"Now I've seen you," I tell him with bored disinterest, "so I'm going to be on my way."
I start to stand from my chair, but before I can pull the receiver away from my ear, I hear him say, "Think you're going to get that Cup this year."
It feels like my heart stops beating as my butt hits the chair. I press the receiver hard into my ear and listen as he continues, "Didn't think I'd know who you became, did you?"
Fuck no, I didn't think that. He was never given my new identity. All his letters to me had been addressed to the name I'd been given at birth and sent to Etta.
"Saw you on TV," he says proudly. "Couldn't believe that was my boy...a damn professional hockey player."
Fury and hopelessness well up within me. This is a secret I never wanted out, and frankly, never thought it could get out. Any evidence of Grant VanBuskirk was wiped clean when Etta adopted me and changed my name. The court records were sealed.
"You better keep your fucking mouth shut," I growl into the phone.
"Or what?" he taunts back.
I'm frozen in place without any rejoinder. I can't do a fucking thing to him, and he knows it.
I'm surprised when gives a dismissive wave with one hand. "Relax. I'm not going to tell anyone. Wouldn't get me anything anyway, and besides...you're my son. I protect what's mine."
"I'm not your son," I grit out. "Your rights were terminated--"
"My jizz is what knocked up your bitch of a mother," Arco says into the phone, and his voice causes me to freeze with fear. It's dark, seeping with madness and coated in malice. He sounds unhinged as he continues. "You got my fucking DNA, boy. You're my son no matter what some paper says. A regular chip off the old block."
My head spins as I feel like the little boy who used to visit his father in jail while he was awaiting trial. Wanting to love someone so desperately, but knowing in your heart of hearts that you couldn't because he was pure evil.
My mom made me visit him with her, and he'd put me on his lap and say those exact words to me. You're a chip off the old block.
He didn't know it then, and I didn't know it then, but those words have fucking haunted me most of my life.
Am I?
A chip off the old block?
Clearly there's something wrong with him. I've read so much fucking stuff on sociopathy, all of it depressing as hell, as it can't be fixed. Bluntly explained: the brain circuitry is fucking broken. It's why I wanted to go to college and get a degree in psychology, so I could possibly analyze why my father did the things he did. And most important, I wanted to try to figure out if there was a chance I would turn out like him in any way, because half of my makeup was from his jizz as he says.
"You got questions for me, boy," Arco says as he impedes my thoughts.
Not a question.
A statement of fact.
I refuse to give that to him. I might have a million and one fucking questions, but I can't seem to bring myself to ask them. To do so would give reveal to this foul creature that I'm worried about myself.
I mean...it's true.
I'm so fucking worried.
I'm withdrawn and can't make personal connections. I like to fuck women, but that's all I want from them. I don't desire intimacy or love.
How much of those things are because I share the DNA of a serial rapist and killer?
"You want to know if you'll grow up to be like me, don't you?" he whispers into the phone, and my hair stands up on the back of my neck.
My throat is so dry I can't answer. Besides, if I opened my mouth, I'm afraid I'll hurl vomit against the glass.
Arco leans in closer, and I actually lean back. We don't have to be close to hear one another. He grins at me, and I note his teeth are yellowed with nicotine.
"I'll tell you a little secret that no one else knows," he says in a low, promising voice.
I want to hang up the phone. I know I should and get the fuck away from this man. But I can't move. I want to hear the secret as much as I want to run far away.
"I didn't kill my first person until after I married your mom," he murmurs into the phone. "I know I alluded to there being many throughout the years, but truthfully...I didn't start getting those wild urges until then."
I can't fucking help myself as I croak, "Why then?"
Arco shrugs. "Who knows? I know I always wanted to control women. Wanted to do vile things to them. And of course I did. I'm thinking maybe it was just me reaching a certain age. Maybe I had to just grow into the person I was supposed to be."
Jesus fuck...I'm two years younger than when this sick fuck started raping and killing women. A sludgy, thick swell of self-disgust rises within me and I have to swallow hard against the bile in my throat.
