He held open the door. “Unless you’d rather we take the motorbike. Wouldn’t that impress the old man?”
I zipped up my coat and chuckled. “If you’re looking to impress my father with stupidity, then riding a bike in the snow would be the way.”
I spit my stale gum into a silver wrapper. “I’m surprised this thing is in one piece,” I said, referring to the Honda we’d left behind in the Bricks during the ambush.
“I only had to replace four tires,” he remarked. “And she’ll need a new paint job, but she still runs like a dream. Those fecking shitebags.”
Christian had recovered his car earlier that day. Four flat tires, busted taillights, and someone had spray-painted a giant penis on the hood.
I wiped the condensation off the window with my sleeve. “How do you think Cristo found all those single moms and pregnant women?”
Christian turned down the volume on the car radio. “Men like Cristo sniff them out. They pay people on the outside to find single women in desperate times. It’s not hard to do. It sounds like early in his career, he stole babies from the womb. It takes a certain kind of animal to do something so vile. It probably didn’t take him long to figure out that stealing children was easier, and the older ones probably easier to take care of than a newborn.”
“All that for what? A few homes in the Bricks? He wasn’t exactly living in the lap of luxury.”
“He’s a hoarder. Immortality is a terrifying thing for men who don’t have a trade. There comes a time when you realize you’re going to either work until the end of time, or you need to hoard as much money as you can to sustain you in the centuries to come. The room we found him in had a hidden safe in the kitchen.”
“Which he blew up.”
“He probably has a little everywhere he resides. Not everyone trusts the bankers, and I’ve known a few men to bury gold bars in the woods. You lived on the streets for enough years to know that no man wants that life forever, and an eternity is a long time to live. Not everyone commits crimes to feed an addiction or live on a yacht. Some of them are frightened mice who fear what the future holds for them.”
I opened the visor, and light illuminated the vanity mirror. “Maybe black eyeliner was a bad idea. I look like the walking dead.”
“You are half Dracula. A bloodsucker. A shark of the night. A parasite.”
“All right. I get your point.”
“Maybe it’s easier if he doesn’t see the little girl he once knew.” Christian made a right turn. “Exactly how many times are we going to circle the area? We’re practically plowing the snow.”
I stared up at the stars. Like Christian predicted, the snow had tapered off just after sunset. It was a beautiful night—stars glittering against the inky sky like flecks of ice suspended in midair. These were my stars, the ones above my trailer park that I’d gazed up at a million times.
“I guess I’m ready,” I said. “He might be asleep by now. Maybe we should come back another time.”
Christian jerked the wheel and made a hard left down the road that led to my father’s place. It was a single-wide mobile home with one bedroom, an older model and considerably small. There was a decent amount of land surrounding each trailer since the park was on the outskirts of the city—good land to build a house on if a person had enough money.
“Let me guess. The mailbox with the red flames is yours?”
I didn’t disagree. Christian made a left turn and slowed the car to a stop.
“Switch off the lights or he’ll come out here with a gun,” I said.
Christian shut off the engine, and we stared at the trailer. It wasn’t the first time I’d dropped by in recent years. I snuck out here now and again when I needed to feel connected to something. Crush owned a green trailer with a small porch and four steps on the right that led up to it. I gazed at the picnic table, and a landslide of memories came back. Playing dolls, barbecues, Fourth of July fireworks. His bikes must have been in the garage, because I only saw the beat-up truck out front.
“Outlaw?” Christian asked.
I followed his gaze to the decal on the back of Crush’s truck window. “He’s not a man who believes in the system.”
Christian unbuckled his seat belt. “Now I’m beginning to see where you get your rebellious nature from. I feel like I’m about to learn a lot about the infamous Raven Black.”
I nervously tugged at my fingerless gloves, the air in the car quickly cooling down. “The lights are still on. That means he’s watching TV.”
Christian shifted in his seat and gave me a pointed stare. “You’re taking this too seriously. Remember the story about the man who traveled with the ghost to visit his past?”
“Scrooge? Are you comparing me to Scrooge?”
