Jason woke up to a slow building hum, then a slash of bright lights across his eyes. He peered groggily at his watch, saw that it was five A.M., then peered at his backlit blinds with fresh confusion. Sun didn’t rise at five A.M. in March.
Then he got it. Klieg lights. From across the street. The news vans had returned and were powering up for their morning visuals, everyone filming a fresh report from the crime scene, aka his front yard.
He let his head fall back against the pillow, wondering if there was any breaking news he should know about from the past three hours when he’d actually slept. He should turn on the TV. Watch an update of his life. He’d always had an overdeveloped sense of irony. He waited for it to kick in, appreciate this moment. But mostly, he felt tired, stretched in too many directions as he sought to protect his daughter, find his wife, and keep out of prison.
Jason extended his arms and legs, taking inventory after last night’s pounding. He discovered that all four limbs appeared to be working, though some hurt more than others. He tucked his hands behind his head, peered up at the ceiling with his one working eye, and attempted to plan for the day ahead.
Max would return. Sandra’s father hadn’t come all the way to Massachusetts just to sit quietly in his hotel room. He would continue to demand access to Ree, threatening… legal action, exposure of Jason’s past? Jason wasn’t sure how much Max even knew of Jason’s previous life. It wasn’t like he and the old man had ever sat down. Jason had met Sandra in a bar, and she’d kept to that routine as much as possible. Only good girls take boys home to meet their fathers, she’d told him that first night, clearly wanting to establish that she wasn’t a good girl. Jason would take her back to his little rental, where he would cook her dinner and they would watch movies together, or maybe play board games. They did everything but what she clearly expected them to do, and that kept her returning, night after night after night.
Until Jason began to notice her growing stomach. Until he started asking more questions. Until the night she broke down in tears and it became clear to him the solution to both of their problems. Sandy wanted away from her father for whatever reason. He just wanted away. So they’d taken off together. Fresh city, new last name, clean start. Right up until Wednesday night, Jason would’ve said neither one of them had ever harbored regrets.
Now Max was back in the picture. A man with money, brains, and local legal connections. Max could hurt Jason. Yet Jason still couldn’t grant the man access to Ree. He’d promised Sandy that her father would never touch Ree. He wasn’t going back on that now, not when his daughter needed him more than ever.
So Max would stir the pot, while the police continued to dog his heels. They were tearing apart his computer. Probably digging into his financial records. Interviewing his editor, perhaps even touring the
How long could this game of high stakes poker go on?
Jason had taken basic steps when he’d become a family man. His “other” activities existed under a different identity, with a separate bank account, credit card, and P.O. box. Payment confirmations and the single credit card statement went to a suburban post office out in Lexington. He visited once a month, retrieving the paperwork, sorting through it, then shredding the evidence.
All good plans, however, had at least one central flaw. In this case, the family computer contained enough damning evidence to send him to prison for twenty to life. Sure, he employed a decent scrubber software, but any web visit generated far more temp files than one scrubber could cover. Three, four days tops, he decided. Then the forensic specialists would realize that something was wrong with the computer they had seized, and the police would return in earnest.
Assuming they hadn’t already discovered Sandy’s body and were even now standing on his front porch, waiting to arrest him.
Jason got out of bed, too keyed up to return to sleep. His ribs protested when he moved. He couldn’t see out of his left eye. His injuries didn’t matter to him, however. Nothing mattered, except one thing.
He needed to make sure Ree was still sleeping safely in her room, a tiny, curl-topped form with a bright orange cat at her feet.
He padded quietly down the hall, senses alert. The house smelled the same, felt the same. He cracked open the door to Ree’s room, and discovered his daughter lying straight as an arrow in her bed, hands clutching the top of her comforter, big brown eyes staring up at him. She was awake, and, he realized belatedly, she had been crying. Damp lines of moisture smeared her cheeks.
“Hey, sweetheart,” he said quietly, coming into the room. “You all right?”
Mr. Smith looked up at him, yawned, stretched out one long orange paw. Ree just stared at him.
He took a seat on the edge of the bed, where he could brush tangles of brown hair off her damp forehead.
“I want Mommy,” she said in a small voice.
“I know.”
“She’s supposed to come home to me.”
“I know.”
“Why doesn’t she come home, Daddy? Why doesn’t she?”
He didn’t have an answer. So he crawled in bed beside his daughter and pulled her into his arms. He smoothed her hair while she cried against his shoulder. He memorized the smell of her Johnson & Johnson skin, the feel of her head pressed against his shoulder, the sound of her tired little sobs.
Ree cried until she could cry no more. Then she spread her hand on top of his, aligning each of her short stubby fingers against his own larger, longer digits.
“We will get through this,” Jason whispered to his daughter.
Slowly, she nodded against his shoulder.
“Would you like some breakfast?”
Another short nod.
“I love you, Ree.”
Breakfast turned out to be more complicated than he’d planned. Eggs were gone. Same with the loaf of bread, the majority of fresh fruit. Milk was low, but he thought he could eke out two bowls of cereal. The Cheerios box was suspiciously light, so he went with Rice Crispies. Ree liked the talking cereal and he always made a big show of deciphering what the crackling crisps said:
“What, you want me to buy my daughter a pony? Oh no, you want me to buy myself a Corvette. Ooooh, that makes much more sense.”
Jason got Ree to smile, then got her to giggle, and felt both of them relax.
He finished his bowl of cereal. Ree ate half of hers, then began creating floating patterns in the milk with the remaining rice puffs. It kept her amused and gave him time to think.
His body hurt. When he sat, when he walked, when he stood up. He wondered how the other guys looked. Then again, they’d jumped him from behind-he’d never seen them coming-so chances were, they looked pretty good.
He was getting sloppy in his old age, he decided. First getting taken out by a thirteen-year-old kid, then this. Hell, with these kinds of fighting skills, he wasn’t gonna last a week in prison. A cheerful thought for the day.
“Daddy, what happened to your face?” Ree asked, as he pushed away from the countertop, standing up to clear dishes.
“I fell down.”
“Ow, Daddy.”
“No kidding.” He set the dishes in the sink, then opened the refrigerator to eye their lunch options. No milk, leaving them with a six-pack of Sandy’s prized Dr Pepper, four light yogurts, and some wilted lettuce. Second cheerful thought of the day Just because you were public enemy number one didn’t mean you got out of grocery shopping. If they planned on eating again today, they were going to have to hit the store.
He wondered if he should wear a bandana over his face. Or wear a T-shirt with the word “Innocent” scrawled on the front, and the word “Guilty” scrawled on the back. That could be fun.
“Hey, Ree,” he asked casually, closing the refrigerator and eyeing his daughter. “What do you say to some quality time at the grocery store?”
Ree brightened immediately. She loved grocery shopping. It was an official Daddy-daughter chore, done at least one afternoon a week while they waited for Sandy to come home. He would strive to stick with the official wife-prepared grocery list. Ree would work to convince him to stray for such urgent purchases as Barbie Island Princess Pop-Tarts, or maple frosted doughnuts.
