Page 30 of Zen's Crash

I keep digging through the flash drives, looking for more information, but it looks like this is it. The drives with family photos and recipes are just that, there’s nothing hidden in the metadata. I reach for my phone and text Siege about what I just found. I want to take Lexi to the clubhouse where I know she’ll be safe until I can figure out what’s going on, but I dare not. I can’t risk drawing a serial killer to our clubhouse, nor can I risk letting this man get away to prey upon more innocent women.

I’m deep in thought when I hear someone whisper, “Leave. You should not be here.”

My head jerks up and I look around the room. Lexi is still fast asleep, so it wasn’t her. Maybe I imagined it. I wiggle her mouse and check to see if she has anything playing, like music or a video. There is nothing that I can see.

I quickly start loading the contents of each flash drive onto my laptop. I want to be able to review this information once I get back to my office because I’m almost certain to find more clues scattered about. I can’t afford to leave any stone unturned. Lexi’s life may depend on it.

Chapter 11

Lexi

I’m not used to taking stress naps in the middle of the day. I haven’t done that since my father died. Back then I had pretty much noped out of life in general. I remember being so shocked that someone broke into our home and killed my dad. I just couldn’t get my head around something like that happening. It felt surreal.

I slowly switched back on, though. But finding out about the co-ed at my dad’s old school being killed and my own mother being attacked felt very much like living that nightmare all over again. I guess, I shouldn’t be all that surprised that I shut down the way I did earlier. It was a predictable response.

When I wake up, Zen is still in my room. Having his big muscular body here, watching over me feels amazing. Now that I’m convinced the danger is real, I don’t mind that he’s decided that he’s gonna be the one protecting me. I clearly need protecting, and nobody else is stepping up to do it. It’s times like this that a girl can’t afford to be choosy.

Unfortunately, that’s when he drops the bombshell that my father wasn’t running from the crazy asshole who attacked my mother. Nope. My old man was trying to catch him.

I look at Zen and swallow hard. “I’d like to say my dad wasn’t like that and he would never do something that unhinged. But there was this one time back when we lived in Florida.”

He stares back at me, his voice steady. “What happened?”

“He once beat a neighbor after the man put his wife in the hospital.”

“Define beat?”

“He didn’t break bones or anything like that. He bruised him up but only where his clothing would cover it. He said it was a kindness, so he wouldn’t be ashamed to go to work and pick his kids up from school.”

“Oh he did, did he,” Zen responds with a hint of a smile on his lips. “I suppose this neighbor gave up on beating his wife after that.”

I shake my head, feeling like I’m betraying my father by telling him these things. “My dad had to work him over a couple more times because apparently, he was a slow learner. His wife stopped by our house one day and thanked my dad for interfering. She said she didn’t have any family nearby and was grateful for my dad stepping in.”

Zen explains earnestly, “I don’t see that as particularly extreme. But this tells us a few things about your dad that we didn’t know before. Namely, that he wasn’t a scared family man hiding from a serial killer. He was someone with a strong personality, who felt comfortable stepping up when he saw something going wrong. He wasn’t afraid to fight fire with fire to protect a person he barely knew, and he was knowledgeable enough about fighting to beat the crap out of a man who was violent by nature.”

I shake my head, staring down at my hands as I try to make sense of this new information. “That doesn’t sound much like the mild-mannered literature professor persona he wore so well throughout my childhood.”

Zen hits back with, “Men, like women, are complex creatures. We’re rarely just one thing. You saw him as a dad and a mild-mannered professor. Your mom saw him not only as her husband, but the man who fought off her attacker and teamed up with her to track the bastard down. It takes a certain kind of man to keep up the search even after she passed, honoring her struggle for justice.”

“Yeah, I get what you’re saying. It’s just that I always believed we were a close-knit family that did everything together and tolerated each other’s personality quirks. Now I’m starting to feel like all that was just a smokescreen, and I didn’t really know either of them at all. I don’t understand how they could keep something like this from me.”

“I don’t know for sure,” he tells me. “But I can imagine. They probably thought they were protecting you. They thought they were looking out for danger, so you didn’t have to.”

I nod, unable to come up with another explanation that makes more sense. “That sounds about right.”

“Look Lexi, you’re young and this is a lot to deal with on top of losing your father, not to mention seeing it happen and not being able to do anything about it.”

Chapter 12

Zen

Lexi’s still sitting on the bed with her head down. I take it as the posture of someone feeling defeated by life. Then I hear a soft noise that sounds like a faint laugh. Reaching out, I put my fingers under her chin and lift her head. “I get that sometimes things get so bad that all you can do is laugh, but this is serious business.”

She gazes at me for a brief second before saying, “I didn’t laugh. I thought you did.”

If I hadn’t been staring into her eyes, I might have missed the terrified way she steals a quick look around the room.

“I didn’t laugh.”

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