Page 27 of The Dearly Departed

"How the hell did you find us?" I demanded in a low voice, clenching the handles of the pitchers in twin iron fists.

He pouted, sticking out his bottom lip. The look was mocking. "Oh, Abraham," he said, followed by a tsk-tsk. "Is that any way to speak to your father?"

Two people had taken part in my conception.

I remembered little about my mother. She had been young, a junkie who had run away from home for reasons unbeknownst to me, but I could make an educated guess that it’d had something to do with her taste for drugs. I knew nothing about her family or her interests, apart from getting high, but I knew she’d loved my brother and me.

And as far as I was concerned, the wrong parent had died fifteen years ago.

Gerald Crowley reached out to pluck his fingers against the hem of my suit jacket. "Nice digs there, my boy." With a long, low whistle, he swung his gaze around the foyer of the old Victorian. "Damn. Real cushy deal you got here, huh?"

"Get the fuck out of here."

With a glance around me, he peered toward the assembly of grieving family members and friends of Ronny Malloy. "You really think it's smart to make a scene right now? In front of all these people?"

I looked down my nose at the man who’d done his part to ensure my existence. The man who had slipped in and out of our lives when it was convenient for him, never once considering what was best for us.

He was shorter than I remembered from the last time I'd seen him, though I couldn't recall when that was. Four, maybe five years ago? I knew I was taller now, bigger, and likely stronger. But I hadn't realized how much I'd grown. Not until the moment I could stare down into the eyes of my snake of a father.

"Tell me how you found us." I rephrased myself, a demand now instead of a question.

My father nodded slowly, like he was willing to make a deal. But that was how it always was for him. He couldn’t insert himself into our lives for virtuous reasons. There had to be something in it for him.

What does he want now?

"Can we, uh …" He swept his gaze around the foyer once again, his eyes landing on the staircase. "Can we talk somewhere?"

"I'm working. I can't leave right now."

He grunted, jamming his hands into his jeans pockets. "Fine, can we talk here?"

"Can you?"

The last time my father had wanted a little chat, his fists had done more of the talking than his lying, thieving mouth.

He nodded curtly. "I'll play nice."

I opened my lips to speak when a throat cleared behind me. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw the scowling face of Whitney, Mrs. Malloy’s daughter. Her arms were crossed over her chest, her toe tapping on the carpeted floor. When her eyes met mine, she jabbed her chin in my direction, her gaze dropping to the pitchers in my hands.

Shit.

My heart galloped. I was screwing this up.

Because of him.

"I'll be right back," I huffed, turning on my heel and barreling toward the kitchenette, leaving my father waiting at the door.

As I filled the pitchers with water, my mind raced with questions and scenarios, the unlikely and the probable. How had he tracked me down? Why was he here? What did he want? His reasons for showing his face were always self-serving, and they usually revolved around his constant need for money or a favor.

Some time ago, he'd asked me to help break into some dude's house. Some asshole he said owed him—for what, I didn't know. My dad needed someone smaller, thinner, to squeeze through a bathroom window, and, stupid me, I did it, with the promise that he'd split the contents of the guy's wallet with me.

He didn’t split shit with me.

Instead, he'd called the cops, but luckily, I’d gotten away before they could take me in that time.

Is he going to turn us in now? Is he going to take me away from this place, away from Leonard?

The thoughts made my hands shake, and I smacked my palm against the tap, turning off the faucet.