scalp.
“Vete! Vete! Police on their way, Ms. Wright!” Servant Lady reappears, a defiant look in her eyes. She shoos me with her hand, standing in the doorway behind Fake Sam, as if I'm just one more pesky desert lizard invading the house.
I share another look with Fake Sam. Even her eyes glow unnaturally, glistening with tears, or maybe because they're fake contacts. I can't tell. I just pull the hair bunched in my fingers harder, stumbling backward when it comes out in a fistful.
Far easier than any natural hair should. It's a wig. Underneath, it's all dirty blonde, fading pink tips at the ends. Servant Lady screams, pointing at the mess in my hands, and then at the imposter in front of her.
It takes me several seconds to remember where I've seen her before. It's Lydia. Pinkie the Hedgehog, Gannon's lazy assistant. Apparently, she lives a double life as an undercover merc, or Victor recruited the psycho artist I pummeled to double-team me hard.
“Forget it, Juanita,” Lydia says, staggering back and grabbing at her arm. “Tell them not to come. We're hosed.”
Servant Lady looks bewildered, terrified.
That makes two of us. Difference is, I don't go numb. If there's any chance at all she'll do as she's told in this blind stupor, and Fake Sam wants to work with me, I'll jump on it and count my blessings later.
Slowly, I crouch down, letting Lizzie touch the floor. I hold her little hand while I reach into the tactical pack strapped to my left leg. I fumble with the zipper and reach inside, holding up eight thousand dollars in crisp hundreds. I've filled the small space to capacity.
“Take it, lady. It's yours, if you'll call 9-11 back and just tell them there's been a huge mistake.” I don't wait for her to comply before I look at Lydia. “And you, Pinkie, we need to talk. I want to know why you're running around calling yourself Sam, dressed just like her. Cooperate, and we both stay out of trouble.”
Lydia flips her natural hair, hands on her hands, rolling her eyes. “Please, Mr. Moneybags. You'll have to do better than that if you want my help. Bidding starts at double whatever you're giving her.”
I grit my teeth. Juanita steps out behind her, tentatively, and snatches the money from my hand. I watch her retreat back into the laundry room, phone pressed to her ear, listening quietly as she mumbles something about a false alarm.
“Fine,” I rumble, standing up. I smooth a hand through Lizzie's hair, gently ruffling it, trying to keep her calm. “Let's talk. But the second you scare my little girl, rattle her worse than she already is by this crap, it's a different game. You won't like the ending.”
Half an hour later, we're sitting in the sun room again, Lizzie safely in the corner with her kid's show, and hopefully out of earshot, too. I'm sitting across from the gum-smacking receptionist, watching as she twirls a green line of goo out of her mouth around her finger, and pops it back in.
She chews extra loudly and glares. It's the dumbest intimidation tactic I've ever seen, or else she's just that bored with the sky falling around her.
How did this woman ever pull it off for a single second?
“Twenty thousand dollars. More off the books if you testify. That's my final offer, and I'm losing my patience.”
“Really? Guess it's gonna be a long evening, then. You don't hear boo until I'm fifty thousand richer.”
“Cut the shit, Pixie. We both know this is ending at thirty five. I'll round it up to forty because I'm a nice person. Forty thousand, cold cash, plus a really nice trip to Vegas, all expenses paid for.”
She frowns. “But I've always wanted to see Cancun.”
“Fine. Mexico,” I growl, regretting my volume when I see Lizzie turn toward us for a second, questions in her innocent eyes.
There's nothing I want more than to keep them that way. That's why I agree to this money-grubbing bitch's demands.
She smiles, flashing her pearly whites. “Awesome. I'm super glad we could hash it out. That rich idiot, Gannon, only paid me ten even for the acting stunt. Severance, he called it.”
“Where's Samantha Wright? The real one?”
She sniffs once, her smile fading. “Dead. Do you really think I'd be here right now if they had the real deal?”
I always knew it. Still feels like a bullet in my gut, certain and final in its impact. “You know that for
a fact? How? How did she die?”
“Well, I saw the files. Gannon gave me plenty, even showed me a few old tapes he got from Victor Wright. Tried to learn her mannerisms so I could do the job perfectly. I had a little acting experience in college, and I'm not that rusty.”
You did a piss poor job. I keep my comments to myself, leaning back in my chair, never warming the coldness in my eyes.
“Sad to say, there wasn't much to work with. Those tapes...ugh. They let me watch so I'd know how to act. Wasn't much to see. The woman was dying. Total junkie, stuck in some expensive rehab place, talking out of her head while her organs shut down. They had her so doped up all she did was call for some guy named Jake. Never mentioned the kid, or you, or anybody else. Not even once.”
What little sympathy I had a few seconds melts. Addiction is a demon, but fuck, she couldn't muster a goodbye for Lizzie one damn time?
Kendra's smiling face fills my mind. I see her clear as day, the only woman I ever loved, who ever gave a shit about my own flesh and blood. Only one Lizzie ever called mommy without breaking me in two.
Then she betrayed me. Or I believe she did, and I treated her worse than a stain on my rug.
“Hey, does that help? You're looking kinda out of it. I mean, Gannon said Mr. Wright told him you thought she was gone for years. He stressed I had to be on-point, and the appearance had to be just right to be believable. I thought he did amazing work with the makeup. Only second guessed himself about a million times and had me sit for hours while he worked. Guess it was hopeless, considering how you knew her, and saw through it from the get-go. You were right.”
I wish I still lived in a world where being right counted.
“What about Kendra?” I ask, head-on into the next question burning me alive. “How'd they get to her? What the fuck was it – an offer? A threat?”
My hands grip the cherry wood arms of the chair so hard it hurts. Any tighter, and I'll break them, or snap my own fingers first.
“Huh?” Lydia blinks a few times, cocking her head. “They didn't do anything. Thought you'd figured that part out since you saw through the disguise so quick.”