“You’re just passing through this life, Raven. It’s not real anymore because you’re no longer a part of it. I don’t see how this is going to accomplish anything but mess with your head. You’re a fecking lunatic if you think this is going to bring you any resolution. I’m here, I’ll do as you ask, but it’s not your life anymore. It’s like when you end a relationship with someone and they pay you a visit years later. It feels familiar, and that makes you think you can have it all back. But you can’t. You’re a ghost to those memories.”
“Someday a ghost is going to knock on your door, and we’ll see if you have the balls to slam it shut. Now quit getting all philosophical; you’re making me nervous.”
“As nervous as the man on the porch with a shotgun?”
My eyes widened when I looked up. “Oh, shit.”
“Who’s out there?” Crush bellowed. “Get the fuck off my land.”
I opened the door and put my hands up. “Don’t shoot.”
“What do you want? Did your car break down? Tell your friend to get back in that pussy-ass car of his.”
“Christian,” I hissed. “Stay there.”
“Your da’s a real charmer,” he said quietly, resting his arms over the roof of the car.
“That’s the pot calling the kettle black.”
I slowly approached the trailer, my hands still up. The gun was obscuring Crush’s face, and the light on the porch turned him into a silhouette.
“Daddy, it’s me.”
When he lowered the gun a little, I took a few paces forward. He slowly descended the steps, shotgun still pointed. The closer he got, the better I could see his blue eyes aimed straight at me.
I finally wasn’t a ghost anymore. I was real, and he saw me. The closer he came, the more he lowered the gun until he was staring at me stone-faced. Crush had a hard look on his weathered face. He still had the grey mustache and long goatee I remembered from most of my life. His hair wasn’t tied back like usual, and the wind blew some of it around. Neither of us spoke. I stood frozen in fear, my hands trembling, my breathing so rapid that I began to feel light-headed.
Crush drew in a deep breath, and when he released it, a cloud of frosty white air filled the space between us. His inscrutable expression gave away nothing. When he dropped the gun in the snow, I couldn’t move fast enough. Crush surged forward and pulled me into a tight bear hug.
Then he smelled my hair.
“It really is you, Cookie.”
I burst into tears like a little girl, crying right into his whiskery neck. He squeezed me so hard I couldn’t breathe, but it was the realest thing I’d felt in a long time.
“I’m so sorry, Daddy,” I whispered, caught in a maelstrom of emotions.
I’d missed his voice, his bear hugs, and even that awful cologne.
He finally let go and drew back, his eyes shining. “I knew they’d lied to me. You always were a tough cookie.”
I wiped my face. “We need to talk. I can’t stay long.”
His eyes flicked back to Christian and then returned to me. “What kind of trouble are you in? Is he mafia?”
“Yep.”
The two-fanged mafia.
Crush knew my sass, but he still looked like a man in shock. “I think you better come inside.” He picked up his gun and led the way, Christian tailing behind in his black trench coat and looking like… the mafia.
I mentally sighed as I climbed the steps and then lifted my foot to remove my wet shoes.
Crush captured my wrist and jerked me inside. “Forget it. I don’t care if you throw mud all over my floor; get your ass inside.”
“Same old bulldog,” I said.
He leaned against the divider wall between the living room and kitchen. “Same old smack-talker. Who’s your friend?”
Christian shut the door behind us and stayed quiet in the background, like a plastic plant.
“A friend.” I gestured to the table on the left. “Can we sit?”
Crush ambled into the living room to the right and muted the TV.
“I see you still have that same ratty old recliner.”
He chuckled. “My boys are going to bury me in that. Might as well be comfortable in the afterlife.” Crush returned to the kitchen in front of us and switched on the light.
I took a seat at the table by the door and watched him make a cup of cocoa. He kept peering at me suspiciously but didn’t say a word. Crush looked exactly the way I remembered him. Black jeans, a skull T-shirt that was too tight for him, and biker boots. He didn’t have on all the skull rings and other jewelry he often wore, so I guessed he must have been getting ready for bed.