Page 15 of The Attraction File

“This was when? A few weeks ago?”

“No, last month. Hey, my dad still has all the info he gathered on him. I can tell him to pull it up and give it to you when you call him.”

“Yeah, that would be good.”

There was silence which I was relieved about so my mind could settle back down after the Damien bomb.

“You know what stumped me about the whole thing, Edgar?”

“No, what?”

“My dad told me he found him back when we were in college and even gave you that address. He told me because he wanted to make sure I was there for you when you both went to confront the bastard. But you never took my dad up on his offer to contact Damien.”

More silence.

“After what he did to your family, I figured you would be itching to find him, but then you said nothing about it after that.”

King’s father, Mr. Marks, was like a dad I never had. My father died when I was three and I don’t remember him. Jacob does, but he won’t talk about him.

I remembered when Mr. Marks called me into his office one day the weekend before spring break while Henrik and I were over playing video games with King. He sat me down and explained that he found Damien.

He handed me a file containing some photographs of him with his current girlfriend and her address. Mr. Marks presumed he lived with her and knowing what I did about Damien, I agreed.

Mr. Marks came to my side and crouched down to be eye level since I was in a chair. “Edgar, I am only giving this to you because you asked me to. But I want to come with you when you reach out to him. It would be unwise to do this yourself. We are here for you, King and me. We will help you in any way we can.”

I remembered agreeing that I wanted him to come with me but when he left his office, giving me a minute to collect myself a very different idea popped into my head.

“You know, King, I was a scrawny kid back then. I thought I was tough but in the end, I was too scared. Your dad knew that too, that’s why he promised to come. I always imagined what I would do if I saw him but then reality hit and that’s not how it happened.”

“Yeah, I hear ya, Edgar. You always were the wise one. Even back then you could see what a bad idea that was to confront a dangerous man like that.”

Bad idea. That’s exactly what that was.

Too bad I was attracted to bad ideas.

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