Page 11 of Petite Fleur

Meanwhile, I am driving a brand-new luxury car.

Fuck, I should've rented a fucking minivan or something before driving here.

Whatever, it's too late now.

I head up the small, half-broken wooden steps until I reach his front door. I can smell the cat piss, cigarettes, and alcohol before the door is even open. It's making me debate how much I really want to walk into this place.

Fuck it, I already wasted my entire day off driving here. I'm going in.

I knock loudly on the door and wait, hearing the blaring of crappy reality TV and the creaking of cheap and rotting floorboards until Sam opens the door.

And let me tell you, he looks exactly how I pictured.

Bald, out of shape, and an angry-looking fucker in an ill-fitted wife beater that has a few too many mystery stains.

He’s definitely the type of guy who would wrap his hands around his 16-year-old's throat and try to strangle her to death for walking in on him watching child porn or whatever the fuck happened.

He’s exactly the type of guy I picture partaking in that kind of shit, too.

Disgusting fucking pig.

I feel sick just looking at him and I can't imagine what Denise dealt with her entire childhood. I just hope her mother was in the picture and that she wasn't a total piece of shit like this guy.

“Can I help you?" He asks with a huff without even bothering to take the cigarette out of his mouth or his hand out of his pants.

I plaster on a fake smile, trying not to make a face at the rotten beer and cat piss smell of him and his home. "I am Dr. LeonAldon, I was sent to check on the family of Denise Fredrick, are you Sam Fredrick?" I ask calmly.

I know it's him, I made sure to look him up. I always do my research.

He’s 52 years old, lives alone, works as a truck driver for a small company, has almost nothing in his retirement, has no other kids, is divorced, and is a loner. According to what I've found, even his coworkers hate him.

No surprise.

Sam reluctantly lets me inside when I spew off some bullshit about the city of Houston owing the family money for his daughter committing suicide in a public space.

I don't know why he even bought that.

Wouldn't he think, if anything, bystanders would be suing the family for emotional trauma? Not the other way around.

Dumbass.

But it got me in the door.

We sit and talk for a while, I ask the standard questions I would ask anyone that I actually give a shit about going through something traumatic like this. He gives me the responses I had already assumed I'd get from him.

He's not surprised; she was a troubled teen; she ran away from home for no reason when she was 16, and he hasn't heard from her in years. He tried to drive to Houston and find her, but he couldn't.

Everything I had already anticipated hearing.

I was hoping he was remorseful, I was hoping that he was at least upset that his only child is dead at 19 years old, but he isn't.

Fuck, I'm more upset about her life being cut short than he is!

She never got to live. From what I researched about her, she had a work-from-home job, she never interacted with the outside world, and she moved every year.

She didn't have her name on her door or her real name on her mail.

She was so terrified of running into her dad that she basically died the day she ran away from home.

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