“I hope you’re hungry,” he said. “I think I made too many. Maybe someone will stop by and eat a few.”
The statement made the icy chill run up her spine. This wasn’t going to wait.
“Daddy?” she said, fighting the tremble in her voice.
He looked over his shoulder as he poured a tall glass of orange juice. Neither of them had ever been coffee drinkers. Part of her wanted to run out and get an ice-cold energy drink for this conversation. But it was too late for that now.
She relayed her dream. She told him all about remembering the service and the man coming to the house—the same man she was trying to prove innocent. Her tears began to flow again. His face froze in something between terror … and fury.
“And you … you …” He opened his mouth to say something, but she held up a hand to stop him. “You left me.”
“Bear-bear. I’m … I’m so sor— “
“I was assaulted, Daddy,” she cried. “And I needed you. I needed you to hold me and assure me that not all men were evil. But no. No, you had something more important to do. You couldn’t wait to get out of town and leave me with … with Stacy.”
Guilt washed over his face and his eyes began to moisten.
“I had no choice,” he said, and then quoted, “for it is time for judgment to begin with the household of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God.”
“What the hell does that even mean?” Amber demanded. She slammed a hand down on the kitchen table turning over a glass of orange juice.
He reached out to her, but she flinched away. Tears ran down his cheeks. For a long moment, he was silent. He wiped the wetness on his face with his shirt sleeve.
“Stacy was a good woman,” he finally said. “I know you didn’t like her, but she was there for me after your mother died.”
This time, he was the one who stopped Amber from saying anything, his calloused hand raised in front of her.
“I never slept with her you know. You never knew it, but she lost her husband just a year before we lost your mom. He was killed by a drunk driver. She needed me like I needed her. Contrary to what you might think, we were never lovers. We were more than friends, but we were only companions … companions in grief.”
Amber felt herself growing smaller and smaller. She almost felt as if she were a child again at the foot of her father.
“And I am so sorry for what those men did to you.” His voice was choked with emotion. “A father is supposed to protect his children, but I couldn’t even do that. At least, I couldn’t do it at the time.”
He took a minute to compose himself.
“They tried to call me, you know?”
“What? Who tried to call you?” Amber asked.
“That man’s lawyer. She left a message on my machine—we had actual tape recorder machines back then—said she was hoping to get me to provide an alibi for him.”
Amber realized he was talking about Morales. She felt her heart thrumming in her chest.
“I didn’t call back,” he said darkly. “I changed my number. I never heard from them after that.”
“Daddy,” she said, her voice soft and tiny, “are you telling me you let them put an innocent man in prison.”
Without warning and with more thunderous anger than she could’ve imagined her father could display, he jumped up out of his chair. “That man is far from innocent,” he roared.
She flinched and backed away, sinking down into her chair.
“These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction,” he quoted, spittle flying from his lips, a finger wagging in the air.
The room went still after his tirade. Crickets chirped outside as Cicadas buzzed louder to drown them out.
“But daddy … what about me? You left me.”
His face turned to stone and his voice went flat.
“That man had to pay for what he had done.”
He suddenly looked ancient, far older than when she had arrived. His breathing was raspy and his chest heaved.
A flicker of meaning began to shine in her mind. A dark fear grew as she considered what her father was saying.
“Daddy?” She asked quietly, “Did you … did you do something?”
He said nothing. He stood and walked out of the kitchen leaving her with the cold food.
Joseph Cross had gone to bed, complaining of being tired, so very tired. Amber, however, felt her internal clock was off. Having slept the afternoon and night before, she was wide awake. Her mind drifted through all the impossible things she had been through in the last twenty-four hours. It occurred to her that she should probably make a few notes so she wouldn’t forget anything. She leaned into her father’s room to check on him. He was snoring loudly, his breathing still ragged. But he was breathing.
She padded down the hall to her room, closed the door behind her, and opened her backpack. She pulled out a legal pad with notes about the case and shoved her hand down in the front pocket searching for a pen. Try as she might, she couldn’t find one, so she opened up the desk drawer. She found a blue ball point pen with no cap. It’ll do, she thought with a shrug.
Her eyes fell on the flamingo snow globe. She picked it up, shook it, and placed it on the corner of the desk. It shimmered and swirled. It was actually quite pretty. She scratched a few notes on her pad: the who, what, where, when, how, and why of everything she had remembered. Though it was a traumatic event for her personally, and one that might, at best, get
