Remington's Tower

by Katharine Sadler

  “I have a bit more real world experience than you do, Remy. And I have control. I don’t want to drag my mother back into the past she’s worked so hard to move forward from. I don’t want to start a messy court case without more evidence.”

  “Maybe you don’t really want to know the truth,” I said. “My aunt Betty confirmed everything Uncle Leon said about your father. The reason the autopsy showed he wasn’t on drugs when he died is because your mother bribed a county official.” Worthy flinched and I slapped a hand over my mouth. I hadn’t meant to tell him all of that, at least not like that.

  He looked at the prison. “Honestly, Remy, your family are all criminals and low-lifes, I don’t know how you can believe anything they say. I’m not interested in the gossip your aunt heard.”

  I sucked in a gasp at his insults, but I pushed my hurt down and really looked at him. I took a moment, because I knew him and nothing he’d just said sounded like the Worthy I knew. “You’re afraid,” I said. “You’re afraid my father will tell you my uncle was right about your dad and you don’t want to hear it.”

  He closed down, his face void of emotion. “Well, then it’s good you’ve moved on from me so easily. I’m sure Bentley would believe your nightmares over his own mother. I’m sure he’s the better guy.”

  All of my anger deflated. “No,” I said. “He’s not the better guy.”

  I got out of the car and shut the door gently behind me. I wouldn’t want to knock the door off his rust-bucket accidentally. I marched toward the jail and my father.

  ***

  The man before me looked older than I’d expected. He was only ten years older than Aunt Betty, but if I hadn’t known who he was, I might have mistaken him for her father. He looked worn out and hard, scars lining one side of his face and tattoos covering his arms. He stared at me with a gaze that made me shiver, and then he laughed. There was nothing pleasant about that laugh and it brought back memories of me running and hiding when I heard it. That laugh usually meant he was pissed. Probably not with me, but it was a scary enough even so.

  “Hell, girl,” he said. “Betty told me you were still alive, but I only half believed her. Arle was spitting mad when he called me and told me he was going to kill me. I was sure he’d taken his anger out on you. Thought Betty was fucking with me when she told me you were still alive, trying to make me feel better. But there you are, looking just like your mother.” He shook his head and swore. “Fuck I miss her. Missed you, too, but Betty said you were better off. Were you?”

  My father looked nothing like me, but apparently he had a habit of rambling on just I like did and tilted his head the way I knew I did when I was waiting for an answer. “I’ve been happy with the McKinneys. Leon raised me in the mountains and I practically lived outdoors. I love being outside.”

  “Got that from your mother,” he said, which kind of annoyed me. I was Remy, not some derivative of a dead woman.

  “What was she like?”

  His expression softened and I could see that he’d been handsome before he’d hardened with experience and tough living. “She was sunshine.” He chuckled. “I know that sounds hokey, but that’s what she was to me. She was always smiling and singing. She loved life and she loved me and, for the few days she had you, she loved you. She never needed other things. She never asked me for anything else, but I wanted to give her the world.” He shook his head. “No, that’s not true. I wanted to show everyone else I’d given my woman the world.”

  “Pretty honest about yourself.”

  He nodded. “Yeah, I try to be. I’m not a good man, Rachel, don’t ever make the mistake of thinking I am, but I hate lying more than anything else. Lying is what got me in here.”

  “You lied about something?”

  He shuddered with laughter. “No, sugar. I killed a man for lying to me. Bastard told me to my face that he’d lost my shipment, when I knew…” he shuddered with rage this time. “I knew he’d sold the stuff and kept the money for himself. I couldn’t let that fly. Just my bad luck he happened to be an undercover cop.”

  I gasped, but I didn’t understand. “So he couldn’t have sold the stuff, right? If he was a cop?”

  My father sneered. “No, he sold it. Dirty cop and everyone knows it. Still, I’m the one who gets locked up in this hellhole for the rest of my life. He deserved what he got for lying to me about who he was and stealing from me, but I got put away for life.”

