I ended the call and stared at the phone for a second, weighing my options. There was a time in my life when that kind of threat and insult would have given me nightmares. Now, it just felt like noise.
I went back to the screen. The archive was nearly done. I moved the folder to the SD card, encrypted it, and started making a secure upload to three different drop points. I didn’t trust a single machine in this town, or in California, for that matter.
When it was done, I sat back and looked at the list of files, the web of lies and lazy cover-ups I’d spent the night unraveling. It was all there, in black and white. And once I let it out, there’d be no stuffing it back in the bottle.
The phone lit up again. I let it go to voicemail this time.
I rolled my shoulders, popped my neck, and opened a blank email draft.
The recipients: the podcast host, three reporters I knew from the old days, and a private mailbox in the attorney general’s office. No blind copies, no secrecy. Let them all fight it out in the open.
In the body, I pasted the summary. The evidence. The screenshots, the forensics, every last sick detail. I signed it with my full name.
And then I hit send.
The sun was finally coming up over the pasture, turning the world outside the window gold and clean. It looked peaceful. Brand new. Like maybe—just maybe—there was a way to start over.
But that would have to wait.
First, I needed to do the one thing I’d avoided for twenty years. Confront my father.
And then, the whole town needed to hear the truth.
And I’d make damn sure they did.
Twenty-Four
Ford
The sky over Whittier was a flat gray, no drama, just a dull, wet threat that never got around to raining. I let the heater blast until my eyes watered. Every time I passed another mailbox, the old dread rolled higher up my spine.
My parents’ house waited at the end of a long gravel drive. My father never fixed the ruts, just let the winter chew them deeper until you had to pick a wheel rut and pray you didn’t bottom out. The porch light was on, even though it was two in the afternoon. The siding was the same faded blue, but the porch swing hung twisted, one chain snapped so it lurched like a broken limb.
I parked behind my father’s old pickup, and headed up the steps. No introspection this time. I had something to do.
The screen door squealed when I pushed it open. The main door was unlocked, just like always.
From the entryway, I heard the low hum of the oxygen machine, a mechanical wheeze, in and out, like the world’s laziest vacuum. It was so loud in the quiet that it took me a second to hear the shuffling of my mother’s slippers as she moved around.
She was in her chair by the window, an ancient recliner with patches sewn into the arms, a quilt spread over her lap. The oxygen tank had a long green hose snaking up to her nose. It was nice to see her out of the hospital bed, but I wasn’t too sure it was a good idea by the look of her.
She looked smaller than last time, if that was possible. Thinner, skin loose over her bones and colorless, like someone had swapped her out for a faded photocopy and hoped I wouldn’t notice. Her hair was pulled back in a hasty braid, more gray than not. The moment she saw me, her face went soft, and I felt something in my chest cave in a little.
“Ford,” she said, her voice two sizes too small.
I stood at the threshold, hands jammed in my pockets, boots rooted to the tile. I hated this feeling—like I was a stranger in the only place I’d ever felt at home.
“Hi, Mom,” I managed. “You look . . . tired. You getting enough rest?”
She smiled, which made her look worse, honestly. More skull than woman.
“‘fraid that’s all I do these days, honey.”
I stepped into the living room and sat on the couch, directly across from her. The TV was on, muted, rolling a loop of local news headlines that nobody cared about.
She tugged at the oxygen line, then gestured at me. “How’s Chickadee comin’ along?”
“Real nice.”
