Daddy Dearest

Chapter Fifty-Seven

BEN

I had to force my thoughts away from Melody and concentrate on the most urgent matter at hand: the twins haven’t woken up from the chloroform and it’s been almost three days. My mind went back to the night of the dance as I tried to remember anything that would help or serve as a lead for the police to follow.

        They’ve interviewed all of the students and a clearer picture of that evening was starting to form. The kids with the rohypnol in their blood couldn’t recall very much because the drug messed with their memory, but there were enough students who only had the chloroform and their stories substantiated each other’s. Each of them basically told the same exact story.

        Everyone was having a blast and the party was in full swing. Immediately after Chambers made a speech to welcome his guests, every single one of them fell one by one like dominoes. Poor Cheryl Hines hit her head on the corner of a table on her way down and needed stitches on her temple. Justin Evans landed on a glass table and suffered severe lacerations all over his body.   A group of students had some other drugs in their system which reacted with the chloroform and the rohypnol, so a couple of them almost died.

        My own daughter had anaphylactic shock from the chloroform which injured her lungs and for one harrowing hour, Waverly and I were scared out of our wits because she actually flat-lined. Thankfully, the doctors were able to bring her back quickly and her vitals soon stabilized.

        I can’t wait for her to wake up and make jokes about having a near-death experience. Just like me, Charlotte has a morbid sense of humor.

        Even though we were told that the twins were going to be okay, I couldn’t relax until both of them were wide awake and suffered no after-effects. Waverly was a mess. She had to keep her composure as she had to serve double-duty as mother and headmistress, but I knew deep inside, she was shaken to the core. She and I have been together for twenty-five years. We could read each other like a book.

        Of course, there were a few things about me that I hoped Waverly didn’t know about. I am determined to take them to my grave. She was aware I had feelings for Meredith, but I don’t think she knows how close she and I got before she died. I never physically cheated on my wife, but my heart was unfaithful.

        And now I have this weird, disturbing obsession with my best friend’s daughter, who was twenty-five years younger than me. Why did she have to look so much like her mother? Melody was practically Merry’s clone. That’s another element of why my feelings for the girl were oh-so-very wrong. Not only was she the same age as my eldest children, she also resembles her mother in a way that’s almost uncanny. Melody has her mother’s joie de vivre, intelligence, and sense of humor. I can’t help but think that my attraction to her stems from my love for her mother.

        What I felt for Meredith was taboo. My feelings for her daughter are just plain wrong on so many levels.

        I haven’t been to confession in months because I’ve been afraid of sitting in that booth, trapped in the dark with my fear. I suppose I could say something like, “I have feelings for a young woman who isn’t my wife,” but that’s the least of it. I didn’t want to talk about what was going on with me out loud. It would make it more real and it’s something I want to bury in the deepest recesses of my subconscious.

        And now she's been kidnapped.

        Chambers brought up the possibility that Violet Rogers took her. I couldn’t fathom it. She is such a sweet, warm girl who came over to our house a lot and sometimes babysat my younger kids. The thought that I had once trusted her with the well-being of my children made me break out in cold sweat.