Chapter 24 Shotgun

Lachlan Cutlass is an extremely nice man and seems like a good detective. He took all my information and offered to protect me while he looks into it all. I told him no, I'm going somewhere I'll be safe. I gave him the number to the phone Foster gave me and flew out here to California.

Now I'm trying to follow the map Henry gave me. I have to use the odometer on my rental car to estimate how far "about two miles" is. Sure enough, when my meter clicks over, there's an old fence and a dirt road that veers off to the right. There's a gnarly tree, but they all seem gnarly. Brown pine needles cover the area, but faint tire tracks show a path.

My heart beats so fast, it causes pain in my chest. A cabin comes into view at the top of a hill. The location matches the large X on the map. There's no cars in front, but the porch light flickers yellow. I park and exhale. I hope this is it. I feel like I've journeyed a thousand miles. I guess I have. I'm over 3,000 miles from home in a strange forest with towering ancient trees. I have no idea what creatures are out there. Do they have grizzly bears here? My throat tightens and my white knuckles refuse to let go of their grip on the wheel.

I gasp when my phone buzzes in the seat next to me. It's Lachlan, the FBI detective.

"Hello? "

"Mila. We got the indictments and made the arrests." His voice is high-pitched like he's excited.

"Oh my gosh, really? That fast? It hasn't even been twenty-four hours." This is scary and exciting at the same time. My family knows now I've betrayed them. I have to be strong and keep moving forward.

"We'd been working on the case a long time. The info you brought was what we needed to make the arrests."

"So my dad and Donnie are in jail?"

He clears his throat and his pitch lowers. "Uh, Donnie Bianchi is in custody. Vaughn is still at large."

"At large? You mean you don't know where he is?"

"We're working on finding him as soon as possible." I don't like the worry I hear in his voice.

"Okay." My voice drops off.

"You sure you're safe where you are?" Lachlan Cutlass is a good guy. He kept his word and he's following through with me. "You did the right thing."

"I'm fine here." It's a lie. I have no idea if I'm fine here, but I'm safe from my dad here.

"Take care." He ends the call .

Suddenly I feel very alone in the dark of my rental car, sitting in front of this cabin in the woods. Well, time to face this one. I have to trust that Henry knew what he was doing.

The fresh scent of a mountain forest hits me as I exit my car. My feet crunch on the fallen leaf litter as I force my exhausted body to walk up the front steps. My tiny knock on the door breaks the loud chorus of crickets and the rush of water nearby.

After a minute of nothing, my lungs deflate. He's not here. All this hope and effort for nothing. He may not be here, but I refuse to believe he's dead.

A crackling sound from the side of the house draws my attention. Summoning my courage, I walk down the steps and around to the back. A shirtless man sits in an old adirondack chair next to a circular fire pit made of stacked stones. He's staring at the flames and balancing a wine bottle on his stomach. Shaggy hair and a long, ragged beard obscure most of his face. I can't make out his tattoos in the shadows. Could that be him?

My toe snaps a twig and he turns his head.

Oh yes. It's him! My Foster is in there under all that hair!

He stands and the wine bottle clanks to the ground. He grabs a shotgun from the seat next to him. He's moving so slow, if I really was an intruder, he'd be dead. He catches his balance and raises the barrel of his gun toward me, tucking it under his armpit .

My heart thumps at my ribcage and I want to run but my feet won't move.

"Who's there?" he asks, the gun swaying in his grip.

I can't get any words out. My throat is closed up.

"Whoever the fuck you are, get the hell off my property," he says, not waiting for me to answer his question.

"Actually, this is my property," I manage to squeak out.

"What the hell?" His voice rasps deep and brash.

"It's me. Mila." Trusting that my Foster would never shoot me, even if he was drunk, I step out from the cover of the cabin. "Can we talk?"

His eyes focus on me before he turns to stare off into the distance as he slowly lowers back into his chair. The gun lands on the ground beside him.

"Who the fuck are you?" His words are slurred and thick with his Brooklyn accent.

