The Homecoming: Countdown to Armageddon: Book 5 (12 page)

     “And in my weaker moments I also wanted to find out if she ever really tried to protect me. He was a very big man, and very smart too. I’ve often wondered if he had some kind of control over her that I never saw. Something that prevented her from getting me out of there.”

     Scott wanted to ask questions about the relationship between her mother and step-father. But she was speaking freely now, and he sensed it was doing her some good.

     So he held his tongue as well as her hand. He’d be her shoulder to cry on, her sounding board. He’d be there to console her, to offer advice if she asked for it. But until he was asked, he’d merely listen and empathize. He sensed that was what she needed more than anything.

     “After you told me they were both dead, I was sad in a way. I knew I’d never get the chance to hear my mom try to justify her behavior. I’d never get the chance to shove that knife into his heart, or to find out if I was really strong enough to do so.”

     She suddenly turned to Scott with a panicked question.

     “If he were still alive and I stabbed him in front of you, would you have arrested me?”

     Now Scott had his own dilemma.

     He thought for a moment.

     “I’m sworn to uphold the laws of the State of Texas and Bexar County. And to protect all citizens, no matter how despicable they are. I suppose I’d have no choice but to arrest you.”

     Then his voice softened.

     “But then I’d be the first one to fight for your freedom, and would testify that he deserved it.”

     She seemed satisfied with the answer.

     “Maybe it’s a good thing he’s dead. I’d hate to have to burden you with having to put you though that. And thank you for being honest with me.”

     As the car turned onto Moon Valley Drive, Sara suddenly grew quiet. It was as though she were having second thoughts about going back to the place of her parents’ death.

     “Are you sure you want to do this?” Scott asked. “It’s never too late to change your mind.”

     “Actually, this is something I definitely
don’t
want to do. But I don’t think I can ever put my past behind me and be a complete person until I do. So it’s kind of something I
have
to do.”

     Sara took a deep breath as Scott turned into the driveway of the home she once occupied. She opened the car door and stepped onto the driveway, apprehensive and yet excited that she was finally going to have the chance to close the pages of a hideous chapter of her life.

     She looked at Scott and said, “Let’s do this,” and approached the house. Scott following closely behind.

     She paused a few feet from the front porch, puzzled by the large green check mark spray painted on the broken front door.

     “What’s that for?” she said.

     “It means that the house was checked for survivors and that all the dead were removed and disposed of. It was a means of ensuring that search and disposal teams didn’t waste time by searching the same homes over and over again.

     “It was a way of telling subsequent search teams ‘Move along. There’s nothing to see here.’”

     “Were you the one who found them?”

     “Honey, I sure wish I knew. The sad fact is, my partner and I collected so many bodies that I can’t remember which streets we covered. If I was the one who cleared this block, and I knew that your parents were the ones who lived here, I’d have broken department policy and done something special for them.”

     “What do you mean?”

     “Out of respect for you, and for your parents, I wouldn’t have collected their remains and burned them on a common burn pile. I’d have transferred them to one of the cemeteries in the area and given them a proper burial.”

     “Thank you, Scott. That’s so sweet.”

     The pair walked carefully through the broken front door and into the living room.

     Sara looked solemnly at the two large stains in the living room.

     “The one on the recliner belonged to Glen,” she explained. It was his recliner, and no one else was ever allowed to sit on it. It was like he was a king and that was his throne.

     “Mom sometimes sat at the foot of his chair, when he called her out of the kitchen and wanted her to rub his feet. That stain at the foot of the recliner will belong to her.”

     Young Sara had assessed the clues given her and made her assumptions based on past habits of her parents.

     But her assessment couldn’t have been farther from the truth.

-22-

     She stared at the stains for what seemed to Scott like hours, lost in her own thoughts. Scott looked at her youthful face, tight with tension. He wondered what he would have felt under similar circumstances.

     A single tear rolled slowly down her left cheek. She neither explained it nor tried to stop it, leaving Scott to wonder whether it was an expression of sorrow or anger.

     Finally, she turned and walked toward the kitchen. Halfway there she wavered, reaching out to a wall to support herself as her knees started to buckle.

     Scott was at her side in a flash.

     “I’m okay. It’s just that… I seem to be able to feel their presence. But it’s not quite what I expected. It’s almost as though…”

     “What, sweetheart?”

     “I don’t know, exactly. I get the sense that their spirits aren’t here. That…”

     She couldn’t finish.

     “I think it’s safe to say that he, at least, is now residing in hell.”

     He was afraid to say the same about Sara’s mother, sensing that somehow she would have found it in her heart to spare her mother the same fate.

     And something about the look on her youthful face puzzled him.

     On the kitchen wall, next to a framed photograph of Sara and Jordan at the junior prom, she took down a hand-painted plaque.

     “Father of the Year,” it proclaimed.

     In carefully printed lettering, it stated that the award was presented to Glen McAllister, father of the year, for being the “Best daddy and all-around great guy in the world.”

