Megan slants her head to the side and arches a brow. The low hang of the sun bouncing off her shining eyes makes it harder to look annoyed.
“It will be funny. When they try to run, they’ll trip over.” I barge her with my hip, adding some playfulness to my request. It is either barge her or kiss her again. Considering we’re only five miles from my father’s estate, I settle for the friendly vibe instead of a passionate one.
With a roll of her eyes, Megan does as instructed. I knew she would. She’s a good little pet.
While she knots the officer’s shoes with the Ferrari owner’s loafers, my eyes drift to the speedster’s Rolex. “Shit, we’re going to be late.”
I yank Megan away from the police cruiser before slamming down the trunk. She lands in the Ferrari’s leather-stitched seat with a thud when I toss her inside. She grunts, unappreciative of my manhandling. She’ll thank me when she discovers my father’s dislike of tardiness.
When I floor my foot on the gas pedal, the tires fail to gain traction the first ten seconds. Thankfully, it doesn’t take long for us to weaving through the traffic surrounding us.
We arrive at my father’s estate with barely a minute to spare. I don’t care that it is by the skin of our teeth. A second early is still not late.
As I guide the Ferrari down a gravel driveway I’ve traveled many times, Megan’s eyes go crazy. Just like many before her, when I referred to my father’s estate as the “stables,” she envisioned a rundown country estate. That isn’t the case. Not in the slightest.
The grandeur of his home is as extravagant as a palace. Large clay bricks hold up the four-story, twenty-two bedroom, sixteen-bathroom design on over twenty-five hundred acres of estate. It is the derelict stables in the middle of his hunting ground four miles from here that gave it its title. This is where he brings his favorite pets, the ones he plans to keep longer than a night or two.
Confusion slides my foot from the gas pedal to the brake.Is that why he asked me to bring Megan here? He wants to make her his?
Before I can answer myself, a man emerging out of the hatch above the main entrance stairs steals my focus. My father gallops down the stairs of his palace, his smile big enough to compete with the moon.
Megan grunts, requesting to know if the man with snow-white hair and black-as-death eyes is my father. With my throat closing up, I nod, answering her question with as many words as she used to ask it.
She smiles as if pleased. She shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. Not all stories between the covers are fiction. Some are factual.
My father is a brilliant man. He obtained his substantial wealth in a way many hope to emulate but will most likely never achieve. He writes books. I’m not talking hearts and flowers romance stories women like Megan like to read. I’m talking blood and gore, psychological thrillers with missing women and frenzied maniacs who love the scent of blood and crave their next kill like a drug.
His stories have been adapted into major motion pictures. His name is well-known amongst celebrities, politicians, and even the president of our great country. He has them all fooled, believing the words he pens are fiction. I know for a fact they are not. Every story he has written is a true story, even the one that includes the death of my mother.
As Megan is aided from her seat by Charles, my father’s long-term butler/deviant, my father jogs to my side of the car. He greets me with the eagerness of a man many years younger. His excitement about his upcoming hunt is beaming out of him.
“Moose.” He ruffles my hair like he did when I was a child before pulling my head down to his chest, which is no easy feat considering I am four inches taller than him. “I didn’t think you were going to make it on time. I had my stick ready.”
He’s not speaking figuratively. He has a broom stick with a nail stuck in one end. If you are a couple minutes late, you’re struck in the head with the non-sharp end of the stick. If you are five minutes or more tardy, you’re hit with the nail end. The amount of hits and the strength used is determined by my father on the spot. There is no sense to his madness.
“Who is this?” my father questions when Megan stops at my side. He isn’t asking in interest. He sounds annoyed.
“This is Megan. My pet.” My last two words are whispered but delivered loud enough both Megan and my father hear them.
“This isn’t who I am waiting on,” my father snarls, snubbing Megan’s offer of a handshake.
His rejection should relieve me, but all I am feeling is concern.
“Who is this woman, Dexter?”
My worry grows. The quick revert from Moose to Dexter is a telltale sign his paranoia is at an all-time high.
“This is Megan.” I speak slow, as if he is hard of hearing. “She helped me escape—”
“No. No. No. No. No!” He tugs on his hair, sending the perfectly straight strands into spikes. “She isnotthe woman we discussed over the phone.”
His hand falls from his hair so he can click his fingers together. Charles arrives at his side two seconds later.
“This is your pet.”
He slaps the silver tray Charles is balancing on his palm three times before pivoting away from me. His psychosis lapse is nothing new to me, but Megan appears a little unsure how to handle it. She floats a few paces back before fixating her eyes on the ground.
It takes me several seconds glancing at the photo to recognize the blonde-haired, blue-eyed woman peering back at me. It is the goth-lover, Ashlee, before she went to the dark side.
