Surprise Daddy

by Nicole Snow

  “Been a long time, asshole. Can't believe I thought you were done shitting up my life that day we had our fun at the parade. Here you are years later. Just as big a psycho freak as you were then.” Jackson takes another step toward me, hatred simmering in his eyes. “Let my mother go.”

  “Jackson, no! Stay back!” Stephanie throws her hands out and nearly slips on the ice. I have to fight to catch her, pin her to my chest, taking frail beats from her elbows square on my shoulders. “Just tell him for me, Marshal. Tell him you're helping! For God's sake –“

  “It's a family situation, Mrs. Kelley. Please understand.” Christ, those words taste like poison on my lips. “Listen to your son. Go back inside. Work this out and don't worry about me. They're trying to help.”

  She spins out of my grasp, betrayal written in the deep grooves on her face. “But...but...you're my muse. The only thing that's let me finish a canvass in years.”

  I close my eyes. “I know. And I'm sorry. Please, Mrs. Kelley, Mia's in the truck. I don't want this getting too crazy while we're right in front of her.”

  I'm hoping she's sane enough to honor the plea for my little girl's sake. She drops out of my arms. Jackson runs forward, motioning behind him to Sadie and Peter, who come up and take the defeated woman from my grasp. I watch Peter help his shattered wife back inside. The door to the house slams shut, leaving us out here alone.

  “Let me know when you're done,” I tell Red, looking through my enemy. I want to be out of here more than I've ever wished for anything. “I'll be in the truck.”

  I turn, ready to walk the five steps back, but a vicious hand wraps around my wrist. I hear his demon voice in my ear, and red overtakes my vision. “Oh, no, asshole. Not that easy. I'm pressing charges.”

  “Charges?” The word is a tripped landmine in my throat. “You've got to be fucking kidding.”

  I rip my hand out of his grip, so fierce it rocks him back. Skidding on the ice just makes his ugly smirk worse. It's taking every fiber of discipline I own not to knock him over and slam his head into the ice until it resembles ground beef.

  “No, Captain Howard, I'm serious. I'd be a fool to let any man who comes here threatening my family walk away.”

  Breathe, breathe, just fucking breathe, I tell myself. It's easier looking at him than forcing back the pure unadulterated violence struggling to get out.

  “No time for this. I need to bring my daughter home. Do what you have to, dick.”

  “Jackson!” It's Red's voice, pained, just as I'm starting to turn. “Wait, put the phone down, you can't do this!”

  She's tugging frantically at her brother's arm. He gives her a death look. Goddamn, the urge to punch him square in the face just got ten times stronger.

  I look back, wrestling every instinct to step in. If he hurts her...

  “Get off me, sis! You don't understand.”

  “You don't, idiot! We're engaged. I can't let you call the cops, can't let you hurt him.”

  “Engaged?” His face goes pale for a second as the cold truth sets in.

  Then his lip curls back. He pushes her away. Hard.

  Red spins across the ice, a snowbank to the side barely breaking her fall, ass-first.

  No, he fucking didn't.

  No damn more!

  The kinder, gentler man I've become should be at her side, helping her up, ushering her into the truck so we can leave this cursed place. That's not who I am once I'm lunging at her idiot brother, grabbing him by the throat, slamming him down as hard as I can face first.

  “Marshal, no, don't!” Red bolts up, surprisingly graceful for a woman who's just been knocked off balance. “Don't do this. Please don't hurt him.”

  Her voice. Every pleading word seeps into my soul, and for a second, it freezes the beast that's taken over. The one that's so ready to slam him into the ice again, and this time there will be brain damage.

  “You touch her again, you hurt her, you're dead,” I snarl, holding him at eye level by the hair. There's a bruise forming on his forehead.

  I get up, making room for the other woman to rush over, hands over her mouth. Her eyes are wide and full of tears. I can't feel the guilt as his wife stoops over him, helping him struggle up on his knees, his cruel eyes following me.

  “Let's get the fuck out of here,” I tell Red, throwing my arm around her shoulder.