     In the upper right corner of the plaque was a postage-stamp sized photograph of the man she once trusted to protect her, but who had instead turned into a monster.

     As she ran her fingers over the plaque, she started to cry.

     Scott wanted to rush over to her, to hold her, to comfort her. But he held back. He sensed it was better to let her deal with her demons alone, but to be ready for her if she needed him.

     After a couple of minutes she found her voice again.

     “Mom saw this in a hobby store. It was right after they got married. She wanted me to stop calling him Glen, and to call him Daddy instead. It was hard for me, because of what he was doing to me. I told her I was sorry, I wasn’t comfortable calling him that. She bought this and made me paint it for him. I guess it was the next best thing in her mind.

     “The night we gave this to him he went out with his buddies. By the time he came home he was filthy drunk. Mom had gone to bed, either because she didn’t want to deal with his drunkenness or because she knew what was coming. I was in bed too, but I couldn’t sleep because I was afraid.

     “When he walked into my room that night, I pretended to be asleep, praying he would spare me, just once. Hoping that maybe the plaque made him think, that maybe a real father wouldn’t do what he’d been doing to me. That maybe he’d grown a conscience in the few short hours since I’d seen him last. But he was even more brutal that night than he’d ever been since. He said I made the plaque to mock him. But that I’d pay a heavy price for it. He said he’d hang the plaque in the kitchen, where I’d see it every day. And every time I saw it I’d be reminded that he owned me. And that I would live or die based solely on his discretion. And then he brutalized me. Harder than ever before.

     “I remember he left a bruise on my cheek. The next day was a Friday. My mom kept me home from school that day so no one would ask about the bruise. I went to stay with a friend all weekend, and when I came home that Sunday night this was hanging on the kitchen wall. Glen had an evil smirk on his face.

     “The bruise was faded enough to cover with makeup on Monday morning, and life got back to normal. But every time company came over after that, Glen made a point to show off his plaque, and to brag to everyone what a great father he was. I wanted to puke. His friends would pat him on the back and say what a good job he was doing, and not one of them had a clue.”

     She paused for a few seconds, and Scott took the opportunity to examine the house on the other side of the kitchen wall. Then he returned to Sara and held her. She sobbed unashamedly in his arms.

     “I have an idea,” he said as he eased the plaque from her fingers. He placed it back on the wall, on the same nail she’d removed it from.

     Then he took his sidearm from his holster.

     “Jordan tells me you’ve become pretty good at using one of these things since you went up to the compound.”

     She managed a grin.

     “No duh. He’ll never admit it, but I’m a better shot than he is.”

     “Good. You’ll be firing at a slight upward angle. This wall won’t catch the bullet, but it’ll go into the attic and the rafters will. Do to Glen what you wanted to do in real life and never had the chance.”

     Sara took the weapon and handled it like an expert observing range safety rules. The slight tremble in her hands vanished as if by magic and she adopted a two-handed shooter’s stance that would have made any policeman or shooting instructor proud.

     At twelve feet from target, she replaced Glen’s scowling face with a perfectly round nine millimeter hole.

     “Nicely done,” Scott observed.

     “Thank you. That was… kinda cool.”

     As Scott replaced the weapon in his service holster, he said, “There’s one more thing I want you to do. See if you can find a sharpie or a black marker. We need to clear up any misconceptions that your friends and neighbors may have had about this guy.”

     Sara was a bit puzzled but didn’t question Scott’s instructions, and looked through the kitchen drawers until she found a black marker.

     Scott used the marker to scratch out the word “Father.” Then he handed it to Sara and said, “Why don’t you see if you can come up with a more suitable word to replace that with?”

     She smiled a slightly wicked grin.

     “Anything I want?”

     “You’ve earned the right to label him.”

     “Even if I choose a word that might embarrass you?”

     “I don’t embarrass easily, sweetie.”

     Five minutes later, the pair stood outside in the front yard, Sara watching as Scott hammered the newly modified plaque to the front of the house.

     “Now the friends and neighbors who have survived will know him for what he really was,” Scott said.

     He stood back and held the young girl in his arms as they admired their handiwork.

    
Asshole of the Year
, it now proclaimed. As an afterthought, Sara had scrawled across the bottom,
May you rot in hell for all eternity, you bastard.

     “Do you think that last part was a bit too much?”

     Scott pondered the question but for a brief second before answering, “No, ma’am. I think it was a nice touch. Are we finished inside?”

     “Not quite yet. I want to collect some things to take back with us, if you don’t mind.”

     “I don’t mind at all.”

     The pair entered Sara’s old bedroom. Sara immediately noticed the small white envelope on her bed pillow and picked it up. A strange look came across her face as she recognized her mother’s handwriting.

     Scott said nothing as she sat on the edge of the bed to read the note, instead busying himself by digging through the closet. As Sara read her mother’s words, Scott piled boxes onto the foot of the bed for Sara to go through when she finished.