2
“You’re ruining my life!”
The statement that his teenage daughter had screamed at him the night before echoed in Asher Ford’s head. He glanced to his right at the screamer sleeping soundly in the passenger seat. Blake looked so peaceful, so serene, so sweet curled up with her pillow resting against the window. Her countenance was a stark difference to the possessed demon child she’d been the night before when he took her phone and computer away from her and told her that she would get them back at the end of the summer, which apparently to a thirteen-year-old was the equivalent of ruining their life.
Sadly, it wasn’t the first time those four words had been directed at him. Blake’s mother, Jenna, had yelled the same sentiment to him on more than one occasion. But Jenna’s accusation had also included a four-letter word that would have got Blake grounded if she’d dared to say it to her father.
Asher turned his attention back to the mountain roads and rolled his shoulders back. He hated that he’d inspired such drastic declarations by the two most important people in his life, his ex-wife and his baby girl. He took full responsibility for both of them feeling that way. If he had a time machine, he’d go back and do everything over. But unfortunately, this wasn’t a Back to the Future situation and he was driving a Durango not a DeLorean.
All he could do now was move forward and make things right. In his thirty-six years, the job had always come first with him, but that was all changing. From this day on, all that mattered was Blake.
When Jenna called him a month ago and told him that Blake was completely out of control, he’d figured she might be exaggerating. His ex-wife had gone on to explain that their daughter had nearly flunked her eighth-grade year and was only graduating middle school by the skin of her teeth, had come home drunk twice, had taken her step-dad’s Porsche out for a joyride with her friends, and that she was sending Blake to live with Asher. He knew that it was time to step up and put someone before the job for once in his life.
There was no way that he could work the hours he did as a lead homicide detective in New York and be the primary parent of a teenager. Especially one who was knee deep in rebellion and needed near constant supervision.
In the span of twenty-four hours so many things in his life had to change. He quit the force and made the drastic, but he felt necessary, decision to move across the country.
He’d never really been a parent to Blake. Sure, he’d supported her and his ex-wife financially, but he hadn’t been there for the day-to-day stuff. Even when he was married to Jenna and lived under the same roof as his baby girl, he’d been absent because during the first few years of his daughter’s life he’d been in the undercover unit and would go months at a time without being home.
Jenna had hung in there for a few years. But then one day while he was on the job, he’d gotten shot. Jenna had shown up to the hospital in tears saying that she’d met someone and couldn’t be a single parent anymore. A week later he was served with divorce papers and a month after that, she told him that she was moving to Massachusetts with James, her soon-to-be new husband, and Blake.
Asher didn’t try and stop her from taking his daughter. He knew that he didn’t have a leg to stand on to demand that she stay close.
That was seven years ago. He’d seen Blake every other holiday and for a few weeks in the summer. That was the totality of his parental influence in his daughter’s life. He didn’t blame his ex-wife for him not being a father to their daughter. The only person he had to blame for that was the person he saw staring back at him in the mirror.
But that was the past.
Even though his daughter was clearly going through a crisis, he was looking at it as a blessing in disguise. He was being given the opportunity to do better. To be better. He knew that he couldn’t redo the first thirteen years of Blake’s life. But he could damn sure devote the next thirteen of his life to his daughter.
Not that she’d really appreciate that at twenty-six.
Beside him, Blake stirred in the seat and opened her eyes. “Are we there yet?”
“Almost, we’ve got about ten minutes to go.”
She sighed, as if she’d been the one driving for the ten hours straight instead of sleeping. He’d thought that flying into Los Angeles and having a mini vacation before relocating to Northern California was a brilliant idea. He’d gotten them tickets to Universal Studios because he’d remembered that Blake had been really into Harry Potter and they had Harry Potter World. But he’d missed the mark because apparently, she’d loved the wanded-one two years ago when she was a “kid.”
The plan had been to go to Disneyland the following day, but after a bout of silence and a considerable dose of eye-rolling at the mention of Splash Mountain and Mickey ears, he’d asked Blake what she wanted to do during their time in L.A. She’d opted for shopping on Melrose. So that is what they’d done instead.
“What is this place called again?”
“Hope Falls.”
After getting shot and retiring from the OCCB (Organized Crime Control Bureau) Asher had stayed in touch with his colleague Logan Dorsey who he’d worked undercover with and had moved to California several years earlier. When he’d mentioned to Dorsey that he was leaving the force and needed to find a nine-to-five, his friend had mentioned that they were looking for a detective in the small town where he lived. It wasn’t what Asher had ever envisioned for his life, but this wasn’t about him. This was about Blake.
She was headed down a very dangerous, very slippery slope and he knew better than most how just one bad decision could affect your entire life. One wrong turn was like a domino effect that could easily ruin someone’s life. He’d be damned if that was going to happen to his baby girl.
“What are you listening to?” Her face scrunched up.
Asher turned up Wonderwall by Oasis, he didn’t understand the music that Blake listened to. It was just loud noise.
“It’s real music.” As soon as he said it out loud, he heard his father saying the same thing to him.
He missed his old man. He’d been a cop, too, just like his father before him, and his father before him. Asher came from a long line of blue bloods. His father had died in the line of duty when he was Blake’s age. As much as Asher idolized his old man, he hoped that he didn’t share his fateful end. And now that he wasn’t working homicide in a large, dangerous city his odds were definitely better at making it to retirement.
Blake sighed as she put on her headphones and played music through her iPad. He’d disabled the internet on it, but she was still able to listen to the music that she’d downloaded.
Large pine trees flanked them as they drove up the winding interstate. Asher hadn’t seen a gas station, a fast-food stop, or any signs of civilization for the last sixty miles.