  “Wait!” Jackson again. The devil doesn't know when to shut his mouth. “Don't go, don't go, Sadie. Don't fucking leave with him.”

  I give her a look. Don't acknowledge him. We have to keep moving.

  But Red looks back, her eyes pained, staring at her injured brother as he coughs. His wife takes his head in her arms, shooting us a vicious look. The woman wants us gone, wants this to end just as badly as we do.

  Yet, for some unholy reason, the fucker's lips are still moving. “Wait, wait. You have to stay, Sadie. It's not safe with him. Hold up. We'll talk about this. I have information...truth...”

  “Truth?” She turns. I tug on her arm, begging her to get the hell in the passenger seat, but it isn't enough.

  Somehow, we're still trapped in this nightmare.

  I make the mistake of looking through the frosty windshield. Mia's little face is on us, her eyes big, dark, and confused. It rips my heart in two.

  We need to leave now.

  “Red, come on. We have to –“

  “Marshal, wait.” Again, that word, this time from her pretty lips. Why the hell does something so benign as wait sound like death itself? “Jackson, whatever you're talking about, you'd better tell me right now.”

  “Don't you get it, or are you just stupid, Sadie?” his wife snaps, finally breaking her silence. “He's using you. He's using all of us. Trying to make this town forget what he's all about, and welcome him back with open arms. He's the Castoff and he's a monster.”

  “Ginger, stop! You don't have a clue.” There's no pride in Red coming to my defense, new daggers in her eyes, pointed at the other woman.

  I just want to fucking leave. I want us to go, before there's no getting out, and this calamity becomes an apocalypse.

  “No, she doesn't, but I do,” Jackson says, wincing as he stands. He looks me dead in the eye, tempting the urge to strangle him all over again. “He killed the kid's mother. I wasn't going to say anything until I was sure, but fuck it, I've got the police records.”

  “What?” Red's jaw drops. Her fingers tense in mine. My heart threatens an explosion in my chest. “It was an accident. What are you talking –“

  “Shit I dug up says different, sis,” he growls, never looking at her once. His eyes are fixed on me in bitter, arrogant, lying judgment. “You know why this town wasn't keen on him before he went nuts on me? Did you ever stop to think?”

  I close my eyes and think of the Nameless Bitch I've tried forever to push away.

  Jenna.

  Irresponsible. Reckless. Immature. My worst mistake.

  She didn't have a chance to prove she was a bad mother. She died before that happened, pissed away her own life chasing more drugs on a sour night.

  But I did not fucking kill her.

  “You'd better get yourself a lawyer, you lying fuck,” I tell Jackson, bowing up, tugging at Red's hand. I need to get her in my truck, and I need to do it now, before more steaming lies drop out of his mouth. “I didn't kill her. An accident did. I'm suing your lying ass for defamation.”

  Jackson snorts, wiping at his forehead, smearing the blood trickle. “Listen to him bullshit. You know they did a solid job combing through that crunched up car, right, Howard? Just, nobody had the balls to call you on it, after the FBI said 'case closed.' Even the Feds make mistakes sometimes. We both know better. We know what happened. We know there's a pattern now. You cut her brakes and sent her down an icy road, Captain. Just like you fucking did to mine last month.”

  Shit!

  Fuck.

  “Red, now.” The words are mangled, raw sandpaper hissing through my teeth. “We need to
go right fucking –“

  Her hand slips from mine. She's walking, but it's the wrong fucking way.

  “Marshal...you said he needed a brake job. I remember. Surely, you didn't...” She trails off and a knife twists in my guts.

  I did, and I'm guilty, but that's all I ever did.

  Too bad she doesn't know. Too bad I'm so shocked, so mortified, it's hard to even speak.

  I've lied to her enough. But for all I know, the asshole smiling behind her might be wearing a wire, and I'll go to jail soon if this is a goddamned set up like I think it is.

  Sadie's brow furrows more with every step I back away. Then I'm slinking into the driver's seat, before Mia starts to cry.

  The green eyes I've fallen in love with have never looked so hurt, so unsure. She stands there in the snow, tiny specks floating through darkness, like remnants of our universe blown to kingdom come.

