Ruthless Daddy_A Romance Collection

by Emily Bishop

  At ten pm, the newscaster stated that there was a missing person alert for a child. “An eleven-year-old boy out of Randall, North Carolina, has been reported as missing. The police say to look for a tall, black-haired kid, with a bandage on his face. He was last spotted wearing a bright red shirt, a pair of jean shorts, and some Adidas tennis shoes. He was originally on his bike, but police say that he has cash with him, and there is a possibility he’s getting around by bus. Here’s the last known photo of the poor kid. Max Thames Holzman.”

  I nearly dropped my whiskey. I staggered from my seat, took three long steps toward the television, and found myself face to face with my son. The photo held a Max without a smile, his somber eyes gazing toward the camera. I imagined Olivia telling him to smile, as she’d told me, when we were teenagers. “Smile, Eric. I just want one good picture!” But I hadn’t had the energy. A moody kid, without the inclination. Just like my son.

  “Jesus,” I whispered, realizing the purpose for all the phone calls, now. I imagined Olivia, stricken with worry, running all over Randall, hunting for him. I slapped some bills on the counter and ran into the street, gripping my phone. Pacing back and forth, I dialed Olivia once, then a second time when she didn’t pick up. It was only ten-fifteen, and I felt sure she wasn’t able to sleep. “Come on. Come on!” I cried, my voice echoing out across the cobblestones and New Orleans’ bricks.

  Finally, I heard her voice on the other end. It made my heart surge with feeling. I hadn’t realized, throughout my frantic calling, that I’d begun to cry.

  “Eric? Eric?” she whispered, so frightened.

  “It’s me, baby,” I said back, trying to add strength to my voice. Trying to instill confidence. “I just saw the news. Baby, I’m so sorry I didn’t answer your phone calls before this…”

  “It’s okay. It’s okay,” Olivia said.

  “I’ve been thinking about you nonstop. About you both—” I began.

  “Just come back, Eric,” Olivia said, her voice anxious. “I can’t do this without you. I need you here. I need you everywhere.”

  She didn’t need to plead. I was already waving my hand through the air, hailing a taxi. As I flung myself into the back, telling him my address, I assured Olivia. “Olivia, we’re going to find him, okay? He’s my kid. He’s just like I was. I should be able to get into his mind. Figure him out. Okay, baby? It’s going to be all right.”

  I dashed into the house and heard Sarah screech from the kitchen. Her arm strummed the back of the fridge, hunting for snacks. Waving my hand, I hollered as I marched up the steps, “Listen, Sarah. Change of plans. Maggie and I have to run back to North Carolina. We’re leaving immediately.”

  “Oh—okay!” Sarah chimed from below.

  Maggie was stretched out in bed, her cheek smashed against the pillow. Wrapping my arms around her, I brought her against my chest. She cooed in response, so similar in mannerism as her baby-self, and blinked up. “Where are we going?” she asked, her voice nearly lost in slumber.

  “We have to go back. We have to help Max and Olivia,” I told her. “And it can’t wait till morning.”

  My car screamed down the highway, fifteen miles over the speed limit, and then a full twenty. Every hour or so, I stopped off to grab another cup of coffee and a little pack of almonds. I chewed at them, ravenous, trying to keep my eyes open. The adrenaline reminded me of those lost years, working the gas station in Missouri or bartending in Tennessee. It had been nights like these, gripping the steering wheel as we sped down the open road, open containers of booze between every pair of thighs. Stars dotted above, lighting the way. There was just something about driving at three in the morning, then four, and then watching the sun as it snuck over the horizon line. Something that made you feel electric, alive. You didn’t need slumber, like the rest of the world. You had something extra. A bit of fight in you.

  “What’s your deal, man?” I remembered this had been what another gas station attendant had asked me, on one of those particularly bleary-eyed all-nighter nights. “You keep pretty mum about your past, you know? Closed-lip. You from out east, or what?”

  “North Carolina,” I’d said, after a long pause.

  “Why’d you leave?” the guy had asked. Jesus, I couldn’t remember his name, or even his face. The memory was all wispy, like a ghost.

