He said it so quietly that I doubted that any of the other three men in the room had even heard.
I looked up into his eyes. “What do you mean?”
He smiled. “You’ll see, baby. When you see, you’ll understand exactly what I mean.”
With that, he gave me a peck on the lips, offered his hand to each man in the room, and walked straight out the door. No doubt to start the long ride home.
“Daddy,” I said, stopping him before he closed it.
He stopped, but didn’t turn around. “Yeah?”
“I love you,” I said, putting my whole heart and soul into those three words.
“Back ‘atcha, baby girl,” he rumbled. “Keep her safe, boy.”
With that, he left, leaving me a gushy feeling in my stomach in his wake.***I flopped down into the chair once Miller and Foster left to go on shift, and I raised my eyebrows at Downy who was sitting across from me.
He was looking at the TV, though, too entranced with the show we were watching to notice my silent question.
“Downy,” I said finally, drawing his attention to me.
“What?” He asked.
I leaned forward. “What did he have to say?”
He sighed and flipped the television off before leaning back and putting his feet back on the table.
Crossing his arms, he said, “He’s worried about you. He’s worried that you’re making bad choices. He thinks you’re living in this ‘shithole’ out of spite, and he doesn’t think he likes me very much. Oh, and the sex we had earlier didn’t go unnoticed by him, but that was what flipped the scales in my direction. He said, and I quote, ‘My baby girl knows men. She wouldn’t be with you if you were a no-good motherfucker.’ End of story.”
I blinked in surprise. “You know, if he’d just be blunt like that, and talk it out with me, I’d never have left. Instead, he’s so freakin’ high-handed and sneaky, putting GPS chips on my car and having his men follow me around. Jesus, I felt like I was getting smothered there.”
He raised his brow. “What makes you think he hasn’t kept doing it all this time?”
I sat forward suddenly. “You think he has another chip on my car?”
He shook his head. “No, but I think if he was actually really ‘sneaky and high-handed,’ he’d have kept doing it once you left. He hasn’t, so he’s at least trying. He seemed lonely to me. I think all the threats were more of an ‘if you hurt her, I’ll kill you’ variety.”
That made me think.
Was I being too hard on my dad?
I didn’t think I was, but then again, I was the one who’d left without getting his true feelings on the matter.
Was there something more to it all?
Question after question poured through my brain as I thought about what Downy had just said to me.
Downy, at some point, had turned his show back on and continued watching from the exact part he’d stopped at, and I stared blankly at the TV. Uncomprehending of the show nor its plot.
The only thing I kept coming up with was…why?Chapter 10If all else fails, take a pointer from your dog. Kick some grass over that shit and move on.
-E-card
Memphis
“What’s that?” I asked, pointing at a stack of files on Downy’s bed.
He sat down on the edge of the bed and started to strip his boots off his feet. Then he went for the socks, his pants, and his shirt before answering.
“Old police reports about people’s dogs being stolen,” he grunted.
I blinked and walked to the stack.
“How far back do these go?” I asked as I opened the first file.
He sighed and fell stomach first onto the bed, grabbing the bottom file and flipping it open.
“We only pulled the ones in the last six months. That’s about the time when the most dogs started to go missing,” he explained.
I nodded and scanned through the first file. This one was about a Golden Retriever named Mufasa, who’d been stolen out of his owner’s yard while he’d been playing outside.
The next was more of the same. And the next. And the next.
“This is really horrible,” I muttered.
He nodded, looking at a list in the last folder.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“These are the dogs that were stolen from the shelter. Twenty two of them in all,” he replied gruffly.
My stomach hurt, and my head was pounding.
“Is there any doubt about what’s going on?” I asked.
He shook his head, flipping over the next page. “This is a list of dogs that were taken at the dog park. Seven in total.”
Dog after dog, sheet after sheet.
I read over thirty five individual reports, paired with the dogs taken from the dog park, as well as the ones taken from the shelter, it totaled sixty four dogs taken total, in a six month period.
“Holy shit,” I breathed, my eyes not comprehending what I was reading.
He grunted in reply, his eyes scanning one of the reports I’d already looked at.
“Why do you have these?” I asked curiously, turning my head to look at him.
He shrugged. “Nobody else was looking into it. O’Keefe’s been doing what he can, but a dog going missing is a lot lower on the totem pole compared to murders and missing people.”
“Hmmm,” I hummed. “That makes sense.”
I dropped the files to the bed and used the TV remote that was lying on the bed between us to flip through the channels.
Downy started to play with my hair that was falling down my back as he read and I watched old episodes of Cops.
“Do they actually run like that?” I asked, as one particular man bailed out of his car and started running down the street.
The suspect was quick, but the cop was faster, throwing his cruiser in park before he hauled ass after the guy.
The suspect had gotten a good lead on the cop, but the cop ate up the distance as if he’d been in a sprint relay competing for an Olympic medal.
He laughed. “Every fucking day of the week.”
“That’s just sad,” I admitted.