My hand shakes, threatening to drop the receiver. I clamp on tighter and ask him one more question. "Did you ever love her?"
Arco blinks in surprise. "Who? Your mom?"
I just nod at him.
He leers at me through the glass. "Fuck, no. She was a means to an end. A front, so to speak. And she gave me a kid, which made her semiuseful. But let me tell you, my boy...you don't know how many times when I was fucking that cow I wanted to put my hands around her throat and just squeeze--"
I slam the phone onto the receiver and push up out of my chair. Giving my back to Arco, I head toward the exit. I can hear him banging on the glass and his muffled yells that I can't quite make out what he's saying. I'm afraid if I look back at him--eyes all crazy and vile admissions falling out of his twisted mouth--that I just might recognize something of myself in him.
--
I spend the day driving around, ruminating over what I learned. I do this until the late evening hours, wanting to assure myself that Simone has gone to work when I get home. It's close to midnight when I prowl through our dark house, and I have a small measure of relief when I see light under Lucas's bedroom door. At least he's not out fucking some stranger tonight.
Once in my room, I pull the shoebox out from under my bed and take off the top. I put the letter from Warden Glyner on top of the contents and replace the cover. Sliding it back under my bed, I resolve that I'm going to keep Simone far, far away from me.
For her own safety.
Chapter 10
Simone
I walk catlike through the house, knowing I can't avoid the several creaky spots. It's 2:30 A.M., I'm dead tired from my shift at Lulu's, and both Van's and Lucas's cars are parked out on the street. Lucas told me he was staying in tonight. I hope that's true. This morning while I was munching on some cereal, wondering where in the hell Van had gone, Lucas came out of his room. He looked tired, but I couldn't detect any shame on him.
So I asked. "Did you screw that blonde?"
He glared at me before he poured himself a cup of coffee. "Not that it's any of your business, but no."
"Oh, thank God," I said, and then beamed a smile at him. "I'm proud of you."
"Whatever," he muttered as he sat down at the table with me.
"I'm sorry about last night," I told him. "About that thing with Van. I was just trying to shock you and stop you from doing something stupid."
I told Lucas this, of course, to protect Van from any fallout should my brother become suspicious.
Luckily, Lucas nodded. "I figured as much. Van isn't exactly the make-out kind of guy."
God, no, he isn't. He's the type to throw me facedown on the bed and fuck me with his clothes still on.
"Maybe you should stop the partying for a while," I gently suggested. "It leads to bad decisions."
I was surprised when he let out a long sigh and said, "Yeah...I know. I'm just going to lay low until we get through the play-offs."
When I'd gone to work tonight, Van still hadn't made an appearance, and Lucas was on the couch. He said he was going to call it an early night, and his bedroom seems quiet behind his closed door. I note that Van's room appears dark from under the door and just as quiet.
I wonder if he sleeps naked.
Re
gardless, I turn left into the bathroom and shut the door behind me. I pile my hair up on top of my head and strip while I let the shower warm up. The hot water works out the kinks in my body, I scrub myself down with my favorite body wash, and then I shave. After drying off, I slather my body with my favorite body cream, which smells of lilacs and vanilla, and then eyeball the pajamas sitting on the vanity that I had put in here before I'd left to go to work. With my suitcases still in Lucas's room, I always make sure to put my after-shower essentials in here before I leave for my shift.
The PJ's are nothing more than a cotton pair of shorts and a tank top, but as I consider Van in the next room--a man who told me less than twenty-four hours ago I'd lost my shine--I'm thinking they're a wasted effort.
I want to make him eat his words tonight.
Still, I reach into my toiletry bag and pull out something I'd stowed in there earlier today. Clutching the condom in my hand, I'm armed and ready to go.
With the towel wrapped around me, I quietly open the bathroom door and look left to Lucas's room. Van's is directly across the hall from me and I tiptoe my way there, thankful Lucas is generally a heavy sleeper.