Untouched (Denazen #1.5)(25)
“You’re asking me if”—I stood on my tiptoes and looked at the box in his hands. Uma Thurman glared at me from the cover, wearing her iconic yellow motorcycle suit—“Uma Thurman is a relative?” Maybe he wasn’t loony. Maybe he had been at the party. I’d missed the Jell-O shots, but obviously he hadn’t.
“Why do you have their photograph if they’re not your family?”
“Seriously, what rock did you crawl out from under?” Pointing to a small collection of frames on the mantle, I said, “Those are pictures of my family.” Well, except my mom. Dad didn’t keep any pictures of her in the house. I nodded to the DVDs and said, “Those are actors. In movies.”
“This place is very strange,” he said, picking up the first picture. Me and my first bike—a powder-pink Huffy with glitter and white streamers. “Is this you?”
I nodded, cringing. Pink sneakers, Hello Kitty sweatshirt, and pink ribbons tied to the end of each braid. Dad used it on a daily basis to point out how far I’d fallen. I’d gone from fresh-faced blonde with perky pigtails—his sunshine smile girl—to pierced nose and eyebrow with wild blonde hair highlighted by several chunky black streaks. I liked to think if my mom were alive, she’d be proud of the woman I’d become. Strong and independent—I didn’t put up with anyone’s crap. Including Dad’s. That’s how I imagined her when she was alive. An older, more beautiful version of me.
I looked at the scene in Kale’s hands again. I hated that picture—the bike was the last gift Dad ever bought me. The day he gave it to me—the same day the picture was taken—had been a turning point in our lives. The very next day my relationship with Dad started to crumble. He started working longer hours at the law firm and everything changed.
Kale set the picture down and moved on to the next. His hand stopped mid-reach and his face paled. The muscles in his jaw twitched. “This was a setup,” he said quietly, hand falling slack against his side.
“Huh?” I followed his gaze to the picture in question. Dad and me at last year’s Community Day—neither of us smiling. As I recall, we weren’t happy about taking the picture. We were less happy about being forced to stand so close to each other.
“Why not let them take me at the water’s edge? Why lead me here?”
“Let who take you?”
“The men from the complex. The men from Denazen.”
I blinked, sure I’d heard him wrong. “Denazen? As in the law firm?”
He turned back to the picture on the mantle. “This is his home, isn’t it?”
“Do you know my dad?” This was priceless. Score another point for my megalomaniacal Dad. One of his cases, no doubt. Maybe some poor chump he’d sent to the happy house, because that’s clearly where he belonged.
“That man is the devil,” Kale replied, lips pulled back in a snarl. His voice changed from surprised to deadly in a single beat of my heart and, crazy or not, I found it kind of hot.
“My father’s a shit, but the Devil? A little harsh, don’t ya think?”
Kale scrutinized me for a moment, taking several additional steps back and inching his way closer to the door. “I won’t let them use me anymore.”
“Use you for what?” Something told me he wasn’t talking about coffee runs and collations. Acid churned in my stomach.
His eyes narrowed and radiating such hatred, I actually flinched. “If you try to stop me from leaving, I’ll kill you.”
“Okay, okay.” I held out my hands in what I hoped was a show of surrender. Something in his eyes made me believe he meant it. Instead of being freaked out—like the tiny voice of reason at the back of my brain screamed I should be—I was intrigued. That was Dad. Making friends and influencing people to threaten murder. Glad it wasn’t only me. “Why don’t you start by telling me who you think my dad is?”
“That man is the Devil of Denazen.”
“Yeah. Devil. Caught that before. But my dad’s just a lawyer. I know that in itself makes him kind of a dick, but—”
“No. That man is a killer.”
My jaw dropped. Forget balls, this guy had boulders. “A killer?”
Arms rigid, Kale began flicking his fingers like he had by the stream. Pointer, middle, ring, and pinky. Again and again. Voice low, he said, “I watched him give the order to retire a small child three days ago. That is not what a lawyer does, correct?”
Retire? What the hell was that supposed to mean? I was about to fire off another set of questions, but there was a noise outside. A car. In the driveway.
Dad’s car.
Kale must have heard it too, because his eyes went wide. He vaulted over the couch and landed beside me as Dad’s keys jingled in the lock on the front door and the knob turned. Typical. The damn thing never stuck for him.
He stepped into the house and closed the door behind him. Eyes focused on mine, he said, “Deznee, step away from the boy.” No emotion, no surprise. Only the cold, flat tone he used when speaking to me about everything ranging from toast to suspension from school.
I used to be sad about it—the fact that his career seemed to have sucked away his soul—but I was over it. Nowadays, it was easier to be mad. Trying to get a reaction from him—any reaction—was my sole purpose in life.