  “Tried to burn the place down,” was what I’d chosen to say, almost bragging about it.

  “Jesus,” the kid had said, shaking his head. “Why the hell did you try to do that?”

  “Everyone hated me back there,” I tried to explain, my voice still cocky. “My old man was fucking pissed about everything. About his life and how disappointing it was. And he just boozed, which made him angry. He beat me, which, whatever. Maybe I deserved it. But the whole rest of the town hated me, just ‘cause they hated him, too. I didn’t have a fucking chance back there.”

  “So you decided to burn it all down?” the kid had asked, his eyes filled with laughter. “What a fucking baller move.”

  “Yeah. Yeah. Something like that,” I’d said, feeling the lie scalding my throat. “I mean, fuck. I think half the small towns in America are poison for people like me.”

  “People like you? What kind of people are you?” the guy had said then, as we’d slid our car down the exit ramp before diving down and bumping, gravel road.

  “White trash people, friend. White trash.”

  I stopped at a gas station in Tennessee and dialed Olivia, telling her we were getting close. It was early morning, and I felt the strain in her voice. It was clear she hadn’t slept. “I keep going to the bus station, thinking maybe they’ll have some trace of him, if he took off somewhere. And I drove out to the barn, where we went for our picnic. Everywhere I can think of. He’s not there.”

  Silence thickened between us as my brain traced through possibility after possibility. “I mean, he’s a good kid, Olivia,” I told her. “He wouldn’t run so far away from his momma. You’re all he knows in this world.”

  “Unless something has happened to him,” she whispered, breaking into a sob. “Unless someone has hurt him…”

  “Don’t do this,” I said. “Don’t work yourself up. I’m almost there. And we’re going to find him.”

  As I sped into the first edges of our little village, Randall, I felt I was seeing it with fresh, adult eyes. Skirting across gravel roads, past the library, near where they’d strung up the summertime outdoor movie theater, I imagined life as Max in present-day. Feeling unwanted, unloved by his grandfather. Feeling as though he’d held his mother back from pursuing her dreams. No wonder he’d finally jerked himself free, wanting to take himself out of the equation. It was exactly how I’d felt as an eighteen-year-old. All I’d wanted was to stop being a burden. To build a new life.

  When I parked the car out front at Olivia’s, she appeared in the screen door a portrait of beauty, yet her face was stricken and blotchy with tears. After unlatching Maggie in back, I lifted her into my arms and walked across the thick strands of grass. Standing down below, Olivia and I just gazed at one another for a long moment. I felt sure that neither of us had thought we would see the other again.

  “Hi,” she whispered, her voice hardly reaching my ear.

  “Hi,” I returned.

  But we raced toward one another. I wrapped my free arm around her waist, guiding her into me, and brought my lips over hers, inhaling her. I could feel each thrust of her beating heart against the sleeve of my shirt. I refused to let her free from me, wrapping my hand across her head and feeling at the smoothness of her brunette curls. When our lips parted, both our eyes were wet. I wanted to take her into her bedroom, to strip her, to fill her with my cock and remind her that she was wanted. That, with me, she could be whole.

  But now, I had to find him. Our son.

  “I’m so glad you made it,” she whispered.

  “There’s nowhere else we’d rather be,” I told her.

  Maggie slipped her hand along Olivia’s
cheeks, feeling at the wetness. “Stop crying,” she told her, almost demanding it. “It’s going to be all right. Daddy’s going to take care of us.”

  A small glint of light reflected in Olivia’s eyes. She gave me a soft smile before turning. “Good. I know that’s true,” she said, sounding much braver and sure than I knew she was. She began to lead us into the house, her movements quick. “I’ve made a list of everywhere I’ve looked so far,” she said, lifting a piece of paper from the table. The paper was filled front and back with locations around town, Raleigh, and Asheville. “And I have an appointment with the bus station this afternoon. They’re going to start going through all the video cameras at their North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee locations,” she stammered. “He had about one hundred and twenty dollars, but I wouldn’t put it past him to try to seek help from strangers. He’s like you, Eric. He can sweet-talk his way into anything.”

