Page 31 of Intrepid

“He must’ve forgotten. I’ll take care of it. Sorry, Lili.”

My dad’s accountant had probably overlooked the monthly payment he’d agreed to send, to cover groceries, rent, Lilia’s pay as a fulltime nurse, and the medication copays. Not as if my dad would’ve reminded her, if she had, and I truly hated having to ask him directly, but I would. I promised.

“Hey, nothing to be sorry about. Thanks for staying, sweetie. Everything kosher?”

Frown still in place, I brushed Jo’s hair from where it lay plastered on her forehead, as she sat staring off toward the picture of a bright orange sunset hanging on the wall. “Think she had another nightmare last night.”

“She’s been having those a lot lately. Maybe some of the TV shows subconsciously staying with her, or something.”

I knew it wasn’t a TV show giving her nightmares, because I’d heard her scream her son’s name in the middle of the night, but considering she hadn’t suffered that variety of nightmares in years, I didn’t bother to tell Lilia.

“Something. I read her a book. Nothing exciting.” I chuckled and straightened the blanket set across Jo’s lap. “Criminal justice, but she seemed to like it.”

“She likes the sound of your voice. I think it reminds her of home.”

“Not my home. Nothing pleasant about that place.”

Lilia smiled, emptying the bags of fruit and veggies onto the counter. “Well, it’s probably more of a comfort than here, sometimes. No memories in this place.”

With a solemn and knowing nod, I planted a kiss on Jo’s forehead and strode toward the door. “See you next weekend. And I’ll let you know about the deposit.”

“Thanks, honey. Be careful. I hate the thought of you out driving around the city this late.”

“I will.”

Quickly shuffling out the door, and toward the Volkswagen Jetta parked at the curb, I tried not to mentally dwell too much on Jo’s nightmares, when I had my own to deal with. Not even the dark, empty streets of the surrounding neighborhood could freak me out quite as much as the texts I’d gotten the day before.

I slipped inside the driver’s seat, tossing my bag onto the passenger’s. The September air had grown cooler at night, chilly enough to crank the seat warmers and toast my ass.

As I lifted my gaze, a monster’s face, half blown into torn flesh, flashed in the rearview mirror.

I gasped and spun around to the empty backseat, certain I’d seen him that time. My heart kicked up, slamming into my chest, and I spun back around, gripping tight to the steering wheel. A wave of nausea set my hands trembling, and I choked back the acids that’d risen to the back of my throat.

He’s not there. He’s dead.

I breathed through my nose, counting back from ten, and worked up the nerve to peer into the rearview mirror again.

Empty.

I hadn’t seen him in a long time, but considering I’d been pretty creeped out all weekend, it made sense.

When I was twelve years old, my father had defended a man accused of sexually abusing his own fifteen-year-old son. The man had been set free after prosecutors claimed there wasn’t enough evidence, along with the contradictory evidence in the victim’s statement. Three years later, I’d just gotten out of dance class, and was waiting outside for my dad’s secretary to pick me up, when a young guy forced me, at gunpoint, to get in the trunk of his car and drove me around Detroit for an hour. When he’d finally let me out, I’d learned he was the boy who’d been molested. He’d blamed my father for letting his abuser walk free, and believed that kidnapping me would show Karl Kutscher how it felt to have someone he loved ravaged so sadistically.

He’d grievously overestimated my father’s love for me.

Although he’d managed to disfigure me with a scar that mirrored his own, he ultimately didn’t rape me, as he’d planned. Instead, in the empty lot where he’d parked, he moved to the backseat of the car and blew his own brains out in front of me.

Years of therapy couldn’t erase the visuals that would stick with me for the rest of my life, making backseats as frightening to me as an opened closet door at bedtime.

Yet another consequence of being the daughter of a bastard.

I hated that I was expected to follow in my father’s crook-coddling footsteps by pursuing Criminal Defense Law. I’d had my own personal experience to know that innocent until proven guilty sometimes resulted in a tragic perversion of justice.

However, despite the trauma of that day, I never really hated the kid for what he did to me. I couldn’t even begin to imagine the hell inside his mind, the truth that’d lain in bits and fragments across the rear window.

After firing up the Jetta, I headed back toward my own apartment. No doubt, the parking lot would be packed with all the students returning from the weekend—the only thing that sucked about living closer to campus, which was why I’d opted for public transportation everywhere else. I’d managed to score a front row spot the first week, but no way it’d be there so late on a Sunday.

Pulling into the parking structure, I groaned at the cars already filled in the front spaces on the first level, and drove to the second level, then the third, until I found a space in the back.