Jackson Stiles, Road to Redemption (Road to Redemption #1)(87)

Yay.





X X X


As the sun sets, I destroy the bug Green and I discovered on Frodo and do another sweep of the apartment, including any and all electronics, to make sure nothing else has been compromised.

It’s clean.

Later, I finalize some details with her via phone. She needs to get herself set up in a hotel while she figures shit out with the apartment, and I needed to take the shower I missed this morning when my day went to shit.

Shittier than normal, that is.

We have a couple hours or so before we need to be at D to D. There’s not much else I can do for Stix right now but cross my f*cking fingers that he’s still alive.

“If whomever I’m meeting sees you─” Green warns me not to be conspicuous tonight.

Like I’m gonna be conspicuous. Ha.

“I know, I know.”

“And don’t─”

“Kick the guy’s ass before we get a confession. I know, Green. I’ve been doing this a whole hell of a lot longer than you, if you remember correctly.”

“I just want to make sure we actually get this guy, Stiles. If─”

“Hold on.”

A knock at the door catches me off guard. When I check the curtain to see who’s paying me a visit in the middle of this f*ckery, I’m taken aback.

That shit doesn’t happen, often.

“I gotta go, Green.”

“Okay, let me know when you’re ready.”

“Will do.” I end the call.

Relax.

And open the door.

“The f*ck, Dad?”

“About time you answered the door.”

He’s not drunk, but he’s been drinking. I’m speechless, for lack of a better word.

At first, he doesn’t move or speak other than the growl he just shot at me. He just stands in my doorway.

He’s kinda f*cking pitiful-looking, which is weird.

I’ve seen him drunk and sober over the years. He’s got two looks. Happy, which has not been apparent in the past ten years or so, and angry. Never this. Never anything, really.

Has he been crying?

I don’t say a word. I mean what the hell am I gonna say? Hey, Dad, looking dismal. All I can do is stand here and wait, confused as hell.

Dad’s expression changes after a few minutes of this shit from that pitiful thing I mentioned to thoughtful, then to determined.

He takes a huge gulp of air and blows it out, then pushes passed me.

“She left me.”

The words cause a blip in my thought process for a heartbeat or two, then I catch up and close the door, following him into the apartment.

“No shit?”

He throws a bag down onto the couch, and sits next to it. I prefer to stand.

“Good for her.”

Frodo waltzes in from the kitchen. Dad sees the old feline and scowls down at him.

“When did you get a cat?”

The old feline hisses and arches his back at my father. Essentially confirming every thought I’ve ever had toward him.

Dad gives me a glassy-eyed look, silently asking, what the f*ck did I do? To which I shrug.

“What can I say? He’s very intuitive when it comes to reading people.”

One of the reasons I’ve kept him around for so long.

“He’s a cat. He has no brain.”

“Which is more than I can say for most humans.”

Dad huffs and slumps backward onto the sofa, like a ruined tree branch might fall into a river. Heavy and nothing but dead weight.

He opens the bag up that he’s carried in with him and pulls out a Miller High Life. He opens it and stares at it. Then sets it down without taking a single sip. It reminds me of how I interact with the cigarette on occasion.

Where is that thing, anyway?

Dad doesn’t look like he’s planning on going anywhere. This makes me twitchy like a motherf*cker.

Places to go, murders to solve.

I shut my eyes. I can’t think about that shit right now.

“What are you doing here, Dad?”

He frowns at the carpet. “Nowhere else to go, I suppose.”

I rub my face in frustration. “What about Nick’s? They like you there.”

He waves a hand at me. “He’s got kids. A life.”

Meaning I don’t.

You see where this shit is going, right?

And they wonder why I never make it home for get togethers.

“You can’t f*cking stay here.”

He can’t. Period.

“Coulda gone to Mikey’s if he was still around. Mikey would have me.” It’s a low mumble but I hear it. I always f*cking hear it.

“Seriously? You wanna go there?”

“What?” He shoots out a defensive scowl toward me.

“You can’t go one f*cking day without reminding someone, anyone who’ll listen, that he’s gone. And why.”

“Better than trying to forget him altogether, eh, Jackie?”

“Don’t f*cking call me that. He’s the only one who got to call me that.”

“Him and Nick.”

“Yeah, Dad, him and Nick.”

“Maybe if you knew how to control that temper of yours, he’d still be around to call you Jackie.”