“Come here.” He pulls me in with one arm, strong and commanding as he lands a warm kiss to my cheek. “It changes nothing. Reagan is mine in every way that counts.” His gaze stills over my features a moment, reassuring me he means it before he turns back to his father. “Now, if you have Reagan, give her up so we can go home and piece our family back together. What the hell are you doing with her, anyway?”
My heart thumps wild. My God I hope we’re right. Charles could potentially end this nightmare in a microsecond if indeed he has her.
Charles moves slowly over to the sofa and falls exhausted into the cushions. “So the two of you have ironed everything out I see.”
“What does it matter?” I take a step toward him, my every instinct says kill. It’s in the Greer blood. So help me God, don’t test me, old man.
“Because it does!” he roars back so loud, Ota lets out a painful cry. “Come here, darling.” He plucks her out of the bag, and this time James doesn’t lunge for him to stop. I think we’re both exhausted. We want this over more than anything else. “The two of you have a marriage to uphold. You took vows before God and man. Divorce is a sin and the—”
“Wages of sin is death,” James finishes for him before closing his eyes. “Oh God, that’s why you did it. You killed them all because they had sinned.” His head arches back in pain. “They were people. Newsflash, people are not perfect. We are not robots programed to receive. We are humans. We are fallible. God knows that. And if you’re so damn smart, you should, too.”
The room spins as I try to keep up with the conversation. “Oh my God.” My chest heaves in deep ragged breaths as I take in this frail old demented man before me. “Did you kill Reagan?”
“No.” He strokes Ota’s hair and she leans into him like a kitten. “If she’s dead, you’ll only have yourselves to blame.”
14
James
My father has held human life in his hand as if it were an apple. His to contend with. His to destroy if need be. The wages of sin is death. And Wilson, Rachel, and my mother never had the chance to seek forgiveness. He had injected us with his poison, made himself out to be like God, the Grim Reaper all in one. My father was a necrosis, rotting away our family from the inside out and I had stepped into the bear trap, drove my family right into his waiting demented arms.
“It’s time you take us to her,” I say, helping Ota up from his lap.
He growls at the sight as he swipes haphazardly to remove the tape from her mouth. “For God’s sake, free the child.”
Allison leans in and helps carefully unravel the layers of adhesion I’ve bound her with. “You can’t scream,” she says sternly and the little girl nods in obedience, most likely a false one.
It takes a painful five minutes to yank the silver paper chains off her body and Ota holds out her hands for my father to pick her up.
“It’s time?” He looks down at her with his towering frame and her dark eyes sparkle as she gives a slight nod.
“The time is here.” Her voice comes out far too calm for a girl who’s just had her body bound and gagged, and both Allison and I exchange a wary glance.
“Follow me,” he says, picking up Ota in his arms as if she belonged to him all along and I don’t have any doubt she didn’t. I walk next to him, close, in the event he thinks bolting is a good idea. He heads out the front door and nods to the truck. The four of us pile in like some dysfunctional family out for an evening ride as my father gives soft directions from the back seat. We bypass the countryside, trade it in for the business district, then quickly glide into the impoverished bowels of downtown.
Allison claps her hand over her chest. “The homeless shelter?”
“Heaven’s no.” My psychopath of a father decries the notion. “Make a left once you pass it.”
The truck rolls by the Concordia County Homeless Shelter and I steal a glance at the people that populate the mouth of the entrance, tired looking faces, but clean and hygienic enough to the point you wouldn’t realize the fact they didn’t live down the street from you.
I make the left and it becomes apparent where he’s leading us to. “Shit.”
“Oh my shit,” Allison repeats the sentiment.
The Concordia Storage Facility stares us in the face, a series of boxy bone white buildings with industrial garage doors that close the world off to their contents.
“Which way?” My heart picks up pace. The reunion is imminent I can feel it.
“Four twenty-one.” He leans between Allison and me, pointing hard with a crooked finger. “I lucked out with an end unit.”
My head inches back with the blow. “Lucked out.” The words take the air right from my lungs. “You got the keys?” I speed the hell down the last few yards and stop the truck with a jerk as Allison and I spill out the sides.
“Reagan!” Allison bangs on the metal door and the sound thunders through the sterile facility.
“Would you stop!” my father reprimands as he scuttles his way over. Ota comes around and hugs my leg as if she truly were my child, and for a moment I’m startled back to the reality of what we’ve put this child through. “They gave me this doohickey here.” He holds up a small electronic device that winks under the hot glow of the lamplight above.
A fucking doohickey. I snatch the glorified garage opener from him and press the shit out of it. The door groans like an oversized cat as it rolls up, exposing a bath of light at our feet.
Both Allison and I duck underneath it and head on in, the remote still firmly in my hand.
White walls, lights, a full bed in the corner with pink fluffy covers, a small television in the corner plays one of Reagan’s favorite cartoons. I recognize the old TV/VCR combo from when I was a kid.
“Where is she?” I ask as the air around us stills.
My father stalks forward and gives the bed a little wiggle. “Come out, come out wherever you are. Your parents are back.”
A dark head pokes out from the corner, pale, an instant smile lighting up her face the moment she sees us.
Voices explode all at once as Allison and I attack Reagan with a powerful embrace. Tears, shouts of joy, Reagan’s panicked voice screaming Mommy, Daddy again and again. It’s the most beautiful sound, the most beautiful moment. I wrap my arms hard over Allison and our precious baby girl as we weep in our holy huddle.
It had come to an end.
I have my beautiful, beautiful family again.
Reagan is back.
She’s been here all along.
* * *
Allison carries Reagan into the car and belts her between us in the front. My father, the man I will find a way to punish, and Ota sit quiet in the back.
We drive home with Reagan chattering happily about her time in the land of adventure. So that’s how my father billed it. One giant fantasy. How long was he going to keep this up? Good God, what would he have done if we had never figured it out?
“And you brought Ota to see me!” Reagan gives a chipper wave to the little girl sitting demurely in the back before looking up at me. “Did you have fun on your trip?”
“What trip?” I glance to my father in the rearview mirror, but he averts my gaze and frowns down at Ota.
Reagan warms my leg with her tiny hand. “Grandpa said you had a very important secret trip come up. So that’s ’cause why I got to sit in the adventure land. I ate cake and candy every night. I love it there.” Her voice grows small. “But I never want to go back.” She buries her face in Allison’s side and I glare at my father for what he’s done to her, to us. He has no clue what reprehensible damage he’s caused. The man thinks he is God, but he’s the devil in the flesh. That’s what he’s always been.
Allison struggles to calm her, so any questions I might have will simply have to wait. But I’m dying to know. What part did Ota play in this demented adventure?
The moon has already crested the rooftops as we pull into our driveway. Miraculously not a single reporter is in the vicinity. It must be dinner. Or perhaps we’ve fizzled out like we always hoped we would.