  I sniffed, turning my eyes toward Maggie. I knew that I needed a sitter for her so I could search for Max without worry. On cue, Olivia snapped up her phone and texted the babysitter from our first day in Randall, asking if she had the rest of the afternoon and evening free. She did.

  Once she arrived, Olivia and I stood alone in the front yard, holding hands. My head spun with questions, wondering if Max would have the balls to fight his way all the way to New Orleans to find me. God, I hoped not. To an eleven-year-old, New Orleans probably felt like three oceans away. I knew it had for me, anyway.

  “I think we should go separately,” I told Olivia, beginning to strut toward my car. “I’ll take the east end of town, you take the west. And then you’ll head to the bus station for that meeting. Clear?”

  “Clear,” Olivia said. “My friend Rachel’s been out a few towns over, hanging up signs. I have a few other friends out looking, as well. They’ll call me if they find anything.”

  I reached for her, just before she sped toward her car, and lifted her into me. Her breasts swept up against my chest, and her arms wrapped around my neck. She held herself against me and pressed her lips against mine. She tasted of sadness, of hope, of salt and sex. My cock strained up in my pants, pulsing against her thigh. But as our lips parted, I shook my nose against hers. “Let’s bring our son home. We’ll get to that when we do.”

  My car sped out toward the east end of town. Trying to articulate the thoughts of this eleven-year-old, I stopped at each barn yard, each little forested area, hunting for him. Olivia had mentioned that the kid didn’t have many friends, which meant he probably wouldn’t have taken refuge at a classmate’s house. But, desperate, I began to smack my fist on the doors of various farmhouses, showing them a photo of Max. Each person shook their head, looking at me dead-eyed.

  “We already saw the photo on the news,” one woman coughed to me. “And we’re Christian folk, Eric Holzman. Even if this kid is yours, we would have helped if we could have.”

  I tilted my head, feeling the evil reflected in her eyes. “Excuse me?” I asked her. The wind whipped through my black hair. “What the hell did you just say?”

  “I said,” the woman continued, speaking like a cow chew’s cud, “That we don’t appreciate you coming back into our town to muck things up. We ain’t had a fire in eleven-odd years. And you know why that is? Because scum like you haven’t come around. That’s why. And now that your daddy’s gone—Hey! Wait up!”

  I didn’t have time for this level of anger. I shot from the front porch of the farmhouse, rushing into the front seat of my car. Sweat ran down my forehead. Flashing images of the fire spun through my mind. The ambulance. The alarms, the sirens. Freddy and Anthony leering at me, telling me to get the hell out. They were the loudest speakers, but they were surely the consciousness of the entire town. When they barked, the world barked with them.

  I continued my search, feeling manic now. I called Olivia just after her meeting with the bus station, but she didn’t answer. Her text, “Just out driving. No luck at the station,” made my stomach feel hollow. Outside, the afternoon was creeping toward evening. I ached, knowing that Max was probably out there, hungry. That he had assumed I had abandoned him. When in reality, I’d thought leaving him would be the thing that would help him have a normal life…

  How could I explain it? How could I fight the past?

  My car wove its way toward the far edge of town, near to the little shack-like bar I’d drank at as a teenager. The place was just as rusted out as I remembered, with a slanted picnic table to the right. It featured a wide selection of already-smoked cigarettes, ash trays filled with grey mounds. Snack bags, with the last crinkling of chips. I parked in the gravel parking lot, walking toward the entrance. The same old man hobbled out from the front, his pate completely pink, with a few flecks of white around his ears. He eyed me with suspicion, bringing his white eyebrow high on his forehead. God, the wrinkles on his brow were deeper than the earth.

  “It’s you,” he said to me, spitting. “Heard you’d been back around.”

  Placing my hands on my hips, I chuckled slightly. It was surprising to hear myself, after the past two hours of driving around in silence. “Do I really look just the same?”

  “You still got that look in your eye,” the man said, popping a squat on the picnic table. He swept his hand into his back pocket, drawing out a pack of smokes. He smacked them on the wood between us, gesturing for me to sit. “And now you’re out here hunting for that kid of yours. I read the fucking papers, man. I know.”

