I have three standout memories of my father. He taught me how to ride a bike when I was five, clapping as I rode around our driveway by myself for the first time. I remember he hugged me after my role as Wendy in the eighth grade production of Peter Pan, and how proud he looked when I graduated from high school. For the most part though, my father was always working. And even when he was home, he was holed up in his study.
I thought of him as my mom’s backup. Whatever my mom wanted, he enforced. I think because he loved her, but mostly just to make his home life easier. My dad would nod vaguely when she categorized my sins, pointed out my flaws, or lectured me on what a bitter disappointment I was, and why, for the love of God, couldn’t I be more like Jacqueline?
Consequently, I never felt close to my dad. He was a shadow in my life. A ghostly presence that hovered in the corners of my memories. Really just a piece of scenery. And he certainly never visited my apartment once in the five years I lived here. I wasn’t even aware he knew the address.
I tucked the stun gun — or Sparky, as I had started to think of it — back in my purse, tightened my ponytail, and opened the door. “Dad.”
He looked as uncomfortable as I felt. “Rosalyn,” he said with a nod.
“Hi.” After a few awkward seconds, I stepped aside. “Would you like to come in?”
“Yes, thank you.” He stepped inside and looked around. “So, this is your apartment?”
I shut the door behind me and leaned against it. “Yep. This is it.”
He nodded the whole time like a bobble head, his hands shoved into his front pockets. “Well, this is…uh. Dane Harker called and said you’d been vandalized.”
“Someone broke in and stole my computer. Dane likes to exaggerate a bit. Really it was no big deal.”
“It is a big deal. How did they get in?”
“I guess my locks were pretty old. They’ve been replaced.”
“You had renter’s insurance, right?”
“Already got a new computer.” I pointed to the computer Eric loaned me, which sat on the floor next to the futon. Did I feel guilty for misleading my dad? Nope. The last thing I needed was my dad feeling sorry for me. Or worse, thinking I was incapable of taking care of myself and running off to share that news with my mother.
“Good,” he said. He glanced around the room again. “You don’t have a table. Where do you eat?”
I thought about my little bistro table that had been smashed to splinters. “I’ve been meaning to get one. I’ve just been so busy lately.”
“That’s good.” He rocked up on his toes, then back on his heels.
“Would you like to sit down?”
“Oh,” he said, sounding surprised, like he’d never heard of this so called sitting before. “Thank you.” He hitched up the legs of his pants and folded himself onto the futon. With one hand, he pressed on the mattress. “This isn’t quite a couch, is it? What do you call this?”
“It’s a futon, Dad.”
“Oh, right. Do you sleep on it, too?”
I rubbed my neck. “Yeah, it’s multifunctional.”
“Huh.”
Having exhausted the furniture topic we descended into silence once again.
“Would you like something to drink?”
“It’s after five, so why not?” he said, brightening up. “I’ll take a scotch, single malt if you have it. Neat.”
“I have water.”
“No, no. It’s fine. I’m fine.”
“Oh, okay.”
This was the most painful conversation I’d ever had. I lived in the same house with this man for eighteen years. You’d think we’d have something to talk about, for crying out loud.
My eyes darted a glance at him and then bounced away. He was staring at the tips of his shiny black loafers.
“Is there anything I can do for you, Dad?”
“Oh, yes.” He looked up at me expectantly. “Well, your mother. You know. She’s very upset.”
I kept my mouth shut. This was his party, not mine
“Very upset. She had to take a Valium.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Well, good. That’s good. Now just apologize to her and I’m sure this whole thing will blow over.” He stood.
“Wait, what whole thing?”
“Look, you know I don’t like to get in the middle of your little…,” he shook his head, “but your mother is very upset.”
“So you’ve said.”
“Then apologize and all will be well.” He smiled, patted me on the shoulder, and walked the three steps to the door.
“Are you kidding me, Dad?” It was a rhetorical question of course, because the man never joked with me in my life.
He turned, confusion marring his forehead. “Kidding? What do you mean?”
“I mean I have nothing to apologize for. She came into my place of employment acting like I was a homeless person she had to step over on her way to Neiman Marcus and scolded me like a three-year old. I am not apologizing.”