  “I have to go. Call me,” I say, ripping open the door.

  “Daddy?” Mia mumbles a thousand questions in one word. We don't have time.

  “Not now, honeybee. Later.”

  I don't know what the fuck later even looks like. Because by the time I'm backing the truck onto the icy street, roaring out of her parents' neighborhood faster than I should, I see the end of everything in the rear view mirror.

  I see Red on her knees, hot tears streaming through her hands, covering her eyes. Then her sadistic bastard of a brother stepping forward, laying a gentle hand on her shoulder, watching us peel into the distance. He tells her it'll be okay, and I'm such a horrid, slick evil bastard anyone could've made her mistake. Won't she come inside? He has the proof to set her heart on fire.

  He's poisoned her. Planted lies, terrible doubts and half-truths. That's hardly the worst part, though.

  All he has to do is nurse this, water his black seeds, and make my girl see the reckless killer she's fallen in love with all along.

  11

  Gaps (Sadie)

  It's been a whole week.

  The slight bruises on my shoulder are better, barely visible since Jackson knocked me into the snow. If only my heart weren't still on the icy pavement, butchered by the truth that took the world out from under me.

  I'm sitting upstairs in my old room, staring at the lonely painting propped against the wall. Dad moved mom's excess stuff in here, the landscape projects she attacked so vigorously they wouldn't even fit in their bedroom anymore.

  The birch trees in front of the Alaskan wilderness have never looked sadder. It's another grim reminder the world isn't even close to what I thought, and her talk about how much Marshal helped her was just more madness speaking. Not reality.

  I never asked for proof after I hobbled inside, helped along by Ginger and my brother. Amazing, really, since he's the one who needed a visit to Urgent Care to rule out a concussion.

  But he was hellbent on making me see the light. He took my phone. Said he'd keep it safe, and having it would help him turn over any incriminating threats that Castoff Freak left on my voice mail immediately.

  We need to act fast, sis. Before he slithers home and takes off with his daughter. We can't let him leave town.

  My brother's words echo like a bad movie. The whole night still feels like a dream.

  Worse because I didn't just lose the love of my life, didn't just have the little girl I was ready to adopt ripped away from me.

  Somewhere in the middle of his interrogation, mom stopped crying, and dad stepped into the room. He told us he was taking her to the mental health place in Davenport, now that she's done putting up a fight.

  I lost my mother. Her eyes never looked so dead, so vacant, as he led her to the car, whispering encouragement.

  There, there, Steph. Everything'll be okay. Just a few weeks. That's all we're asking.

  Everything? No, nothing ever will be again.

  I've been too upset to make the hour long trip to see her, but I keep telling myself it'll happen soon. I just need to get this sickness under control.

  I just need to let the wound close, slow the steady bleed oozing from my heart.

  Only, Jackson hasn't let that happen. He stayed overnight with Ginger. They were there at the breakfast table, waiting for me, asking if I was well enough to sit down, and listen.

  He showed me the papers. The Jenna Flynn case, a troubled young woman with a newborn who ran her car off the road half a decade ago. It was only a couple weeks after she had Mia, and told Marshal she wanted nothing to do with her.

  Only, that isn't what she said. What Marshal told me isn't the story listed in the police file Jackson tracked down. She said she was leaving town to clear her head, and she'd be back to deal with the little girl, probably after a few months.

  Sure, there were drugs in her system, but it doesn't change the truth.

  Marshal lied to me. He lied about her intentions, about my brother's brakes, and apparently, about what really happened to Mia's mom.

  I knew the town had a problem before he slugged my brother. I'd heard the whispers and seen the disapproving looks, but what did it matter when I was seventeen, focused on college, no thoughts of falling in love with a troubled, manipulative older man whatsoever?

  What a fool.

  God, what a stupid, blind, gullible, heart broken fool.

  I peel myself off my bed long enough to pad downstairs for a bite. Dad is in his easy chair, Earl Grey in his hands, which he sets down the second we make eye contact.

  “How is she today?” I ask, wondering if he's heard from mom.

