More by Sloan Parker (best ebook reader for chromebook .txt) 📕

protecting their priceless furnishings. Low elevator music played from hidden speakers. Who had that shit playing in their house like some sort of department store?

She shuffled across the room and faced me, avoiding my stare. She raised her hands to her blouse, lifted her collar, and pressed it flat in a repeated loop. When her hands finally stilled, she stepped toward me. Her eyes met mine, and she touched my arm in the slightest contact.

I withdrew out of her reach. “Mom, go get him.”

“He has a migraine. He's lying down.”

I crossed my arms over my chest. “He'll want my answer.”

“I'll go see if I can wake him.” She crept across the room. The heels of her shoes were silent as she stepped off the rug onto the wood floor.

Something in me didn't want to let her walk out, didn't want to make it easy for her. “Mom.”

She stopped, her back to me.

“Do you have any idea who your husband is? What kind of a man he is? What he's done?”

She whirled around, but didn't respond.

“Why would you?” I said. “You don't even know your own son.”

She gasped, her voice tense and loud when she spoke again, her arms stiff and straight at her sides. “I may not know the man you've become, Lukas, but I knew the boy you were. I gave birth to you. I held you when you cried at night. I put lotion on your chicken pox and held your hand when you got your vaccinations. I loved you before anyone else knew you.” She shook her head and covered her mouth with her hand as if to stop herself from saying more or letting herself release the sobs trapped below the surface. She fled the room.

If she'd just let herself see who he was, the tears would come, of course, but so would the truth. But I learned when Tim left me; some people didn't have it in them. Believing an easy lie was the less difficult path than facing a hard truth.

I forced myself to look away from where she had escaped the room and sorted through what to say to exact a confession from my father. Nerves grappled with determination. I broke out in a cold sweat, and my hands shook.

I couldn't let him see the fear.

I distracted myself by touring the room. Among the vases and paintings and pricey antiques, I spotted several family photographs: a professional portrait of my maternal grandparents who had died when I was in junior high school, a candid shot of my aunt and uncle at a celebration of some sort, and another of my younger cousin holding a birthday cake. Not one picture of me. Not one baby photo. Not one snapshot of me playing T-ball. Not one photograph of me at my high school graduation. It stung to know my entire childhood had meant nothing to them.

I turned away from the last photo. I didn't want to see anymore.

A sewing basket sat next to a chair across the room. The only item besides the photos that signified real people lived there. A reminder of the mother I had as a child. The one who had hand-sewn a bumblebee costume for my school play. The one who had baked me chocolate chip cookies despite the full-time cook on staff. The one I had let myself forget.

I picked up the quilted basket and lifted the lid. Along with the spools of thread and pin cushions, taped to the back of the basket, was a wallet-sized photo. My high school senior portrait.

Part of me wanted to rip the picture from the basket, chase her down, and demand an answer to one question: why?

But I also needed to do what I had come for. I would not let her distract me.

I returned the basket to the floor. A sliver of light from a doorway across the hall caught my eye. I stepped forward and glanced inside. My father's office.

Since the day I could walk, no matter where we lived, that room had been off limits. Nothing in here you need to see, son.

I bet.

Chapter Thirty-nine

I slipped inside my father's office and drew the door shut behind me, wincing when the door's latch caught the metal strike plate and clicked in place.

Richard was going to kill me.

It was a different room than the office my father had during my childhood, but it was identical to how I remembered it. Same stupid leather books he'd never read. Same credenza showcasing autographed photos of him with celebrities and politicians. Same leather swivel chair with polished brass trim. Yet every piece of furniture couldn't have been more than a couple of years old. In the middle of it all was an antique-style wood desk with carved columns and an electronic keypad discreetly positioned near the right-hand set of drawers. Nothing but the best for Johnathan Moore.

I lowered myself into the chair, hesitating a moment before I moved the last few inches to sit. This was my father's throne. His cologne rose up around me. It was all over the chair, the desk, the papers stacked off to the side. The entire room reeked of it.

I tried the top drawer. Locked. As were the drawers on either side. I fingered the keypad. How long until my father walked into the living room and saw I wasn't there? How long until he found me in his private sanctum?

I breathed deep and ran my fingers over the numbers as fast as I could. My mother's birthday. Nope. My father's. No. Their anniversary. No. What the hell? I tried my own birthday. Nothing. I entered the only other date that came to mind. May 11, 1974. The day Danny Conner died. A red light on the keypad turned green.

I tugged on the top drawer again and it slid open. Pens, paper clips, empty notepads, the usual suspects. I shut the drawer and tried a couple of others. More office supplies, business cards, and an old datebook.