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Chapter Thirty-Nine
Frankie looksup at me with tear-stained cheeks.
“Don’t cry. That bastard doesn’t deserve your tears,” I say.
“I’m not crying for him,” she sniffles. I see my reflection in her glassy eyes. “I’m crying for you.”
I’m done. Dead. I’m been dealt a death blow. Something I can never recover from. My stomach lurches, and my breath leaves my body.
I’m crying for you.
I don’t remember the last time someone has cried for me instead of because of me. I don’t like the way it feels in my chest. Tight. Uncomfortable.
I’m suddenly feeling very claustrophobic in my own damn skin.
I don’t give a second thought to wiping away Frankie’s tears with my thumbs, resting my hands on either side of her face. I pause for a moment, enjoying the way my tattooed hands look against her creamy clear skin. The slope of her long slender neck. The feel of her quickening pulse against my palm.
“Ask me again,” she says, drying her tears with her hand.
“Ask you what?”
“Ask me to tell you where my father is.”
I’m frozen in shock, but she’s serious.
“Frankie, where’s your father?” I ask, cautiously.
Frankie is silent while my heart hammers in my chest. She looks to her hands then up to me. “Okay,” she whispers.
“Okay what?”
She straightens her shoulders and looks me in the eyes. “Okay, I’ll take you to him, I’ll take you to my father.”
Chapter Forty
Silence.
It used to be something I enjoyed. Something I craved. I’d sit alone in a room somewhere hours after the world had gone asleep and just breathe. For hours, I’d just be. It had always been enough for me.
Until now.
Until I find myself in the van with Frankie in the passenger seat. She’s staring out the window. There hasn’t been a word spoken between us in over two hours. Her plump lips are turned down in a frown. Her eyes shine with unshed tears.
I want to be mad at her for keeping this from me until now, but I’m struggling with staying angry at her when I’ve kept my fair share of shit to myself this past week.
I’m still processing it all. Her. Frank. Morgan. It all seems so different now and it’s suddenly as if I’m looking at it all with a fresh pair of eyes.
I don’t know what the fuck Frankie has to tell me, or why she’s decided now to take me to her old man, but I know she’s wrestling with something big. I’ve waited this long to get to Frank Helburn. I can wait a few minutes longer.
Even so, the trip is taking forever. Every bump under the tires is jarring. Every beeping horn in the distance sounds like a freight train descending upon us.
We arrive at the townhouse under the cloak of night. The same house I watched Frankie go in and out of from afar for weeks.
I get out and slam the door. I stand in front of the van and wait. Frankie doesn’t follow.
“You coming?” I ask, knocking on the passenger door. After a few seconds, it opens and Frankie slides down from the seat.
“Aren’t you going to ask me why we’re here?” she asks, straightening her shirt. She looks up at the dark townhouse. Her eyebrows crinkle like she’s looking it over for the first time.
“No,” I answer. “Because I know you’re going to tell me. That’s why we are here, right? It’s truth time.” I hold my hand out to her. Frankie pauses, looking between my face and my hand.
“Come on, hellion,” I say, wiggling my fingers.
She puts her hand in mine.
It’s truth time.
Chapter Forty-One
“Why now?”Smoke asks. I open the front door and flick on the light, but nothing happens. Probably because I didn’t pay the power bill last month. “Why do you suddenly trust me to tell me whatever it is you’ve been hiding, now?”
“You’ll see soon enough,” I say.
Smoke darts back to the van and grabs a flashlight. He runs back, powering it on. He follows me into the dark house, lighting the way over to the door leading to the basement.
I reach around and feel the wall under the sloped ceiling until I find the dial for the generator. I turn it, and after a few seconds, a rumble sounds. The lights in the basement flicker and blink until they’re fully on. The microwave button beeps with the reminder to set the clock and for once I don’t jump out of my own skin.
Seems a little superfluous at this point.
We get to the bottom of the stairs. Smoke sets down the flashlight and takes in the sight before him.
The computers in the center of the room come alive. Several small fans underneath spin to keep it all from overheating in what sounds like a collective roar.
“I call it the monster,” I explain as Smoke steps into the room. He stops to stare at the eight large monitors. Four on the long desk and four mounted above on pipes hanging from the ceiling.
“You mean your old man called it the monster,” Smoke says, examining my life’s work. He turns to me. “I thought you said you were taking me to him.”
I take a deep breath and stand between him and my life’s work. “I did take you to him.”
“Explain,” Smoke says, crossing his arms over his chest. His vein is pulsing again and I know it’s a sign of his temper growing and his patience shortening. “Cause I don’t see anyone here but us and a bunch of computers your old man used to steal money from Griff.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” I sit down at my desk like a pianist at his instrument. I run my fingertips lovingly over the keys. I close my eyes and take a deep breath. My fingers play the keyboard will practiced efficiency. The monitors flash screen after screen.
Smoke stands behind me and watches. “Holy shit,” he whispers.
“You already know my father was a hacker. Funny thing is he always told me he worked for the government. Later on, I found out it was all a lie. He was laundering money, but he wasn’t JUST laundering money, he was transferring funds for human traffickers. Taking the money from the people buying sex slaves and sending it to the people selling sex slaves.”
I find my rhythm and glance up at the screens at the visual music I’m creating.
