Strike (27 page)

As if to show Wyatt that he's not scared, the guy kneels and gives Matty a full catalog of pats and rubs. “You're a good girl, aren't
you?” When she shows him her belly, he looks closer, and his frown deepens. “Where'd you get this dog?” As he says it, he stands, and his hand looks like it's itching for a gun. He seemed pretty chill and friendly before, but now he looks pissed. And dangerous. And much older than I originally thought.

Suddenly, I realize why he looks familiar, and I push out from under Wyatt's arm.

“What's your name?” I ask, voice high and squeaky. “Your real name?”

He looks at me with blue eyes the same shade as mine and says, “Jack Cannon.”

The air punches out of my chest, and I can only gape and blink. I've been waiting for this moment since I was four years old, since the day he left. I have a million questions, a billion words of spite, a trillion words of love. I want to run into his arms, bury my face in his neck, cry into his jacket, kick him in the shins, but I know what I smell like and there are too many guns in the room.

It's him.

It's my dad.

“How'd you know?” I squeak. “How'd you know it was me?”

“I'm the one who decrypted the files on the laptops. Unfortunately, Leon was standing right behind me at the time. He knows your real name, but he doesn't know you're my daughter. He can never know.” His grin is fond and wondering and near tears. “It was
hard as hell to hide that I knew it was you at the meeting the other night. I never dreamed . . .”

“I did. I dreamed it. Every day. Every day for thirteen years.” My voice breaks. “Where the hell have you been?”

“That doesn't matter. I'm here now, honey. God, you're so big.”

He opens his arms, and I freeze, suddenly shy and unsure. When he left, I was tiny and love was an automatic thing unencumbered by awkwardness. Throwing myself into his arms was natural then. But now I have reasons to pull away, too. Wyatt presses gently on my back, urging me forward, and then I'm hugging my daddy, just like I always dreamed of.

Well, almost. I stink of sex and I'm not wearing a bra or underwear and my boyfriend is five feet behind me, half naked with a gun in his hand. And my dad works for the Citizens for Freedom. He works for Leon Crane.

“And that's Ash's dog, isn't it? I remember when she got that scar on her belly. How'd you end up with your uncle's hunting dog, pip-squeak?”

I pull out of the hug and step back, hugging myself instead.

“I think we need to talk,” I say.

His eyes shoot around the trailer, and I imagine him tallying everything he sees. Bullet holes in the wall. Me and Wyatt, obviously doing things no dad ever wants to know about, not even a missing-in-action dad. The fact that this trailer belongs to the Cranes and
the guys who used to live in here are dead. They were tech guys, I heard, and on the phone today, Leon called my dad his best tech guy, so maybe he was friends with them. Hell, maybe the place is bugged or rigged with cameras, although I haven't been able to find any. In any case, I'm not surprised when he puts a hand on the doorknob and inclines his head.

“Let's go for a walk.” His eyes shoot from me to Wyatt, and his eyebrow goes up. “Get cleaned up, first. And dress warm. I'll be waiting.”

He watches me a moment too long, his eyes soft and wet, before stepping outside and closing the door. Wyatt and I stare at each other.

“You sure that's your dad?” he says, all cagey.

“I know my dad,” I say.

“You sure you can trust him, then?”

I snort. “Of course not. But I want to.”

I walk into the bathroom and close the door. The shower takes a few minutes to get hot, and I'm scrubbing Wyatt off me with harsh soaps only a boy would choose. My skin feels swollen and puffy, and I think I understand why people act like virginity is something you can lose—or, more accurately, something you can give to someone. I feel exactly the same and yet completely different. And I feel like Wyatt and I, we'll have this forever. It might be a short forever, but we're stuck together now. My mind bounces between what just happened with Wyatt and the fact that my dad is waiting outside,
which is awkward and confusing. I've been waiting to see my dad every day of my entire life, and now is when he shows up?
Shit timing, Dad. Just another thing you messed up.