My father’s face became cold, shut down. “You will apologize, Rosalyn, and you will do so immediately. She talked to you like a child because you’re acting like a child. From what I understand you were being inappropriately physical with Dane in the middle of the street. Your mother was humiliated.”
I flinched. I felt like I saw my father’s true character for the first time. The man was weak. In choosing the easy way out, constantly acquiescing to my mother’s demands, he diminished himself to me.
I looked him in the eye. “I’m not apologizing.”
He frowned at me as if I was speaking Mandarin with a British accent. “Pardon me?”
“I’m not apologizing.”
“But Rosalyn—”
“And another thing,” I said, stepping around him to open the door. “I prefer to be called Rose.”
After he left, I made a piping hot pot of coffee with an extra scoop of dark brown grounds. I refused to think about our conversation, so I called both Roxy and Eric and asked them to come over.
Roxy made it over first. She shrugged out of a hot pink fuzzy jacket, hanging it on the hook next to the front door.
I handed her a cup of coffee, poured one for myself, and curled up on the futon, my feet underneath me. “Thanks for coming.”
“Yeah, I was bored anyway.”
Eric arrived soon after. He stepped inside, pulling off his blue knit hat and coat. He dropped to the floor, crossing his legs. He took the mug of coffee I handed him. “Thanks,” he said. “Okay, what’s going on?”
“We need to brainstorm. I called Sullivan again—”
“Goddamn it, Rose.” Eric set his coffee cup on the floor next to him and glared at me.
“I wanted to make an exchange for Axton.”
“Well?” Roxy asked.
“He won’t trade for just the hard drive. He wants the money, too.”
Eric rubbed his head. “I thought you said Packard was in debt. Can he get that kind of money?”
“Nope, no way. I think Sullivan’s just feeling pissy because of the hard drive debacle. Nevertheless, he won’t make a trade. So…”
Roxy grinned. “So we break in.”
Eric’s eyes almost popped out of his head. “What?”
“Where is the most likely place Sullivan would stash Axton?” I asked. “He owns a ton of properties, but I was thinking the most likely would either be an abandoned building—”
“Right.” Eric nodded slowly. “He wouldn’t leave him tied up in a working business. Too risky.”
“Or,” I said, “he’s keeping Axton in his own home.”
“He could keep an eye on him that way,” Roxy said.
“Especially since you’ve been running around asking questions at different NorthStar businesses,” Eric said.
I nodded. “That’s what I was thinking. I’m sure Henry took me to Sullivan’s house the night he snatched me—”
“Whoa, what now?” Eric asked.
Whoops. Forgot to tell him about that.
“Henry threw her in the back of the car and took her to see Sullivan who threatened her.” Roxy blew over the surface of her coffee. “Again.”
Eric stood and walked to the window, his hands thrust in the pockets of his jeans. “You didn’t think this was important enough to mention?”
Roxy popped her gum. “She didn’t tell me about it right away either.”
“Can we have ‘let’s all yell at Rose time’ later?” I asked. “I want to narrow down Sullivan’s properties.”
Eric rubbed his stubble. “But if you know where he lives—”
“I was kind of blindfolded.”
Roxy stopped chewing mid-chomp. “Anything else you left out?”
“I saw his decorated library, he threatened me, he served me whiskey, then I came home. End of story.”
“Then you have no clue which direction you were going?” Eric asked.
“No, but I know we took the highway to get there, and we drove no longer than thirty minutes.”
“Even if we found the place, he probably has it under major surveillance.”
I took a sip of coffee. “Probably.”
“I can get us in, but not without setting off alarms,” Roxy said.
Eric started to look optimistic. “If there’s an alarm, I could hack in and disable it for say, twenty minutes. Would that give you enough time?”
“Definitely,” Roxy said.
I started to feel a little sick to my stomach. Yes, this was my idea. But breaking into Sullivan’s place made me very, very nervous. So many things could go wrong. And knowing me, they probably would.
“I’m going home.” Eric shrugged into his coat and put on his cap. “When should we meet back up?”
“How about tomorrow after we close? What about Steve? Will he help?”
Eric nodded. “Yeah, I think so. We’ll meet you at the diner at two-thirty. That’ll give me time to go over the list of properties. Maybe something will jump out.”
“Sounds good,” Roxy said.
They left and I was alone in the apartment, going stir crazy.