beautifully broken(40)

“How do you know about Mr. Rice,” he says, swishing the liquid in his glass.

“I remembered Dex. And I want to know what the hell did you have me doing for you? Did you have me as some type of henchman?”

“Lower your voice,” he says.

“Tell me!” I shout.

“I had nothing to do with you and Clay Rice. That was all you, my friend,” he says.

“Did he…did I hurt someone? Is that what you meant that day you came to my house?” I ask cautiously. Dexter takes a deep breath.

“Don’t let your conscience eat you up yet. You have nothing to be guilty over as of now,” he says, staring at the glass in his hand.

“What do you mean ‘now’? Who was that guy?” He pauses a moment before taking a deep breath.

“Clay Rice was the man that was with your mother when she was killed.” The word sounds foreign to me. My mother, the mother I think of is Gwen Scott with long red hair and a smile that makes your problems go away.

The woman who took care of me for as long as I can remember, who's back home in Madison with my daughter. But after a moment the thought creeps in, one that never creeps in much with me. That though Gwen’s my mother, she’s not my biological parent, and the fact that my name wasn’t always Scott. It was Rice, a fact that should stick with me, but never has. I remember the day when I was ten years old that my parents sat down with me and showed me my birth certificate and asked if I had any questions, if I wanted to talk about my feelings.

I didn’t.

I had no feelings about it. They were all I knew, all that I remembered. No one else was important, the past wasn’t important and just like whatever happened before it, I buried deep down in no man's land.

“Killed. She was murdered?” I ask, my voice a ghost of itself. Every emotion in me seems to be on pause. I’d thought that my heart would speed up, that my breath would catch but I feel nothing.

Numb.

“She was shot,” he says simply.

“By Clay Rice,” I infer, putting the pieces together.

“That’s what Cal believes,” he replies.

“Was he ever convicted? Did he go to jail?”

“There wasn’t enough evidence.”

“So what happened to him?”

“After the charges were dropped he disappeared,” he explains and reaches into his brief case and pulls out a flash drive.

“This is all the information that I have about the case, information about both of your parents.” He is holding it out for me to take. My eyes stare at the little black drive that holds a key to my past, to a world I never knew about, or wanted to know for that matter.

“I don’t want it,” I tell him sternly.

“Do you think it’s wise for you not to have it?” he asks smugly.

“Tell me whatever I need to know.” I’m sure nothing is in there that he wouldn’t want me to know anyway. I don’t trust the Crestfields further than I can throw them.

“Well Christopher,” he says, a little annoyed. “You should know that Cal is pretty set on killing Clay Rice, and he’s coming dangerously close to doing it,”

“What?” I ask, not able to hide my anger or surprise.

“I have done my absolute best at trying to prevent that from happening. However, since Cal has not been working for me, I’m unaware who his contacts are and the fact that he told me to go fuck myself during his last excursion, it will be more difficult than it has in the past to keep him from doing so.”

This is a bad dream. This is all a bad dream. He wants to kill someone. He wants to add murderer to the list with asshole and jerk off?

He can’t do this.

“I can’t let this happen. I won’t let this happen…” I let out a long grunt.

“What is wrong with him? Does he not care about going to jail, or ruining his life?” I ask in disbelief.

“He doesn’t think that he’ll get caught of course, Christopher.”

“Right because he doesn’t think. He just acts!”

“Do you not think that someone who has committed murder deserves to face some means of punishment?” he asks quizzically.

“It’s not my job to punish people. He’s not the judge and the jury. He doesn’t even know if this guy killed her.”

“That’s what he remembers, Chris.” I look up at him, confused.

“Remembers. He remembers?” I ask.

“He remembers quite a lot apparently.”

“I have to stop him. He can’t do this,” I say quietly.

“I need your help,” I say, forcing the words up from my throat, it tastes bitter to even say them aloud.

“With my help comes inconvenience, as you may know.”