***
It wasn’t the first time that I’d had to left my evening shift early to rescue my father from whatever drunken mess he’d gotten himself into, but it was the first time that the professional voice on the other end of the line didn’t direct me to another bar, but to the local hospital. My mind raced faster than my heart—What happened? What did he do?—and, most frightening of all, how the hell will we pay for these bills?
That sounds as cold as the weather outside, I know, but let me explain.
I love my father, I truly do, but I struggle to like him at times like this. Ever since my mother left, a person I couldn’t even remember, he’d been a mess. A drunken, gambling, emotionally neglectful mess. To be fair, when he was sober, he really did try, but he wasn’t very sober very often. He was a good man, but a weak one. A very weak one.
I will never be that weak.
Once I finished next semester and got my degree, I’d be able to get a job that paid a salary, not hourly. I could move out of the rickety rental that I shared with three other girls. Get a job that gave me great health insurance. Buy a car where the radiator worked well enough that I didn’t need to wear my full winter getup inside of it, too. Never step foot in the sort of small, corrupt towns my father always gravitated toward to stay low from past troubles…until the next binge drinking episode sent us fleeing again.
If my father landed himself into thousands of dollars of debt with whatever this was, he was on his own. Merry freaking Christmas to him. After last time, I swore I’d never bail him out again. He’d been dealing with shadier and shadier characters over the years, and I refused to chain myself to a sinking ship. I no longer lived with him and stayed on the other side of town as it was, but when phone calls like this came through, I had yet to find the willpower to say no.
It took me about three minutes flat from the moment I parked my car to being led through the first-floor hallway to his hospital room. What was surprising was seeing Sheriff Whitmore waiting outside the doorway. There were two unfamiliar men built like tanks leaning against the wall a few feet away. I couldn’t see much through their sunglasses, but they seemed to be staring at me.
“I’ll take it from here,” Sheriff Whitmore told a nurse leaving my father’s room. She hesitated with a sharp glance in my direction, but then nodded and hurried off. I wanted to ask her to stay close under the guise of being concerned about my father’s health, but she turned the corner and was gone. Leaving me with the sheriff.
Shit.
“Cara. As much as I love to see your pretty face, how unfortunate it is to see you under these circumstances. Your father isn’t doing well.” Sheriff Whitmore edged closer, so close I could smell the egg sandwich he must have had for dinner since leaving the bar. My stomach turned over, and I fought to hide my revulsion. “If you need someone to help you, I thought…” He trailed off suggestively.
I forced a smile to my face. “Thank you so much for the offer, but I’m fine my own. He’s probably just hungover and dehydrated.”
“I could take you out for dinner while—”
“No thank you.” I cut him off, anxious to get past him and into the room where my father lay. “It really won’t be necessary. But that’s very kind of you and I appreciate it.”
Like a storm rolling in, the sheriff’s face darkened. Anger oozed from every line in his face. By his sides, his hands fisted, then relaxed. “Soon, very soon, when I ask you for something—anything—you will give it to me. You won’t like it if I have to ask twice.”
I shrank away from his quiet words, horrified. He’d always been sketchy, but this was the first time he’d outright threatened me. A quick glance around showed that we were the only ones in the hallway, other than the two bodyguard wannabes. Other rooms were open, but I could see no patients or staff.
The sheriff was well-liked by plenty of people in the town, but I’d been warned about him within a week of moving here—after I’d been hired to work the bar, Dorothy had taken me aside in the middle of my first night to point to the tall, muscular man who’d just walked in and told me how to protect myself from him.
That’s how most women learn about these things, wasn’t it? It was never what was broadcasted in public, as that sort of speech was easily squashed, intimidated, threatened into oblivion. It was the whispers in the back room, hand motions after closing doors, murmurs behind cupped hands in the restroom, where we shared and learned who we could trust, and who were the dangerous ones
I could not trust the sheriff. Yet he was between me and the only relative I had in the whole, wide world.
“If you’ll excuse me, I really want see my father.” I said it as lightly as possible, but with a firm voice. With fake confidence, I walked with strong, deliberate steps toward the door. There were few things I hated more than playing nice in mean situations, but ain’t that being a woman in a man’s world? He moved just enough out of my way that he didn’t block me anymore, but my shoulder still brushed against his chest as I walked by. Ugh. I thought I heard him whisper something under his breath, but nerves had the blood pounding in my ears and I missed it.
Probably for the best, that bucket of slime.
I walked into the hospital room and gasped. I’d seem him covered in his own vomit before. Bruised from falling down the stairs. But this? He looked like he’d gone a round with professional boxer. Both eyes were blackened, one so swollen it was completely closed. His lip was bleeding in two places, and I could see stitches held one of the gashes together. There was a large bruise on his left cheek, and one arm was in a sling.
“Dad,” I gasped, rushing to his side.
His lips moved, but no sound came out. I leaned closer to take his hand in mine. The wedding ring he always wore was missing. “You need to rest as much as you can.” Aware of the sheriff standing outside of the room behind me, I lowered my voice. “Squeeze my hand once if you’re in trouble.”
He squeezed. Shit.
“The sheriff ’s right here,” I said, hating that I had to turn to the odious man for help but willing to do so to get my father out of whatever trouble he got himself into. “Sheriff Whitmore, he seems to be doing better. Can you talk to him, see what’s going on?”
My father squeezed my hand so hard that I gasped silently in pain.
“Dad,” I said urgently. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
My father’s lips moved again, and this time I just barely make out the word he whispered.
“Run.”
Instinctively, I turned around to look at the door, only to find it blocked by the sheriff. The two men who had been off to the side before flanked him, their faces blank and eyes flat like a shark’s. I was trapped. “Sheriff,” I said, “What’s going on?” Just how much trouble had my father gotten himself into?
I received no answer. Just a slow, evil smile.
The last time I bailed my father out, he’d gotten blackout drunk and lost a lot of money playing cards with a small-time drug dealer. I cried when I’d had to spend the money I’d been saving for textbooks to pay his debts, and upon seeing my tears, my father swore he’d never do that again. And he’d been so good for the past few months that I’d started to think he might even stay sober through Christmas. That would be a first.
Apparently, it would also be too good to be true.