  “Better. They're saying the new drugs are really helping, but we'll have to see how the behavioral sessions go. How are you?” Concern shines behind my father's glasses.

  I give him a pained look. You really can't tell?

  “I want my phone from Jackson,” I say. “I'll turn over anything that comes up right away, of course. But it's the only contact I've got for the clinic.”

  “The job posting?” Dad asks, surprise pulling at his face. I nod. “Wow, so soon? That's wonderful, honey. Really.”

  Loving Marshal left some obvious wreckage. I didn't think it'd turn me into a liar, but it has.

  It's not the blood job I'm interested in. I'm not sure I'll be in the state of mind for a job interview in the next century. Rather, I need to follow up on these cramps, the constant nausea every morning. Tragic symptoms of the psychic trauma I just suffered, I'm sure.

  I hope.

  I'm not ready to contemplate the other possibility. It's the reason I haven't taken dad's car to the drugstore and gotten tested to find out.

  I can't be pregnant with Marshal's baby. Not after he left a canyon sized hole where my heart should be.

  “We spoke maybe an hour ago,” dad says, stroking his chin. “I'll give him a call back and see about your phone. There's probably time to catch him before he goes to work.”

  I'm barely listening, heading into the kitchen. I dump a small mountain of bland Cheerios into my bowl, even though it's long past one in the afternoon.

  “Hey, he got your car yesterday,” dad says, giving me a hopeful look.

  I tense, my fingers digging into the counter. “Just like that? You mean he went to Marshal's place?”

  Our old place. The comfy little house in the woods and the shop tucked in the forest, where I thought I'd build a life.

  Dad nods. “Yeah. No sign of him or the girl. Lots of police warrants out to bring him in. Nobody knows where they've gone. I feel bad for the kid.”

  I choke on my first bite of cereal. It tastes like ash and I'm totally sobbing, remembering Mia's sweet smile.

  “Sorry, honey. I should have told you last night. Didn't want to say anything and upset you.”

  “I get it,” I tell him, pushing the bowl away.

  He's out of his chair before I'm halfway across the kitchen, stopping at the end of the stairs. “Going back up? No worries. I'll clean up.”

  I mumble a thanks and retreat to my bedroom to lick my latest wounds. My father isn't wrong.


  I hope like hell Mia is okay.

  But for some sick reason, I hope Marshal is, too. I want him to be okay, dammit. I tell myself that's for Mia's sake, but my lying, damaged heart can't hide the truth from itself.

  I want him to be okay because I'm still praying, as irrational as it is, that this is all a hideous mistake.

  I want to just settle into my pillow, close my eyes, and wake up with the world being right-side up again.

  Four more days pass in a haze. I'm outside on the deck, freezing with the phone clutched to my ear.

  “Ms. Kelley? Sarah?” It takes Dr. Cartwright saying my real name to break the trance.

  “I'm here. Sorry, doctor.”

  So sorry. It's the first time in forever I let myself feel a shred of self-pity. I should've known going into the clinic to get checked would lead to this.

  “You heard the results, correct?”

  “Yes. Of course. I spaced and I'm sorry.”

  “It's no trouble, considering the circumstances.” Brutal. His voice is soft, but there's judgment. “Listen, there's a wonderful prenatal and maternity crew in Davenport. I'll have June set up your referral to ensure you receive the finest care.”

  It's like he's read me a death sentence. My hands go to my waist, trembling, and I pull my cardigan tighter. It doesn't do much against this kind of cold. I'd better get back inside. Surely, fetuses won't be harmed by a few minutes of twenty degree exposure?

  I don't have a clue. I have to start thinking about this stuff, whatever it takes to keep the baby I shouldn't be having safe.

  “Thanks, doctor. I'll be waiting.” I wait before my screen starts flashing.

  The call ends. No goodbye.

  He's an asshole, but what do I expect? Dr. Cartwright knows it's just as unplanned as I do.

  Oh, and not only am I staring down the black hole of having a child I'm not the least bit mentally equipped for, but I've just blown my best chance to snag a lab job in town.