  And I saw what my aunt had been talking about, that sense of entitlement and superiority he’d probably always had. I changed the subject. “What sorts of things did my mother like?”

  He smiled and softened again. “She was so smart, she glowed with it. She took an interest in everything. Read every book she could get her hands on, and spent as much time outside as she could. She took you outside the same day you were born. Said she was introducing you to the world.”

  I could almost see her, holding a tiny me and showing me the world.

  “If she’d lived,” my father went on. “I would have been a different man. I would have been a good father, but she left me and I lost my way.”

  That just annoyed me. “I don’t like liars either.”

  He smirked at me like I was beneath him. “Just say what you’re implying.”

  “I’m saying it’s bullshit that you would have been different if she’d lived. No one can change us that much.”

  He shook his head, his easy smile returning, when I’d expected, maybe even wanted, anger. “If you believe that, sugar, then you’ve never been in love.” He looked at me and his expression changed again, mercurial and animated. “Have you been in love? Have you been happy?”

  So, I told him about my life with Leon and my experiences at college. Then I found myself telling him about Worthy and Arle and how I loved Worthy, but couldn’t be with him.

  My father leaned back in his chair and chuckled. “I remember his daddy. He would have been a good man on my team if he hadn’t started using. The drugs made him cruel and crazy. I’d be willing to bet your boyfriend remembers that side of his daddy, but he’s pushed it away.” He chewed on his bottom lip for a moment and an officer came over and motioned for my visitor’s pass, signaling the end of my visit. “None of that past stuff should matter, though, if you really love him. Forget all of that stuff and just focus on the future.” He glared at the officer leading me away, then smiled and waved. “Come see me again, baby girl,” he yelled just before I walked out the door.

  I walked through the jail with the guard. I could see my father’s faults, just as Betty had depicted them, but some part of me also enjoyed his honesty and wanted to take his advice. The more I heard his voice the more memories returned, of times he’d swung me up in the air, of times he’d read to me and laughed with me and loved me. Those good memories didn’t eclipse the bad, but sat there next to them, making me love and hate my father at the same time.

  When I stepped outside, I half expected Worthy to be gone, I’d been inside for hours, the process of getting to see my father had taken a lot longer than I’d expected, but he was there, waiting for me, despite everything. He’d always been there, no matter what I did or how hard I pushed him away.

  I got into the car, my earlier anger at him gone in the face of what I’d learned from my father. I felt bad for Worthy, because his mother had lied to him and his father hadn’t been the man he wanted to believe he was.

  “How’d it go?” he asked, closing the book he’d been reading.

  “Good,” I said. “He was about what I’d expected.” I averted my eyes with the lie, because my father had actually been better than I’d expected. He was everything Betty had told me he was, but he had also loved my mother and he’d been happy to see me. He’d asked me to come see him again. I figured all of those were huge positives. I’d already known he was a criminal, had probably known it even before Leon spoke the words. I didn’t want to tell Worthy any of that, though. I felt guilty, somehow, that I had a father when he didn’t
.

  Worthy got out of the back seat, where he’d been stretched out, and walked to the driver’s seat. He got in behind the wheel and closed the door. “He backed up what Leon said about my dad, didn’t he?” he asked, his eyes on the dashboard, his voice low.

  “I didn’t ask.”

  “But he told you anyway, didn’t he? Did you talk about me?”

  “If you’d really wanted the answers to those questions, you would have gone in with me.”

  He cursed and started the engine. He spun gravel out behind us as he headed for the interstate.

  ***

  I was in my room, studying, music blaring through my earbuds, when someone grabbed my arm, hard. I screamed and jumped to my feet, knocking my text book on the floor. Music continued to play as I took in Bell standing in front of me, face pale, tears streaming down her cheeks. I yanked out my earbuds. “What happened?”

  “It’s Frankie,” she said. “She’s in the hospital. I think it’s bad.”

  I felt numb with shock, unable to hear and comprehend what she said. “What happened?”

