Her eyes flew open.
His grip tightened across her mouth. She blinked. His eyes widened, round, black marbles in the darkness.
“Promise me, Bethy.”
Bex could feel the tears running over her temples and pooling in her ears as she nodded her head. She wouldn’t scream.
Her father took his hand from her mouth, his dry lips cracking into a smile.
“It’s been such a long time, Beth Anne. Just look at you.”
Bex didn’t dare move. A man was beside her, hulking, bigger than she remembered, with a face that was familiar but more lined, more seasoned than the one she saw in her memory, in her dreams. She was in her mint-green bedroom in Michael and Denise’s house where she was Bex Andrews, and her father was right there, kneeling by her bedside. Her two worlds crashed together.
“How did you get in here?”
Her father’s eyes went round, hurt and surprise playing in them. “It’s been ten years, Bethy. Look at you. You’re like a young woman now. So pretty.”
Bex’s heart hammered, thoughts streaming at record speeds. This was her father. This was a murderer. This was a man who came to find her against all odds. This was a man who broke into her house and slammed a palm over her mouth and told her not to scream. This was her father.
“Dad?”
She could see him blinking in the darkness, the faint light from the streetlight outside catching the glisten from his eyes as he blinked back tears. “I’ve missed you so much, Bethy.”
He scooped her up in a rib-crushing bear hug, and Bex could feel his shoulders shaking as he cried, as he murmured into her hair, “My sweet Bethy girl, how I’ve missed you.” Bex wanted to hug him back. Tears burned at her eyes, and she wanted to cry and fall against him and tell him how much she’d missed him too, but her body wouldn’t relent and she remained still, her eyes dry.
“What are you doing here, Dad?”
He held her at arm’s length, his whisper hoarse and choked with emotion. “I came for you, Bethy.”
“In the middle of the night?”
“I had no choice. I tried…I tried to get to you earlier, but there was always someone there. It was too risky.”
Bex thought back to the football game, the throaty voice calling her name under the bleachers, the burning touch on her arm.
“We can’t talk here. Those people are asleep in the next room. We can’t risk them finding me—finding us.” He held out a hand. “Come with me, Beth Anne.”
She thought of her father staring down at sleeping Michael and Denise, and she felt anger, violation, suddenly protective.
“You can’t just come in here…”
Her father kept his hand outstretched to her. “Just talk to me, Bethy. That’s all I want. I know you must have questions, hundreds of them, and I’ll answer them all. What happened when you… When they…” He glanced at her, his face contorted in pain, then looked away as if he couldn’t bear to see her. “It was all wrong.”
Bex’s breath hitched, her throat burning. She’d done it. She’d turned him in. “I’m sorry.”
“Come on, Beth Anne.”
She stared at his outstretched hand, watching her own, shaking, unsteady, reaching out for him. Bex wasn’t sure what she expected to happen—lightning sparks or one of those bright-light, hair-blown-back movie montages where she would see everything her father had done over the last ten years, but it was simply her hand slipping into her father’s.
“Put some clothes and shoes on. I’ll wait for you downstairs.”
“I’m not going with you.”
Her father let out a long sigh that seemed to have ten years of angst and hope built up in it, and it broke Bex’s heart. “I know, honey. I wouldn’t expect you to up and run off with me. It’s been a long time. You don’t even know me anymore. I’ll be waiting outside for you.”
Bex watched the careful way her father moved across her floor, the gentleness he used when closing her door behind him.
“I’m just going to go talk to him,” she reasoned, mumbling. “Just talk to him outside and come right back to bed and…”
Bex pulled the laces on her sneakers and avoided her own questions. “I’m just going to talk to him.” She stood and Lauren’s voice pulsed in her ear: He was just a man, you know? Bex swallowed hard, a tremor rolling through her.
The night air was a wild, cold burst when Bex opened the front door, and she zipped her hoodie up to her neck. Her mind spun: He came for me! He wanted to see me! Why, why would he want to see me? He wants something; he did something; he’s an animal who can’t make connections, can’t feel.
She looked around, hissing in the darkness. “Dad?”