Chapter 24

Chapter Twenty-Four

ERIKA

E verything my mother says is another punch in the gut.

My father is alive.

Punch .

My father has been in prison for over forty years.

Punch .

My father is a murderer.

Punch. Punch.

I don't even know what to say. I stare ahead at the wall, my heart jumping around in my chest. This has been the most stressful morning of my entire life. At this point, my day is going to end with me in the hospital with a stroke.

"You can see why I didn't want to tell you," Mom says, her words coming out quickly. "I thought it would be traumatic for you. And if it got out, the other kids might tease you. "

"What…?" I start my sentence, but my voice sounds strangled. Ugh, poor choice of words. "What did he do?"

"Well, he killed someone."

"Yes, I gathered that. Who did he kill?" And why ?

My mother frowns. I can tell she doesn't want to tell the story, but that's too bad. She's kept this secret from me long enough. I deserve to know. "It was a woman," she says. "A woman he was having an affair with."

"Why did he kill her?"

"He claimed it was an accident. He didn't mean to kill her—that's what he said." The lines on her face deepen. "But his story didn't make sense. And obviously, the jury didn't believe it. They thought he planned the whole thing."

Maybe he just wanted to see her suffer. Maybe he just wanted to see her scream.

"Do you think he planned it?" I manage.

Mom is quiet for a moment. "Yes, I believe he did. She was threatening to expose the affair, so he killed her."

"How…" I close my eyes for a moment, imagining my father throwing this mystery woman into a dark hole so she couldn't escape. "How did he do it?"

"He poisoned her."

I feel that tightness in my chest, the same as I did last night when I discovered Liam was gone. I'm on the verge of another panic attack—my second in two days. I take a deep breath, trying to calm myself down.

"Why are you telling me this now?" I say. "After all these years, why tell me now?" And why today ?

"Because…" She bites down hard on her lower lip. "I just found out. Your father got parole. He's out of prison."

"He's…"

"And I thought he might come looking for you," she says. "So… I wanted you to be prepared for that. If you want to see him. Or not."

"Right."

Today of all days, this is too much for me to take in. My father is alive and he's a murderer. He poisoned a woman. And oh yeah, he's out of jail and might come looking for me.

"I think…" I take a deep breath. "I think I need to be alone right now."

"Of course." My mother squeezes the fabric of her skirt in her fists. "Do you hate me?"

"No. I don't hate you."

You just have the worst timing in the world .

Mom leans forward and throws her arms around my shoulders. There was a time in my life when a hug from my mother made everything right. But that time has long since passed.

I walk her to the door and stand by the window to make sure she drives away. But even after she's gone, I don't budge from the window. I stare out into my neighborhood, thinking about everything that happened today. A girl has disappeared and Liam may be somehow responsible. My father is alive and has been in prison for murder.

There's nothing I can do about the former, but there's something I can do about the latter. For all these years, I thought about what it might be like if my father had lived. I thought about the conversations we would have had, him standing proudly at my graduation, shaking his head when he didn't approve of one of my boyfriends, going fishing together out on the lake. And all along, he's been alive—albeit in no position to take me fishing.

And he might look for me.

Of course, I don't have to wait for him to look for me. I could look for him. I bet Frank could track him down in five minutes flat. After all these years, I could lay eyes on my father. The man I believed to be long dead.

Then my eyes settle on my Toyota 4Runner in the driveway. The car Liam took last night out to Olivia Mercer's house. And then lied about it.

My father is going to have to wait. I have much worse problems.