Page 18 of Rescued By the SEAL

Sorry, Daddy,I think to myself as I slide his phone off the arm of the couch.I’m just doing what I think is right.

Of course, it seems that my mother was only doing what she thought was right too. She was only accepting lifts from her bossbecause she didn’t know what a creep he was until it was too late, but this is different, I just know it is.

I sneak into the kitchen before I scroll through the last calls. My heart pounds violently in my chest as I do so, and I can hardly get enough air into my lungs but I keep on going. I’m starting to get quite used to the adrenaline rush that comes with fear. It’s not a feeling I ever wanted to adjust to, but here I am, feeling it once more, nevertheless. When will my life ever be drama free?

“Ah!” I think this must be it. It’s a call that came in at about the right time and it’s one not stored in my dad’s contact list so it has to be, right? That makes a lot of sense to me. Unfortunately, it’s an office number and not a cellphone, but I’m going to give it a try, anyway. This is the best chance that I’ve had all day long and I won’t waste it. I sneak to the back of the house, hoping that my father won’t hear anything, and I hit the dial button so I can finally make my escape. “Fuck. Voicemail.”

I debate calling them back in the morning, but I don’t know if I’ll get a chance, so I quickly make the snap decision to leave a message. I don’t know when it will be heard or what will become of it, but I need to at least try whatever I can.

“Hello, Max… or Landon, I guess. This is Heather. Err, Heather Buchan. Lola Rose who you saved from Bill Ross… why am I telling you this? You know it. Anyway, right now, I’m at number eight on Fall Away street, at my father’s house, and I need help. Not that he’s doing anything wrong or whatever. I just… urgh, I need support.” I really should have planned out what I was going to say before it got to this point. Now, I’m making a right idiot out of myself. “Please, come and see me, someone. At least just to tell me what’s going on. Dad obviously thinks that I’m still in a lot of danger, but I need to know for myself. Thanks. Bye.”

I hang up the phone, sure that I’ve just complicated things so much more, and I delete the evidence off my father’s phone list. I’m sure there is probably a way that he could discover me making that call, but I want to make it as hard as I can.

“That isn’t enough,” I tell myself angrily. “I need more. I need to find out where this office is. It must be somewhere.”

I search for the number in my father’s phone, using the incognito Internet service, and much to my surprise, an address comes up. It isn’t immediately obvious what the business is unless it’s something you are specifically searching for or something you know, but since I’m aware of what I need to find, I write it down. Now, if I can get out of here, I have a place to go.

I might actually be able to see Landon again, which of course is a dream come freaking true. That’s all I want right now.

I sneak the cellphone back, glad not to be caught, and I take the snippet of paper up to my teenage bedroom with me to cling to. Right now, it’s the only link I have to the man I love, and it’s all I need. He might come to me or I might go to him. It doesn’t matter. All I need to worry about right now is going to sleep and dreaming of him to give me all the strength that I need to get through whatever tomorrow will bring. Every day is a mystery. It’s so weird. Not like my normal life.

My whole future is up in the air, though, in a way that I never thought it would be. WhereamI going to go next? Whatwillhappen? Will I eventually go back to my writing job or will I search for something new? With Landon? On my own? With my father still be in my life or will he hate my guts? Every time I try to think of it, it all seems so abstract that I can’t make up my mind. My future isn’t a real concept at the moment, so I can’t plan it out. I don’t even know where to begin.

I suppose I’ll simply have to wait and see, hold on to hope that it’ll all be okay.

16

LANDON

“Oh, my God.” Of all the sights that I expected to walk in and see in my father’s room, this was not it. I actually have to blink a few times to see if I’ve lost my mind or if this is actually happening, but nothing changes in front of me. Nothing at all. “Dad.”

I bend down near him and almost reach out to touch him, but I have to force myself not to at the very last minute. If I touch his lifeless body, it won’t do anything good. He’s too blue to come back to life now, and that bullet wound through his head looks pretty life-ending. Plus, I’ll be tampering with evidence and getting my fingerprints everywhere. Someone needs to be caught for this, and I don’t want to be the reason that doesn’t happen. No way. My father might not have been the best man alive, but I don’t think a bullet through his skull is the answer. I might not be able to change that, but I can help someone get caught.

