by N. A. Cash
“Sure,” I said, relieved. “I’d like that.”
He gave me one last squeeze, then left the room. As if on cue, Nurse Angie walked in with the wheelchair. “Ready to go for your x-rays?” asked, downright perky.
She helped me off the examination bed and into the wheelchair. As she wheeled me to the elevator, I saw Pap down another hallway at a coffee machine. As if sensing my presence, he looked up at me and smiled until we disappeared from his sight.
The next few hours went by in a blur. I submitted to a blizzard of tests—blood work…urine…x-rays…After what felt like hours later, Dr. Heeld finally walked in with the x-rays. Nothing was broken, only twisted. He bandaged up my ankle and gave me a prescription that I could fill down at the pharmacy downstairs. He disappeared again, returning with my father and Nurse Angie in tow. They both helped me into the wheelchair and wheeled me down to the lobby. We filled my prescription and headed to the exit, where my father had the car waiting. They both helped me into the front seat. I thanked Nurse Angie for her kindness. With a smile, she walked back into the busy hospital.
My father climbed into the driver’s seat next to me. “Ready?” he asked.
“Definitely,” I said.
We drove off the compound, headed onto the highway, and began the long route to his home.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
I awoke when the car pulled to a stop. My father parked the car and walked over to my side to open the door for me. I took his hand, raised myself out of the car, and was immediately stuck with the mansion before me. My jaw dropped at the two-story expansive, red brick mansion with white-trimmed windows. My father’s home, with two additional wings on each side of the main structure, sat on sprawling lush green acreage. On the front porch was a set of white columns which held up a balcony on the second floor. Soft lighting illuminated the house, giving it a diffuse glow against the night sky, making the house more welcoming. I was impressed! “Whoa,” was all I could say.
I turned to see my father smile. “It’s modest,” he said.
“Modest?” I asked incredulously. “According to who’s standard? The Queen?”
He nudged me. “Come,” he said. “It’s getting cold out, and you need rest.”
I let him guide me to the front door, which opened as we approached. When we walked in, I saw the person who opened it—a middle-aged man who wore an old-fashioned butler’s outfit that made him look like a penguin. Although the hair around his head was full, I could see his bald spot. His small dark eyes sparkled slightly at the sight of me but the look quickly vanished.
“Good evening, sir,” he simply stated.
“Good evening, Dean,” my father replied. “We’ll be having my daughter here for a few days. Please prepare a room for her and make sure that she has everything she needs.”
The man gave a curt nod, closed the door behind us, and then disappeared up a flight of stairs to the left—a matching set to the staircase on the right wall. I surveyed the large, open marble tile foyer, which led to another open area with chairs at the back. Above the foyer hung a considerably large chandelier that lent an air of glamor to the room. I gazed in awe as my father tugged at my arm, leading me towards that back of the foyer.
We entered a large living room furnished with plush couches, mahogany furniture, and large exotic wooden carvings, similar to those that existed at my house. As we passed, I touched one shaped like a lion and felt the familiar tingle under my fingertips. My father helped me to one of the couches, and he sat in an adjacent matching love seat.
For a moment, we just stared awkwardly at each other, neither of us knowing what to say or where to start. Finally, he broke the silence. “So, I guess I should begin by telling you why I left.”
Emotions so powerful rose within me that I had to turn my head to fight off the tears. He waited patiently until I faced him once more. “I’m so sorry, Karma. I didn’t know when I left what would have happened.” He paused briefly. “Well, I had an idea of what may have happened, I just didn’t know the extent of it.”
Sadness briefly passed over his face. But then his expression hardened. “A long time ago—it feels like forever now—I was recruited by Avery Martin Sultren. He was a powerful man, and I was only a young kid who was trying to support my mom—your grandmother. Somehow, he knew I had gifts. As I worked for him, he knew everyone who had gifts. Sometimes, he’d put me in charge of destroying those gifts.”