"I'm Mila. You know me, Foster. You're just drunk." I take a chance he won't pull his gun again and walk toward him.

"I'm not drunk. I'm shit-faced."

As I get closer, I can see a wall made out of mud and the bottoms of wine bottles. It's so out of place in this rustic setting. The broken bottles lay scattered around him. Spots of dirt mark his face and hang in his bedraggled beard .

I'm sad to see him like this. He's out of touch and doesn't even know who I am. He's wearing his pain on the outside and destroying himself with booze. I hate all this pain I caused him. This is all my father's fault, but also mine for not saying what I should have when Donnie was in my closet.

"Why don't we go inside?"

I don't expect him to listen to me, so I'm surprised when he stands and stalks to the back door of the cabin. We enter a dark, cold room and stand there in silence. Searching the walls, I find a light switch that illuminates a spacious cabin with a steep roof supported by heavy wooden beams. Trash litters all the surfaces and it smells of pee and mold.

"Let's get you in the shower." I guide him into what I hope is the bathroom.

There's a tub, but no shower. "Get in."

It breaks my heart he's following my orders. Where's my Foster who's a fighter? With his shorts on, he flops a foot over the edge, stumbles, hits his head on the wall, and then drops down into the tub with his feet at the faucet side. He stares at the wall like a lost child and I want to hug him, but he needs to get cleaned off first.

The water comes out ice cold, but he doesn't react. Finally it starts to warm up.

Sitting on my knees by his head, my fingers reach for his hair that's much longer than usual now. It's greasy and matted so I do my best to run my fingers through it .

"I'm drunk as fuck." He burps and smacks his lips together.

"That's okay."

Pushing down on the top of his head forces him to slide deeper into the water. "Get your hair wet." I push his head down, but he braces his elbows on the side of the tub to resist.

"No."

Oh that's right. He's afraid of water.

Scooping warm water over his head with a cup will have to do. He doesn't tell me to stop, so I do it a few more times. The water seems to wake him up, and he rubs his face as he shakes it off. With his hair flat, he's starting to look more like my Foster.

He gazes up at me with his pretty fern-green eyes. "Mila," he pleads.

"Yes."

"You look like an angel."

I chuckle. "No, I don't." I've been traveling all day and my hair is a mess. My day-old makeup has faded and my clothes are wrinkled.

His arm snakes out and wraps around my back. He pulls me up and over until my shins hit the tub, and I'm forced to step in with him. My shoes slosh next to his ankles and my pants stick to my shins .

"What're you doing?"

He grunts and tugs me down to my knees, getting me wet up to my waist. One more push and my hands are on his chest. His body isn't as incredibly tight as it was before but that's okay. He's still gorgeous and he's more human now.

When his hand pulls my head to his wet chest, my ear squeaks. "You weren't here." His chest rumbles in his deep baritone.

"Yeah."

"It was dark."

"For me too." My heart squeezes. It was so dark without him.

I hold my tongue because I don't want to get into anything with him while he's drunk. It's going to be upsetting and right now he's calm and holding me like it's all forgiven.

He shakes his head side to side and mumbles, "This isn't us."

"No, it's not. But we'll get there."

After a few minutes, the tub is full so I turn off the water. His eyes are closed. His head is flopped to the side and his hands on my hips have fallen loose.

"C'mon. Let's get you to bed."

With a little help, he stumbles out of the tub and falls into the bed at an odd angle. He's out the second his head hits the mattress. He missed his pillow, and his shorts are wet, but that's okay. He's safely in bed sleeping it off. The sea serpent on his back shines beneath the water drops.

With a towel around my wet clothes, I sneak out to my car to get my bags. After slipping into some PJs and turning on the heater, my exhausted body crashes beside him. A whisper of joy fills my heart. I didn't expect he'd be this messed up, but the empty hole he left behind feels patched up. Not healed, but patched. It was right for me to come here. He needed me.

"You free of your dad?" His deep voice slurs.

"I'll never be free of him," I whisper back.