The room is full of steam as I towel off and slap on some lotion. Wyatt's stubble has left the most kissable parts of me red and raw, like he's marked me. My lips are pouty and pink and my eyes are soft, the pupils as swollen as the rest of me feels. This is not the way a girl wants to look when she talks to her dad for the first time in thirteen years. This is not what I want on my mind, my memory replaying Wyatt's face and hands and body. I want to fall asleep, warm and protected, in his arms. I do not want to step outside, where it's cold and dark, and tell my father what happened to his brother.

But I've done worse things, and I can do this, too.

And isn't this what I wanted? What I've been yearning for?

Isn't this the secret, the truth I kept in my locket, right up until Valor stepped into my life?

I never imagined I would feel this conflicted.

I wrap the towel around me and bumble into the bedroom, trying to find all the layers I shed in a giddy hurry. Screw this—I have new stuff in my backpack, awkward and creased and a little scratchy. I pull out a new pair of underwear and almost fall over when stepping in. Wyatt watches from the door, silent. I'm surprised by how natural it feels, how I'm not embarrassed by the strangeness of
getting dressed as he stares. But he's seen all of me now, hasn't he? Inside and out.

“Bra?” I say.

He hands it to me, and as our fingers brush, we both giggle. He had trouble getting it unhooked and he threatened to rip it apart, but it's the only one I had, so I stopped him. Soon I'm fully dressed and pulling on my hoodie and my mom's rosary, hunting for my puffer coat. My socks don't match. My sneakers are spattered with dried blood. My hair is roughly hacked and frizzy from using crap shampoo, and no matter how much water I splash on my face, I look like I've been doing exactly what I've been doing. There is no way that my father will be proud of what I am, not of the surface or what lies beneath.

Oh, but God, I want him to be.

“You okay?” Wyatt asks as I stare in the bathroom mirror.

My only response is to charge him and bury my face in his bare chest.

“No.”

“You don't have to go with him.”

I look up, begging him to understand. “Yeah, I do.”

“But you don't want to. You're scared.”

“Not of him. Of me. Of him finding out what I've done. My uncle . . .”

Wyatt holds me by my shoulders, stern but gentle. “Don't be
ashamed—do you hear me? You did what you had to do. Anyone who's still alive right now, anyone who knows what's really happening? They'll understand. Especially if they're here.” He smooths my hair back and rubs a proprietary thumb over my swollen lips. “If he's not proud, he's an idiot. And an asshole.”

I nod and try to swallow it down. I know he's right.

But I'm still scared.

“Take care of Matty,” I say, patting her wide back as I head for the door.

“Wait.” I turn, and Wyatt holds out my gun and the scarf I knitted for him. “It could be cold,” he says. I don't want to hunt for my holster, so I just put the gun in my waistband, against my spine, then hold still while he wraps his scarf around my neck. The last thing he does is kiss me on my forehead. “You're going to be great. It's going to be great. He's going to love you.” When I still don't touch the door, he adds, “And don't take any shit from him. Or anyone.”

That makes me smile. “Thanks,” I say. And then I'm stepping out of the trailer into one of those crisp November nights when the sky is dark as ink and the stars sparkle like knives. Our little tent city is quiet—most likely, they're all hiding after what they heard happen in the trailer a few minutes ago. Jack—my dad—my dad!—is waiting in the field beyond, hands in his pockets and staring up at the big house. My sneakers crunch through the cold, dead grass until
I stand beside him, humming with excitement and bursting with questions. And anger.

Was he here, all this goddamn time, all these years, just a few miles from my house and working for Leon? I want to ask, but I don't want to be the one who talks first. I don't want him to be just another shitty Crane goon, just another pawn.

“You did the graffiti by the map, I take it?” he asks without looking at me.

I rock back on my heels, trying not to smirk too obviously. I really enjoyed spraying
FUCK THE CFF
on that stark white wall. “Leon blew up my house. And Mrs. Hester.”

My dad looks down at me. “You don't think Leon had his reasons?”

I meet his gaze, unflinching. “Oh, I know Leon has his reasons. That's what worries me. Do you really take orders from that asshole?”

He opens his mouth, then closes it. For a few long minutes, he chews on the inside of his cheek like he wants to say something and can't. Finally, he says, “We should get some distance on Leon. Have you ever seen the preserve?”

