Daddy's Little Killer Read Free Page A

words I would no doubt come to
regret.  If they hadn't been so reckless in their search and
broken a piece of my heart that still mattered to me, I probably
would've kept my emotions in check.  Instead, Seleeby had
provoked a reaction I was determined not to give. 
    I pushed my way past him.  The reminder
of why I needed to leave was imprinted in my mind like a cattle
brand.  Getting away from the FBI, from all things related to
Rick Hamilton, his master, Sully Marcos, it had to be my first
priority. 
    Necessity made that call from George Hardy
in Darkwater Bay intriguing.  Before I would accept an offer
blindly, I needed to do a little research, namely to uncover how
anyone that far away could know I was available for work in the
first place.  Since the bureau was intent on keeping me under
its thumb, I'd have to find a way to contact Hardy without them
finding out.
    Our brownstone, with its beautiful turret
and every brick painstakingly restored, mortar perfectly sculpted,
looked lonely and desolate.  I wondered if I would ever step
foot through the old girl's front door again, ever sit on the steps
on a balmy summer evening with a glass of sweet tea and watch the
world lazily pass.  Would I smell the sweet fragrance of our
lilac bushes in the garden behind the wrought iron fence next
spring?  Would my sensible shoes ever clop against the uneven
brickwork that served as a dated reminder of what this district of
our nation's capital once was? 
    I swayed and clutched the handrail for a
moment.  Dad always warned of the dangers of getting too
attached to anything.  "Be ready to leave it all in a moment,
Sprout."  Yet it was advice he hadn't followed.  If he
had … if my father had the common sense God gave a rubber duck, he
would've walked away before that accident could've happened.
    "Why didn't you walk away, Daddy?" I
whispered.  "I would've found you.  I would've always
come for you."
    Now it was impossible. 
    Our rain storm at the apex of Rick's funeral
had blown over, but the droplets of moisture clung to the trees
overhead and splashed to the sidewalk with each gust of wind. 
I loved the sound of leaves whispering against each other.  I
loved everything about my life here.  I loved my father too,
but hated him at the same time.  I despised his wisdom and his
caution and the words that still twisted my view of the world into
something unimaginably dark.
    Would life have been different if I had
simply rejected all of it, lived like a normal person?  Would
I have found true love instead of the farce I invented?
    Everyone has secrets, Helen.  The
mistake normal people make is trusting another with those
secrets.  Never make that mistake, my dear daughter. 
You'll be stronger and better for it.
    In the clinical sense of my training, I
would've diagnosed my father with paranoid delusions.  The
part of my mind that was still his little girl clung to his words
like they were a heritage far more valuable than the piles of cash
he had deposited in offshore bank accounts.  I could've
funneled that money into his defense fund and seen him walk out of
court a free man.
    The look flashed beneath my eyelids again,
the last one I saw on his handsome face.  It was worth a
thousand words, a million fortunes squired away into secret
caches.  My father was shoving me out of the nest, his little
chickadee ready to spread her wings and fly.  My heart ached
to hop on the first flight available that could deliver me to the
stone walls and iron bars that confined him. 
    I stepped off the curb.  Dad would be
disappointed if I came running at the first brush with
catastrophe.  Not that this was technically the first, it was
merely the first time I felt everything crumbling to dust around
me.  Time for plan B.  Or C.  Or whichever one
looked like it made the most sense.
    The first step involved covering my
tracks.  The last thing I needed was the shadow of my former
compatriots lurking behind me.  They knew