Just a Little Sincerity Read Free Page B

“What do you want to do in the meantime?”
    I bit my lip and looked down at my feet. I’d spent weeks contemplating whether or not I’d ever bring it up again, but part of me yearned to put together the parts of the puzzle that were still a little hazy. He’d offered to show it to me once before… to help me understand. He was just about to explain everything… right before Hannah put a bullet in his plan.
    “You said you had a box…an explanation of some sort?” He nodded. “I’d like to see it,” I said, meeting his gaze again. “If it’s okay?”
    His eyes widened, but only for a moment.
    “Yeah, absolutely,” he whispered, still sitting firmly in the chair. A moment passed and he patted his knees and stood up, heading to the bedroom at the back of the house. I got up and followed him, watching from the doorframe as he pulled a blue shoebox from the top of his closet. He looked at the box for a few long seconds.
    “You don’t have to worry,” I said, stepping into the room.
    Derek turned back and managed a halfhearted smile. “I beg to differ.”
    I took the box from his hand and backed up a few feet to take a seat on the corner of his bed.
    “Julie,” he said, sitting next to me and putting his hand on top of mine. “Please remember that—”
    “You’re not him,” I said, squeezing his fingers. “Believe me, I know.”
    With a deep breath, I pulled the lid off the box. I looked inside and sifted through the pile of pictures, newspaper clippings, and envelopes. I skimmed the articles that quoted my father on the night he busted up a drug ring and made the arrest against Derek’s dad. I chose to pass up the familiar clippings that outlined the gory details of my parents’ murder. The trial articles were nothing I hadn’t read a million times. But as I reached the bottom of the box, I pulled a faded picture off the pile and stared at it intensely.
    “I was three,” Derek said, pointing to the young boy in the arms of Conan Milton. “And Dad,” he took a deep breath. “Well, this might be the only picture we have together. He was pretty much absent… even in the years before the arrest.”
    I nodded, lifting the picture a little higher to take a closer look.
    “That’s how I remember him,” Derek continued. “Always gone or strung out.”
    “Is this your mom?” I asked, pointing at the vivacious blonde in the photo.
    Derek grinned. “She’s beautiful, isn’t she?”
    I nodded. “You look like her.”
    And though the similarities were there, I had trouble believing that this was his mother. She looked nothing like I’d pictured; I’d always imagined her as weak and frail, helpless against her husband. After all, I’d convinced myself that any woman who’d be dumb enough to marry a murderous psychopath couldn’t be much of a winner herself.
    “She was amazing,” Derek said. “She was loving, kind, soft-spoken… but she never knew how to stand up for herself. She always found herself getting mixed up with the wrong people.”
    “Did she know… about your dad… the operation he was running?”
    “Not because he told her,” he said. “And not in the beginning. But his lies started piling up as the money rolled in. She wasn’t stupid; she knew what was going on. But by then, I was five and she was pregnant with Hannah.”
    “Why’d she stay with him?”
    “She made a commitment. She promised to see that commitment through to the end; no matter what.”
    “That’s… admirable.”
    “ Stupid ,” he said. “I think that’s the word you were looking for. She had a million opportunities to leave, to run as far away as possible. But she never did. Her unconditional love for my father wasn’t admirable, Julie. It was pathetic and selfish.”
    He reached into the box, digging through to the very bottom, and pulled a piece of white stationery from the pile.
    “She left this note,” he said. “The night your parents were murdered… she knew what he was going to do