I looked at him accusingly, my eyes narrowing. He threw up his hands in a defensive posture. “It wasn’t anything personal, Karma. I was young and stupid, and like I said, I needed the money. What he offered was more than just money, though. He offered power, and status, and things that a normal boy like myself wouldn’t have otherwise had access to.”
I turned away from him. The thought that he would be involved in such destruction of people like me made me feel ashamed of him. While I said nothing, I knew my expression revealed my true feelings. He hung his head. “Again, I’m not proud of what I did,” he said softly. “But I needed the money, and once I was hooked, it was hard to stop. Sultren could be a very persuasive man.”
After I didn’t respond, he reached out and touched my hand. “All of that changed when I met your mother, though.”
Mam…I finally looked at him again. He stared at some distant spot on the wall as he spoke. “She was so beautiful, so elegant. The first time I saw her, my heart stopped. I could barely speak as she walked past me. I was sitting at a café, enjoying a latte and waiting for my next mark, for which I had no information, only that it was a woman. I was listening to the intel in my earpiece, when he pointed out that she was the mark! The only problem was that, she was stunning! She turned to look at me, and her smile took my breath away.”
He paused for a longer time, savoring that memory. After he didn’t speak for about a minute, I touched his hand. I wanted to hear more.
He cleared his throat and shifted his gaze to the floor. “Oh. Anyway, needless to say, in my pursuit to find out who she was, I ended up spending much more time with her, beyond the requirements of the job. To Sultren, I justified it as her being too mysterious for the usual, simple intelligence gathering op. I worked up the courage to ask her to dinner. From the first time I saw her, though, I knew I was in love with her—her smile, her eyes, the way she walked, everything about her was just so magical. The more I spent time with her, the more I knew that she was the one that I wanted to spend my life with.”
He smiled privately, and suddenly, I saw a tiny dimple in his left cheek that I hadn’t noticed before. “I knew, Karma. I knew that in order to be with her, I would have to leave Sultren and his organization. I knew that Sultren wanted to experiment on her, because of her gifts. I couldn’t let him hurt her. So, we devised a plan that would make us disappear so we could be together. I’ll spare you the details, but we had to engage in illegal and immoral activities to get out of that situation. But it worked! We ended up in Louisiana, with new identities.”
His smile widened. “Your mother was such a daredevil. She was the one who actually came up with the plan.”
I felt a stab of pain, never knowing this side of my mother. I kept my face as neutral as possible, however, wanting him to continue. “We got married in a little chapel not far from where your aunt Vern lived,” he shared. “Only she and a best friend of mine knew. They were our witnesses.”
His hand balled into a fist at that thought. I wondered at this action and was about to ask him about it before he then relaxed and spoke again.
“I take it you know about her illness and what happened after she found out she was pregnant with you?”
I nodded.
“I figured that you would find out, which leads to why I left.”
My father stood and began pacing, then he sat. He looked directly at me again. “First, let me say that I didn’t want to leave. I loved you, I loved your mom, I loved our life. Everything seemed so simple and easy. But spontaneous bursts of your mom’
s gift came with her panic attacks. Remember, I said that we had gone through and done a lot to get away from Sultren and to start a new life?”
I nodded.
“Well, it was becoming harder and harder to hide her, and you. The main trigger for me leaving came that day when you saw me walking out. I was on the verge of getting your mother out of the house for the first time in years. You had already gone to school. We were dressed and ready to leave the house when there was a knock at the door. I left your mom on the couch and answered the door. It was my best friend. The one who stood as a witness to our wedding. He hadn’t visited in years, we hadn’t spoken in even longer. We invited him in, and your mom went into the kitchen to make him a cup of tea. Apparently, he was down on his luck and needed to borrow some money. I told him that we didn’t have a lot, but we could offer him around $200. But her needed more. He was extremely jumpy. Your mother and I tried to figure out what was wrong with him.”