He starts walking toward the trail we took to Brady and target practice a few days ago, and I stick my hands in my pockets and hurry to keep up.

“Do you mean the neighborhood off Hayley Bridge? Across from the Estates?”

My dad snorts, the same way I snort. “No. I mean the Cannon Wildlife Preserve.”

“Never heard of it.” But I'm not going to tell him about going through the photos at my uncle's house. Not yet.

“See, the Cranes and the Cannons go way back. Me and Leon grew up together. Crane Hollow extends into the forest, where it meets Cannon land.” He beams. “Our family's land. Leon's granddad got into some money trouble a long time ago, and my granddad offered to buy some land off him and turn it into a shared preserve, hunting land. Cranes and Cannons only.”

“Okay, but I have so many questions. Where—”

“Plenty of time for that, pip-squeak. Let's just walk a bit. Get farther away.”

We walk past the bullet-gouged targets and the trailer where Brady probably stays. The lights are still on. My dad holds a finger to his lips, and I nod and walk in silence. This is as far as I've been in Crane Hollow, but my dad keeps walking, taking a dirt path through the overgrown field. We pass a deer stand and the remnants of a bonfire strewn with beer cans and shotgun shells as we push past scrubby pines and into a hardwood forest. I expect it to be colder in the shadows, but without the brisk wind, it's warmer, and my shoulders unhunch a little. Normally, this situation wouldn't feel safe to me, but I've got a gun, and I'm willing to bet my dad does too. I don't know if I trust him yet, but in this
moment, I know that I would follow him anywhere if it meant I got the answers I crave.

This close to my dad, I feel like a live wire, humming with emotions and energy. On one level, the little kid inside me got her wish, and everything feels right. But deep down, the grown, monstrous version of me knows nothing is right.

“We grew up back here. Building forts, hunting, running wild. All the Crane and Cannon kids, a whole passel of cousins.” My heart twists. I always imagined having cousins, and I did. They were less than five miles from my house, all this time, but I grew up alone.

“So does this land belong to you?” I ask.

He holds a branch out of the way for me. “My father's trust, technically. John Cannon Senior. They called him Devil Johnny. For good reason. Did your mom ever . . . ? No.” He chuckles sadly. “She just told you I left, didn't she?”

I've heard that name before, though, and then it comes back to me. Leon told my dad that Devil Johnny would be proud of his hacking skills when he helped me scrub the Valor SUV over the phone. But I don't say that, either.

“You were there, and you said you had to leave but you loved me and you'd be back one day. You gave me the locket. And then you were gone. Mom never said why.”

He's just a shadow in the woods ahead, but I can feel sadness radiating off him. “Did you keep the locket?”

I nod even though he can't see me. “I did. Until last week. Lost it running from Valor. But I still have your gun.”

“Probably more valuable these days.”

“It saved my life.” But I don't mention that it's the same gun Wyatt pulled on him earlier. I don't want him to take it back.

“So how'd you get involved with the CFF?”

My head jerks up. “How'd you?”

He sighs. “Okay, so Leon was my best friend growing up. Our families ran this town. The Cranes still do. All those businesses, all this land. They put my granddad's money to good use, turns out. As soon as Valor's takeover stopped being a threat and became a promise, it made sense to join forces. I'm the brain; Leon's the brawn. Or that's what I used to think. Like he was the mad dog and I was holding the chain. Turns out he was just playing dumb while his daddy and older brother were alive. Now they're gone and he's off the chain.” He looks down at me, a little stern. “But how'd you end up here? It's not safe.”

I step ahead and catch his jacket so he'll stop. “You already know. Valor tapped me. I found the flyers in Alistair's trailer. I didn't have anywhere else to go.”

My dad turns and looks down at me, eyes sparkling in the low light. He's been crying. “I wish I'd known. I would've done anything on earth to stop that from happening. I thought I had. I—”

I let go of his jacket and shake my head. I'm not ready to hear his tearful apologies. Not when I still have other people to worry about.

“It doesn't matter. I'm fine now. But Leon has Mom. Dad, he's hiding her somewhere. So he can make me do things.” I hold up the rosary, my throat dry and my eyes stinging with cold. “We have to find her.”