“Tell me why I should believe you.”
“Because unlike you, I never lie,” he says. “Because even though, yes, I have the means to do what you’re accusing me of, I had absolutely no reason. Bart was a very good friend of mine, as everyone knows.”
“You would have a reason to kill him if he betrayed you,” I say.
“Like what you were trying to do just now?” My father clasps his hands on his lap. “Yes, you’re right. But Bart never betrayed me.”
“So you say.”
“Do you have proof he did?” he asks me.
I draw a breath. “I have proof that the signature on his donor card wasn’t his.”
“Impossible,” Andrea interjects.
“Are you saying I had him killed for his organs, like an animal?” my father asks me in a raised voice. “Have you gone mad?”
I’ve made him mad now, have I? Finally, this conversation is going somewhere.
He quickly calms down, though. He lifts his hand to keep Andrea at bay, then rubs his temples as he lets out a deep breath.
“I didn’t have Bart killed, Leo.”
I bring out the pen. “Then explain why this pen, a pen bearing the name and logo of our company, was found in a warehouse that Bart instructed Jodie to go to.”
My father’s eyebrows furrow. “What do you mean?”
I tell him about the message Jodie got from her father and about the warehouse. His cheeks turn pale as his eyes grow wide.
“You fool. I told you to keep Jodie from doing anything dangerous and what do you do? Drag her into danger.”
“There was no danger,” I say. “I was there to protect her.”
“Do you really know how to protect anyone?”
His words wound me, so I say nothing.
“What if that had been one of our warehouses, hmm?” my father asks. “Then Jodie would have found out what kind of business you do.”
“That’s fine with me.”
“So you showed her that pen?”
I look at it. “No. Not…”
“I thought so,” my father says. “You come here thinking you’re all brave, acting like some hero, feeling like you’ve grown up and made something of yourself, but you’re still a scared, foolish little boy. Never mind that she could have found out your secret. She could have found out ours. And her father’s. How do you think Jodie would feel if she found out what kind of people her father was defending?”
I feel myself faltering, so I hold my shoulders straight. “She deserves to know the truth.”
He beats his fist on the arm of the chair. “Well, I promised her father she would never know.”
My eyes widen slightly. He did?
“And you know damn well I keep my promises, boy.”
I say nothing. I came here thinking I knew everything, thinking I had proof. I was even prepared to betray my father. Now, I realize I know nothing. I don’t have anything. I thought I was trying to do what Bart wanted, that I was protecting Jodie, but now…
“Get out of my sight,” my father orders me. “And this time, you better follow orders and cease this investigation. You hear me? It’s good you didn’t find anything. You and Jodie have had your fun, but you’ve reached a dead end. Let that be the end of this foolishness. She can keep staying in that apartment. I’ll have someone watch her. But you can leave. Get your stuff and find your own place. It’s best that the two of you stay apart if you can’t keep each other out of trouble.”
I bow my head, burdened by my utter defeat.
“Did you hear me, boy?”
I nod. “Yes, father. I understand.”
~
“I don’t understand,” Jodie says as I pack my clothes into my backpack. “You were the one who brought me here. You told me you weren’t going anywhere. Why are you leaving?”
I was hoping she’d still be asleep when I came home and that she’d stay that way until I left. Instead, she’s here, which means I have to say goodbye.
Fuck.
“It’s not my choice, Jodie,” I tell her. “My father found out that we went to the warehouse, that I put you in danger. He can’t trust me with you anymore.”
“But we weren’t in danger. Didn’t you tell him that?”
I grab another shirt. “We could have been. We could have been caught or we could have walked into a trap. We could have been ambushed in that warehouse and killed, our bodies thrown into the ocean, and no one would have known.”
“Or we could have stumbled across the truth that your father was involved in my father’s murder and then he would have had to kill us,” Jodie says. “Maybe that’s why he’s trying to separate us. Because we’re a good team. Because we almost got him. We came too close.”
I look at her. “He was not involved in your father’s murder, Jodie.”
“Oh, really?” She crosses her arms over her chest. “And you know that for sure? Why? Because you know who actually murdered my father but you won’t tell me? Or are you just scared of your father?”