My father paused and took a deep breath. “When I told him, yet again, that we could only offer $200, he got really angry, really quickly. He jumped up and accused me of lying. He started saying that he knew about us…he knew about what your mother was…he knew why we were so secretive. He said he knew I had a bank account hidden in the Caymans, and unless I gave him the money he needed, he would expose me. I remained calm. I told him I didn’t know what he was talking about. I could sense your mother getting agitated though. I should have asked him to leave, but I wanted to find out what he knew exactly.”
He took another huge breath, like he was unburdening himself. “He said he found out about me from a guy named Sultren, who showed up to the office looking for me. He said the guy approached our boss, but he’d eavesdropped and heard the whole conversation, so he waited until Sultren was done and approached him on the outside. He said he didn’t tell him anything but that would change unless I gave him the money.”
I noticed his hands were balled into fists, his jaw clenched. I could tell that the memories were making him angry all over again, so I reached over and covered his fist with my hand. That relaxed him. He unclenched his hands. “Go on,” I gently urged, trying to calm him while my own anger rose a bit. I balled my other hand into a fist to try to control my emotion.
“I asked him to leave. He refused. I grabbed him and was throwing him out. I didn’t know he had a knife in his pocket. He pulled it out and was about to swipe at me when the air crackled with a flash of light. The electricity that passed through his body made me to let go as his body went limp. I looked over at your mom; her eyes were flashing. It was ironic; right in that moment as she lost control, she never looked more beautiful.”
He sighed. “I felt for a pulse and saw that he was still breathing, but slightly, so I did what I did best.” He paused. “I put a pillow over his face and waited until he stopped struggling.” His eyes travelled to mine and held them. “I couldn’t let him expose us, Karma. I couldn’t let him hurt you or your mom. I did what I thought was best.”
Despite the shock of his admission, I pat his hand to encourage him to go on. I didn’t want to react in a negative way to possibly stop him from talking. I would process the thought of my father being able to take life later. “We both decided that it would be best if I left because as long as I stayed, Sultren would continue to look for you and your mother. I knew that if I left, your aunt would take good care of you both.”
Tears welled up in his eyes. “It was the hardest thing that I could ever do, but I knew I had to. We even talked about telling you, but you were so young; you hadn’t discovered your gifts yet. We knew that trying to explain my leaving would open the door to so many more questions that we weren’t prepared to answer at that time. So, I just left.”
All I could do was continue to pat his hand, tears filling my eyes. He squeezed my hand; I squeezed his. “After I left, I spent time searching for him. In my travels, I met Owen’s mom. I felt it important to move on…to throw suspicion off you and your mom. I couldn’t know that Sultren would eventually find Owen and influence him. I was forced to leave his mother too…to protect her. I didn’t go back until I got word that she was dying. That’s when I took Owen in.”
This time, my face hardened as I tried to control my anger. I was not feeling this portrayal of my long-lost brother as some kind of helpless victim. “He tried to kill me,” I pointedly reminded my father. “He and his friends set my house on fire. He’s working for Sultren. They kidnapped my friends.”
“I know,” my father confessed. “I’m partly responsible for him knowing about you.”
Stunned, I regarded him with narrowed eyes. I snatched my hand away from his. “What?!”
He looked sheepish. “When I found out about you, I had him follow you…just to make sure that you were okay, protected even,” he explained. “I didn’t know that Sultren had recruited him. Not until I heard that you’d disappeared.” He looked at me pleadingly. “I swear, Karma, I didn’t know he was turned. I haven’t had much contact with him after you disappeared. It was only through some of my connections I knew where to find him and you tonight.”
I studied my father, pleading for my understanding and forgiveness—this man who I missed every day since he’d disappeared from my life. Yes, I was furious. But he’d been completely honest with me about everything up to that moment. His intentions were good; I couldn’t blame him because his son’s intentions were not. My father even stopped me from killing again.
I softened. “I guess you can’t be held responsible for him,” I said.