  “Guess nothing gets past anyone in this town,” I sighed, slipping into the seat across from him. “Mind if I?”

  “Go ahead,” he told me, gesturing as he snapped his own cigarette between his lips. He puffed at it softly, allowing smoke to billow up through the air.

  I followed his motion, lighting the cigarette. As I flicked the first of the ash into the ashtray, I remembered that last Randall cigarette. How it had been flung into the oil, casting fire up against the carnival tents.

  “You know, a single cigarette ruined my life,” I told the bartender, giving him a wry smile. “Hard to believe, isn’t it?”

  The man grunted. His eyes were grey, far away, staring down at his own flickering orange end. Shaking his head, he said, “No. That’s not true.”

  “It is. Don’t you know about the carnival?” I said, tilting my head. “How I could have destroyed the entire town?”

  “Ha. That’s horse shit. Everyone knows it’s your father that ruined your life,” the old man said, coughing. As he coughed, bits of black snuck out from his mouth, smattering on his hand. “When you would come around here, no more than, fuck, seventeen years old, I knew to let you drink. You needed it more than most fifty-year-olds. What with your daddy beating you and your momma, well. She died when you was twelve, thirteen. Something like that.”

  I nodded, my eyebrows furrowing. How on earth had this man known me so well, without uttering a sound when I’d come by?

  “Word always got out that you was a bad seed,” the bartender continued, shrugging. “But you just sat back there and guzzled to your heart’s desire and never bothered nobody. Jesus, I thought about adopting you myself, a few times. Rather than ever let you go back to that house.”

  I was flabbergasted, hearing this. But I tried to keep my face stock-still, without emotion. Flicking the cigarette, I waited, wondering if he had more up his sleeve. Beyond the shack bar, the crickets had begun to chirp, bringing night into day.

  “Never imagined I’d find you back here, after all that went down,” the bartender continued. “But Jesus, if it ain’t true. We always end up where we started. At the end of our life. Looking back. It’s like none of it ever happened.” He spread his hand toward his sad little bar. Wisps of his white hair curled back with the light breeze. “Like this place. No matter how far away I get—and I went to Cuba this year, I’ll have you know—I’m always in there, staring at the same goddamn television set, waiting to die, just like your daddy did. Although hopefully, I won’t be such a fuckin
g ass to the last day.”

  I sniffed, stabbing the last of my cigarette into the tray. Swiping my leg from the picnic table, I brought my hand toward his, shaking it. “Thank you for all you did for me, back then,” I told him, feeling yanked back to the car. “But it’s getting late. And I need to find my son.”

  “You’ll find him all right,” the bartender sighed. “You’s two peas in a pod. I saw him biking through here, oh, few days back. Looks just like you. A mini version. Can’t imagine he wants you far from his life. Little lost lamb, like you were. Take care.”

  The bartender’s words stirred something in me, forcing me to curl the car back the other direction, back to where it all began. The tires stirred over the gravel, crunching. When I arrived back at the homestead, my hand flicked against the car keys, finding the familiar house key still attached. I hadn’t been back since Maggie had taken my mother’s bear. Since the onslaught of feeling had felt like a punch in the gut.

  Standing on the driveway, I glanced toward Olivia’s old house, half-expecting old Anthony Thames to be there, lurking. But the porch was empty, shadowed. I wondered if he’d bothered to head out, hunting for his grandson. I wondered if he gave a single fuck.

  When I opened the door of the old house, I felt that familiar surge of fear, almost as if my father wasn’t deep in the ground. Something told me he was waiting for me, reading with a drunken punch. But as I walked through the foyer, inhaling the muggy air, I heard a shift from upstairs. Then, soft footsteps. A small smile tweaked across my face.

  “Hello?” I called.

  I stepped into the kitchen, which had been cleared up since that day a week before. On the counter, someone had splayed out several bags of chips, cookies, an empty box that had once contained frozen waffles, and a couple liters of soda. The cookies were half-eaten, the chips laying in crumbles along the floor. Reaching for the fridge, I opened it to find many packs of hot dogs, some cheese sticks.