“Fuck, Dad, this is messed up.” I don’t like looking at him like this. He seems smaller somehow in his pool of blood. How the fuck did no one hear this going on? How did no one know or spot this afterward? Is everyone in this apartment block so afraid ofbeing blamed for this that they were too scared to do anything? Would their criminal records put them at risk? I guess so if I’m worried about putting myself in the firing line because we didn’t always have the best relationship. “Dad, why are you dead?”

I rake my fingers through my hair as the emotion begins to get to me. When I think back to the day everything changed, when I learned that my parents weren’t decent people but criminals who pushed Heather and her father away, I wonder what I could have done differently. Maybe if I hadn’t walked away and I’d helped them, theycouldbe better people now. My father wouldn’t be dead and I wouldn’t have to contact my mom in jail to tell her what’s happened. Things could be so different.

“I’m sorry if this is my fault,” I whisper pathetically at him. “I never wanted you to get hurt. Never, ever. Even though I punched you and yelled at you about Heather, and to be honest, I haven’t really ever had the kindest thoughts about you, but I wouldn’t have wished this on you. Really, all I ever wanted was for you to get better. But I didn’t help.”

My heart sinks so low I could scream. Maybe there wasn’t anything that I could have done, but at the same time, now I’ll never know. I’m never going to have the opportunity to find out whether I could make a difference. I gave up. Seeing Dad like this makes me never want to give up on another human being again. It makes me want to be so much better…

“Dad, I’m going to get the cops here now,” I promise him. “Get some help, see what assistance I can get for you. I know I can’t do much, but maybe… well, maybe I can make this part a little bit better for you. Somehow. Somehow, I can give you the dignity in death that you weren’t really allowed in life. Even if that was down to life choices, now… now, you need better.”

I step out of the room because I need some space to make this call. I can’t be in that room which is flooded with death and the scent of decay for another second longer. Honestly, if this were any other apartment block, someone would have smelled that and reported it already, but no one here wants to go above the radar for even a moment. Everyone is too afraid.

“This is going to be awful,” I warn myself as I get out my cellphone to put in the call. “Hell on earth.”

I never knew what I was coming here to face. I thought that I might get answers. The only answers I got in regard to the criminal gang is that they’re ruthless and have absolutely no regard for human life. That isn’t great news at all…

It’s the early hours of the morning before I manage to get away, after all the drama surrounding my father’s death and the interviews I had to go through. Being Bill’s son and the person who found him was enough to have them suspicious of me for having some kind of involvement in the crime. Thank God Officer Buchan wasn’t on the scene or they probably still would be.

I’m sure he would love some way to pin this on me to get me locked up where he wants me. I’m not totally convinced that isn’t going to happen, but for the moment I need to get to the office to find a way to contact Mom. After all these years, I’m finally going to call the jail to see if I can pass the news on to her. I don’t know if someone else will tell her, the police maybe, but just in case no one has thought of poor Alice Ross rotting away inside, waiting for the day she can be with her husband once more and they cancontinue on in their downward, toxic trajectory, I think I should tell her. She deserves to know that he’s gone.

Max has all the details on where she is. He has always kept up to date on it for me should I want to know, and now, at last, I do. I’m also curious whether she might know who might hate Dad enough to kill him, who he might owe that kind of money to. That way, we can have some answers and also find out what happened to Heather. In all of this, I haven’t forgotten about her. In fact, I’m more aware of how much danger she’s in and I’m more determined to protect her than ever. Sheneedsme and I need her.

The office is weird, all quiet and empty. Dark too. It has my head spinning with nerves like I might be attacked here. But of all the places that those criminals might find me, I don’t think it will be here. Anyway, I have a goal in mind and it’s all I need to I need to worry about. I have to find the phone number to the prison where Mom is before someone else gets to her.

“A voicemail message?” Now that seems unusual to me to see in Max’s office. He’s always the first one in, aside from today where it’s nearly five AM, but I haven’t slept in forever, and he’s always the last one to leave too. It seems strange that someone would leave him a message. Whether it’s too much curiosity or lack of sensibilities because I’m so tired, I don’t know, but I hit the button to listen to the message, and as soon as the message starts, my blood runs cold. I can’t believe it.

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