For a while, we both stared off into opposite directions, neither one speaking. Once again, he broke the silence. “So,” he sighed. “Tell me what I’ve missed in your life.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
My father and I stayed up all night talking, our excitement at reconnecting overriding any need for sleep. Dean poked his head into the room at regular three-hour intervals to see if we needed anything. At around six o’clock in the morning, he insisted that he make us breakfast.
I told him about my life after he’d left, leaving out certain parts that involved me killing or harming people. I admitted what I did to Jumpy’s and Rock’s families though. Pap didn’t seem to judge me. I also told him about my time with Aunt Shugs, which led to me telling him about Mam and Aunt Vern. I did leave out the fact that other members of my family were alive except, for what I knew about Aunt Carol and her connection to Mam and Aunt Vern, however. I wasn’t sure I wanted to admit everything to him as yet.
It was nearly nine in the morning when exhaustion hit us both. Dean showed me to a luxurious room, decorated in white and gold, with a huge, comfortable four-poster king-sized bed. Adjacent to the room was an immaculate en suite bathroom with the same color scheme, the floor made of marble tile with gold specks throughout. I filled the whirlpool tub with hot water and a lavender-scented bubble soap and stayed in there for almost half an hour until my skin pruned and I could hold my eyes open no longer. I slipped into the plush white robe that I’d found hanging on a hook, quickly brushed my teeth, and melted into the king-sized bed.
When I finally awoke, the miniature grandfather clock against the far wall told me it was almost five in the afternoon. This was quite indulgent—even for me. I figured I should get up and get dressed.
I realized that I only had the clothes that I came here wearing. I went to find them where I’d left them in the bathroom. They were gone. Just as I was about to panic, I saw the door to a walk-in closet slightly ajar. When I opened it, a light flickered on…then another…then another…revealing an expansive high-end new wardrobe—from pants, to shoes, to blouses, to dresses…all in different styles and colors. I stared at the clothes, my jaw dropped in surprise. I opened doors to two smaller closets, with accessories stored in drawers or hanging from individual posts. Dumbfounded, I moved over to the other closet. In there was a mini makeup store! Each drawer contained an array of blushes, lipsticks, eye shadows and other beauty items that I couldn’t imagine h
ow to use.
I turned and saw Pap standing in the doorway of the walk-in closet, watching me with a smile on his face. “You approve?” he asked, a glint in his eyes.
“Oh, Pap!” I cried breathlessly, “I couldn’t possibly…”
He walked over to me and embraced me. “Of course, you can,” he said simply. “Anything for my little girl.”
I pulled away from him and gave him a look that telegraphed my displeasure at being thought of as little anymore. He laughed. “Of course, you aren’t little, but you’ll always be my little girl.”
I turned and surveyed the row of clothing again. “But how…”
He cut me off. “Dean,” he said. “I swear, that man has more of an eye for fashion than the best designers out there.”
My eyebrows shot up in my surprise. “Dean?”
Pap laughed. “I know, he doesn’t look it but he used to work as a fashion designer’s assistant in France before he came here to work for me. He has a lot of connections. I called him when you were asleep in the car and somehow, between the ride here and when we spoke, he was able to pull all of this together. Either way, it’s all yours, even if you don’t decide to stay…”
I could hear the sadness in his voice as it trailed off. I squeezed him tightly, then squealed gleefully. “Thanks, Pap!”
He nudged me. “So, get dressed and come down so I can have a proper dinner with my daughter.”
He turned and left.
Incredibly, everything I tried on fit perfectly. I smiled in disbelief that such a stiff-looking man as Dean could be so resourceful and have such an eye for fashion. It took about fifteen minutes and several stabs at coordinating an outfit before I settled on a soft flowing white pants, a semi-fitted pale-yellow sweater, and a pair of pale-yellow flats. I chose a simple pair of dangling earrings with the same yellow hue and a thin gold watch.