  She shook her head, her eyes wide and wild, like she was going to fall apart. I grabbed her shoulders and gave her a squeeze. “Breathe, Bell. Just breathe.”

  She nodded, but she didn’t breathe and her eyes got wilder.

  “Okay,” I said. “It’s going to be okay.” I wasn’t sure I believed it, but I didn’t know what else to say to her. I pushed her down to sit on Frankie’s bed and shoved her head between her knees. I heard her take in a ragged breath and I left her long enough to grab my cell phone from my desk. I typed out a quick message to Byron while I rubbed her back. I had no idea if he was at his place or not, but he texted me back almost immediately to let me know he’d be there as soon as he could.

  “Byron’s on his way,” I said. Bell was still bent over, her breathing fast. “He’ll take us to the hospital.”

  She pushed up to a sitting position. “I’ll get my coat and shoes.” She left my room and I got my own coat on and laced up my tennis shoes. Bell was back before I was done. She’d just shoved her feet into slip-on loafers.

  “He hasn’t texted back, yet,” I said. “But we could go downstairs and wait.”

  “Yeah, okay.” We hurried down to the street level and bounced together in the cold, under a streetlight. Our breath puffed in front of us in frosty clouds.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “But they’ve arrested Duran.”

  “What? Why?” I asked, but understanding dawned before I’d finished speaking. “They think he…He hurt her?”

  “I guess so. A girl from our psych class lives in Duran’s building. She saw the ambulance and saw them loading Frankie into it. Then she saw the police take Duran away. That’s all I know. I’m not even sure which hospital they took her to.”

  “Okay.” Rage and confusion mingled under my skin. I’d thought Duran was a player and a douche bag, but I’d never seen anything to make me think he’d hurt Frankie physically. “It’ll be okay. We’ll find her.”

  What felt like hours, but was probably only a few minutes later, Worthy pulled up in his dilapidated rust bucket with Bentley in the front passenger seat. Bell and I ran and got into the back. “Where’s—”

  “Byron figured we could get to you faster than he could,” Worthy said. “Do you know which hospital they took Frankie to?”

  We lived in a college town that only had one major hospital, but Frankie could have been taken to a nearby city to one of the larger hospitals if she was really hurt badly. “Let’s just start at Parkview,” I said, naming the local hospital.

  Worthy nodded and took off. Bentley shifted in his seat and looked back at us. “Do you know what happened to her?”

  “No idea,” I said. “They’ve arrested Duran.”

  Worthy hissed in a harsh breath and swore and Bentley scowled. “How could anyone hurt a sweet girl like Frankie?” he asked.

  No one had an answer, so we rode to the hospital in silence.

  At the hospital, we were able to find out that Frankie was a patient there, that she was unconscious, but stable. The nurse at the desk couldn’t do any more than direct us to a seventh floor waiting room to wait for news.

  I sank into a chair in the waiting room, but I was wired, wanting to do something and unable to accept there was nothing I could do. Bell sat next to me, but her expression was blank and she was shaking just a bit. “She told me she was going to the library to meet him to study, but she didn’t look happy. Something was bothering her, but I was in the middle of a study session and I didn’t stop her from leaving. I should have made her talk to me.”

  “It’s not your fault,” I said. “If we all stopped each other every time one of us seemed off, we’d never leave the dorm.”

  Worthy sat next to me and took my hand in his. I let him do it and was grateful enough for comfort in any form not to push him away. Bentley sat next to Bell and wrapped an arm around her. She dropped her head to his shoulder. The two of them had gotten to be pretty good friends since Bentley and I had started spending so much time together.

  I’d texted Byron as soon as we’d headed up to the seventh floor and he found us there moments later.

  “Do you know anything?” he asked.

  “Just that she’s unconscious and Duran’s been arrested.”

  Byron dropped into the seat next to Worthy. “I should have let Harrison kill the guy when I had the chance.”

  “Oh, god,” I said. “Harrison. We should call him.”

