I’m so immersed in discovering the truck owner’s identity, I fail to notice Melody has finished her eulogy and has placed the roses she’s been clutching the past thirty minutes onto her parents’ coffins, which means it’s now my turn.
I lay my roses on top of Melody’s so quickly, it almost seems disrespectful. Luckily for me, everyone here knows I’d never disrespect the Greggs unless it were completely necessary.
“Can you watch Melody for a tick?”
Phoenix appears surprised I’m passing the protect-Melody baton onto him of all people, but he jerks up his chin, nonetheless. After telling Melody I’ll be right back, I hot-foot it in the direction of the truck. My legs pump faster when the churns of the F150’s motor breaks through the thud of the pulse in my ears. It chokes and splatters through poor quality fuel before it finally vrooms to life.
The owner, a man I’d guess to be in his early twenties, floors the gas pedal. Since there’s only one way in and out of Willow Meadows Lawn Cemetery, he has no choice but to speed by me. I lunge for his truck, groaning when I crash into its big old driver’s side mirror with enough force to smash the glass before I land on the ground with a thud. While working through the pain rocketing through my shoulder, I roll onto my stomach to take down the tags of the truck. With exhaust fumes covering a majority of his plate, I only get the last two numbers—73.
I watch the truck until it disappears through the gates of the cemetery before attempting to stand. Since my chase was concealed by large bur oak trees lining the cemetery roads, none of the mourners at Mr. and Mrs. Gregg’s funeral witnessed my failure—thank God.
My shoulder is aching like a bitch, but it has nothing on the fury that tears through me when my father grips the lapels of my suit to shove me against the hearse. “What the hell are you doing, Brandon? Why would you chase down a random person like that?” When his tirade gains us the attention of the attendees of the funeral, he straightens the crinkles his grab caused my suit, then lowers the severity of his tone. “You could’ve gotten yourself killed.”
“I know what I’m doing.” Not that you’d know that. “And it also wasn’t a random person. I’ve seen him before.”
A shocked mask falls over my father’s face. “When?”
I hate disclosing anything to him, but if it keeps him off my back, I’ll tattle like a snitch. “At the hospital two weeks ago. He followed the Greggs when they left the parking lot.”
He stills for two seconds, then he laughs—loudly. “I warned your mother this would happen. You’re becoming as looney as him.” He doesn’t need to say Mr. Gregg’s name for me to understand who he’s talking about. I’m about to tell him I’d rather be over-obsessive about protecting my family than not caring at all, but he continues talking, stealing my words.
“You know his real name wasn’t Liam Gregg, don’t you?” I shake my head, incapable of speaking through the shock clutching my throat. “That’s why the authorities haven’t located any guardians for Melody. There’s no record of a Wren Gregg giving birth, much less her own birth records.”
“Mr. Gregg most likely hid the information to protect his family.” I’m throwing darts blindly at the board with the hope of a bullseye, but I’ve got to do something because my dad is like an attack dog when he’s on the warpath. He doesn’t back down for anything.
My father twists his lips. “Possibly… or perhaps he thought the government could read his mind through the internet, cell phone towers, and teller machines like every other whack job in this town.”
I scoff before rolling my eyes. “Who’s the looney? He worked for the government…” my words trail off when an all-too-familiar glint flares through my father’s eyes. If we were playing poker, I’d fold because he’s holding a straight flush.
“I worked in the military for over twenty years. It’s clear as day in their records. They have no record of a Liam Gregg ever working for them.”
His tone is flat and to the point, but I still don’t believe him. “Your source is wrong. He was deployed for weeks on end. He wouldn’t leave his family for no reason.”
The knot my stomach has been twisted in all week tightens when my father says, “Maybe that’s the reason he decided to end things the way he did.”
End things? What’s he saying?
It appears as if my father has mind-reading capabilities when he says, “There were no skid marks at the accident scene. The driver of the truck stated Liam failed to yield at the stop sign. The police are investigating the accident as a criminal act of negligence.”
“No,” I respond fiercely, shaking my head. “Mr. Gregg would never hurt his wife. He loved her.”
My father’s eyes stray to Melody, who’s slowly making her way toward us before returning them to me. “Words damage people more than we realize… especially when you’re unstable.”
He untangles the twist in my tie, pats my chest with his open palm, then walks away. His I’m-the-perfect-father ruse is played to perfection. He’s just acting around the wrong person. Melody sees straight through his scam. The way she sidesteps him to come straight to me is proof of this, not to mention how the sadness in her eyes can’t hide the anger she’s directing at him.
“Are you okay?” she asks, stopping to stand next to me.
I have a million thoughts in my head, but since this is the funeral of her parents, and we’re leaning against the hearse responsible for bringing them to their final resting place, it can wait a few more days.
“Everything is fine. I just thought I knew the person in the truck.”
When I wrap my arms around Melody’s shoulders to guide her back to her parents’ gravesites, her big brown eyes lift to mine. “I thought the same thing.” I give her my best ‘huh?’ face, which keeps her talking without additional prompting, “The truck. I’ve seen it before.”
“At the hospital after visiting Joey?” The fast patter of my heart is heard in my tone.
Melody’s brows furrow before she shakes her head. “No. It was at Mary’s when I went to get milkshakes with my girlfriends. It pulled in behind my mom’s station wagon and followed her back out.” When she screws up her nose, fresh tears topple down her cheeks. “Now that I think about it, that was the day she was really rattled. Remember how I told you she was acting weird?”
I jerk up my chin. It wasn’t a long conversation because it was smack bang in the middle of the two times we had sex. She told me how she felt like her mom was eager to get rid of her, and that she thought she looked scared when she held her gaze in the rearview mirror.
