Chapter 5 - Delaney

5

Delaney

By the time I make it to the station, I’m drenched in sweat. I’m too pissed off to lock up my bike, I just throw it down beside the front steps and storm inside. Cindy, the receptionist, looks up, but her smile drops as soon as she recognizes me.

“Your father is too busy for your antics today, Del,” she says primly.

One of Dad’s pastimes is moaning to his co-workers about what an awful kid I am: that I’m so dramatic, that I lie all the time , just like his damn ex-wife. Which is, disgustingly, what he calls Mama, as if she were off living it up on his alimony payments somewhere and not just plain old dead.

“Don’t care,” I snap at Cindy as I stride past her desk. “I need to see him.”

She makes an annoying squeaking noise and gets up to chase after me, but I’m already breezing into Dad’s office like I own the place.

It may seem brave, but I know that’s not it. It’s terrified, animal desperation, that’s all. Like when a coyote is caught in a trap and gnaws its own leg off.

Two weeks. Two weeks until Lilly comes home and I have nothing.

“Sheriff, your daughter—”

“That’s fine, Cindy, you did your best,” grunts Dad, sending her off with a wave of his hand. She throws me a sharp look, then closes his office door behind her.

There are two windows in Dad’s office. One with a view of the parking lot, and the other beside the door, overlooking the desks of the deputies. Right now, the blinds on the internal window are drawn, leaving me completely cut off from help.

As if any of these assholes would help me, anyway.

“What’chu want, Del?”

Dad leans back in his chair, stretching out his taut, muscular torso. Despite the years of booze, Dad’s never let himself go — not like a lot of other men his age. He’s still objectively handsome, with tanned skin, salt-and-pepper hair and those wrinkles around his eyes that deepen when he smiles, as if he really means it. He’s the kind of guy women like Cindy or Mrs. O’Neill would drop their panties for in a heartbeat.

I fucking hate him.

“Where is it?”

“You’re going to have to be a bit more specific, kiddo. There’s a lot going on at work right now, what with getting those Wastelander boys off to lock-up. I’m a little preoccupied.”

I furiously unzip my backpack and pull out the raggedy old box of pads — now empty. I throw it down onto his desk. Dad raises one of his dark eyebrows.

“Ah, I see. That time of the month,” he says, unable to hold back his grin this time. “I’m glad you’re so comfortable sharing these things with me, Del. It only serves to make me a better father.”

“You son of a bitch—”

Dad’s office chair squeals as he surges to his feet. Before I can blink, think, or even breathe, he has a fistful of my hair. He yanks me down until I’m bent over his desk, my cheek squished into a stack of old post-it notes.

“You wanna re-think how you speak to me, Del,” he says coldly.

Anger radiates off him, making my body tremble in terror. This is the father I’ve known all my life; not the handsome, wholesome Sheriff Jackson, beloved by our town. My Trevor Jackson is a cruel, psychopathic bastard.

While she was alive, Mama kept the worst of him away from me. Sure, I got beat, but it wasn’t anything like what started after Mama passed away. I don’t blame her; she tried — God, I know she tried — but she just wasn’t strong enough to survive the complications from Lilly’s birth.

Then, with her gone, the upstanding Sheriff Jackson came for his eldest daughter.

“Now,” he continues, hissing through gritted teeth, “I asked Aaron to poke around for me. I’ve suspected you were up to something for awhile. But knowing you were squirrelling away your money? That hurts, baby girl.”

“What else was I supposed to do?” I manage to grit out. Dad chuckles as he grinds my head against the desk. Pain thrums in my skull, my vision blurring. It feels like my head is about to pop like a grape.

“Open a bank account like a normal person,” he says. “Or, Hell, you could always accept an allowance from me. That way, this pretty little head of yours wouldn’t be put to work at some shitty gas station.”

The awkward angle makes my back twinge like a motherfucker, the nerves screaming for relief. An allowance is something he’s pushed for years, but I always knew what it really meant. It meant acceptance, approval, of what he does. I refuse. I’ve always refused.

“You were going to run from me.”

“N-no, I—”

“Shut up.”

Light glints off his shiny belt buckle. It’s his favorite — a brass oval stamped with a running horse, mane streaming out behind it like it can’t get away fast enough. It used to seem like that stupid buckle was as big as my face. Sometimes, like right now, it still does.

One of his big, meaty hands eases the buckle loose and my stomach clenches. I think I’m going to be sick.

“You don’t run, baby girl. Without your mother, you and Lilly are all I have left of my family.”

There’s a dull pop as he opens the button fly on his jeans.

“And a man needs his family.”

I see the dark tuft of his pubic hair and my stomach lurches again, bile rising.

This is happening. This is really fucking happening. He’s never been so bold, not in his office, in the middle of the day. I’m going to puke on him. All over his desk and all over that fucking belt buckle.

“Sheriff?”

The sugary call is followed by a soft tap on the door. In a flash, I’m free and I jerk upright and stumble back from the desk. Dad sits casually down in his chair.

“Come in, Cindy.”

Cindy opens the door and leans against the doorframe, one hip popped like she’s a femme fatale and Dad’s the hero in some black-and-white detective movie.

“What’s up?”

Only a trained eye could see the subtle working of his hand beneath the desk, rearranging his disgusting hard-on and doing up his belt again.

“They need you up front. Prosecutor will be here soon for the evidence in the Wastelander bust.”

“Right, right. Thanks, Cin.”

He gives her a wink and she giggles, cheeks going red. She doesn’t even acknowledge me as she leaves. To her, I’m nothing.

Ruined.

Cindy leaves the door gaping open — thank God. Dad stands and eyes me carefully as he rounds his desk. I back up to the far wall, ready to make my escape.

“Why don’t you go home, Del? You’re looking a little flushed. I’ll be home later. We can finish up our conversation.”

Before can flinch away, Dad gives my shoulder a squeeze and then he’s gone.

I can breathe again.

I sag back against the wall and suck in a deep lungful of stale office air. My money is gone — everything except my last payment from Rodney, and there’s no way in hell that’s going to be enough to get me and Lilly away from him.

Desperation claws at my insides.

I look around Dad’s office, my eyes falling on his desk. He’s too smart to have left the money here. But I spot something else and a tiny kernel of an idea pops into my head.

A very bad idea.

A very, very bad idea… that just might work.

Before I can second guess myself, I dart to the desk and snatch up the ring of keys that Dad left behind. I know exactly which one I need so I slip it off the loop and tuck it into my pocket.

I hear distant voices but there’s nobody around to see me as I slip out of his office and hurry down the hallway.

No need to check for cameras (I already know they’re all for show), I stop at the right door and hesitate, my hand poised to turn the key in the lock.

This is a bad idea.

But it has to fucking work. It just has to.