  “Yeah, I thought of him,” Byron said. “I thought I’d wait until we heard she’s going to be okay. He’s going to lose his shit, if…”

  “He’s going to lose his shit either way,” I said. “I think he’d want to be here.”

  Byron nodded and volunteered to make the call. Harrison showed up twenty minutes later. His eyes were wild and his jaw was clenched with anger. “Have you heard anything?” he asked.

  I shook my head and Harrison sat next to Bentley. He only stayed down for a minute, before he leapt to his feet and started pacing. “I should have killed that motherfucker when I had the chance.”

  I got up and grabbed his elbow. I knew he didn’t like to be touched, but I pulled him close and wrapped my arms around him in an awkward hug. He gasped and choked, then took a deep breath and got himself under control. “Shit,” he muttered.

  “Yeah,” I said. He pushed me away and I let him, but he sat back down, and he seemed calmer.

  Frankie’s parents arrived an hour later. Her mother was petite and slim and lacked Frankie’s voluptuous curves, but she had the same shiny hair and smile as Frankie. Her dad recognized me from move-in day and they promised to let us know what they found out from the doctor. They went and talked to a nurse, only to come and sit near us and wait like the rest of us.

  Worthy shook me awake and I sat up to find I’d fallen asleep on his shoulder. Bell was crying next to me and Harrison was staring straight ahead. I looked up into Worthy’s face and saw tears in his eyes. “Oh, god, no,” I said, sure Frankie had died.

  Worthy’s eyes widened. “No, no. She’s just in a medically-induced coma. The doctors say it looks good for a full recovery, but she has to come out of the coma before they can be sure.”

  I rubbed my eyes and tried to take that in. Frankie was in a coma. My chest tightened, and I reached for Bell, who turned and sobbed into my shoulder. “What else?” I asked.

  They had to operate because there was some swelling in her brain,” he said. “They aren’t sure if she’ll have brain damage or not.”

  I slapped a hand over my mouth and swallowed back bile. “When will they know?”

  “When she wakes up,” Worthy said. He wasn’t meeting my eyes.

  “What else?”

  He sighed. “Her hand is broken, but otherwise she’s fine.”

  I rubbed my hand over my face and squeezed Bell tighter.

  “You should go home
, and get some sleep,” he said. “There’s nothing we can do for her now.”

  “No,” I said. “Take Bell home. I’m staying.”

  “So am I,” Harrison said.

  “I’ll stay, too,” Bentley said.

  Worthy frowned, but he didn’t argue. He patted Byron on the knee and the two of them stood and left with Bell. She gave me a teary wave as she walked out with them. Frankie’s parents were no longer in the waiting room, and I figured they were in Frankie’s room.

  Harrison, Bentley, and I kept each other entertained with games on our phones, and then the old-fashioned, pen and paper games like hangman and tic-tac-toe. I tried to convince Harrison to play truth or dare, but he didn’t think it was appropriate in a hospital. We were laughing at his imagined description of a truth or dare game gone wrong when Harrison froze.

  I followed his gaze to the doorway of the waiting room and saw Duran. “How is she?” he asked. He looked exhausted, drawn and pale.

  Harrison leapt to his feet and crossed the room in three long, angry strides. I ran after him, but I didn’t make it to him before he’d thrown a hard punch at Duran’s face. Duran’s head rocked back, but he didn’t raise his fists or try to fight. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “You’re about to be a whole lot sorrier.” Harrison lunged again. I grabbed his arm, but it was Bentley who grabbed Harrison and held him back.

  “Not here,” Bentley said.

  Harrison fought against his grip. “You want to tell us how you think you have the right to show up here after beating Frankie so bad she might have brain damage?”

  Duran’s face went slack. “Brain damage?”

  “That’s right,” Bentley said. “You did that to her.”

  “Yes,” Duran said. He raised his hands in the air and took a step back. “But not in the way you think. I swear to you I didn’t lay a hand on her. She punched me.”

  “Why should we believe anything you say?” Harrison asked.