My Mother's Boyfriend

Chapter 30

The next day, Harry and I start our 'adventure'. The infamous Tina Driscal, we need as many answers as possible. "I know she is the mistress but there has to be more to this than that." I say, reaching over and grabbing my Dr. Pepper. I glance at Harry whose head is laid back.
"Don't look at me, I can see you, I just had trouble sleeping." He says and I sigh.
"I am so sorry, I know you don't want to sleep in a house with a murderer but I need you because you are my brother." I say and he lets out a groan.
"Don't remind me." He mutters and I smack his arm and I see him smile.

A few hours later, our headlights meet a trailer/RV with lawn chairs sitting out front and a mailbox sitting on a garbage can and the word Driscal painted eerily on the mailbox. "Wow, what a dump." Harry mutters and I look at him and he silently shrugs. I turn into the gravel, grizzly driveway and park, taking off my seat belt and looking at Harry.
"I might need a minute." I say and he nods, taking off his seat belt and looking around. A loud, low bark causes Harry and I to jump and we look toward the door where an older woman with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth has a German Shepard on a leash.
"State your business or get off my property!" The woman shouts, running her hand through her pink streaked blonde hair. I glance at Harry and I can tell he is scared shitless.
"We are here on behalf of Jeff Stewart!" I shout, not rolling my window down. The dog starts barking and she walks him away from us and toward an awaiting chain. She sticks him on that and then motions us out of the car.
"I don't know if you know this but he is dead." She says, the dog starting to bark again.
"No, I know, I am his daughter." I say and she looks me up and down.
"Oh, you are, are you? Did the cops send you?" She asks, crossing her arms.
"No, no, we just came here for answers, regarding the case." I say and she looks Harry up and down.
"Well, I have nothing to say. He is gone and there is nothing, nobody can do about it." She says, a hint of sorrow crossing her face.
"Please, I just have one question!" I exclaim and she stares at me, lighting the moistened cigarette that had been sitting between her lips.
"Listen kid, the last thing I want is to be judged by Jeff's daughter." She says and I look at Harry.
"All we want to know is why you were so important to the case, being the mistress is a crucial fact but there has to be something bigger." Harry pipes up, looking her dead in the eye. She stares back and slowly, her eyes begin to glisten.
"You look so much like him." She whispers, wiping the tears from her eyes.
"Okay, this wasn't the reaction I wanted." Harry says and I laugh a little and pat his back.
"He recently found out that he is my brother, this is Jeff's son." I say and she nods.
"Alright, I will tell you my story with Jeff." She says and leads us to the lawn chairs. She sits in one and Harry lets me sit in the other one while he sits behind me. "We met at a bar, you might not have known this about him but he loved to drink. I was bar tending every night he would come in so we eventually started talking. He would pour his troubles out to me when he had enough to drink. He worried about his marriage and he would gripe about this woman named Anne and how she hated him. He started to get intimate with me which, I fell prey for because he was quite a handsome man and charming so I started to flirt with him. Well, the night he died, he was at my house, we had just gotten into a huge fight so he left early and then the next morning, he was found dead." She says somberly.
"Because of the accident?" I ask, waiting for an answer.
"Yes, that's what it said in the papers." She says, standing up abruptly. "If that's all you wanted, I need to feed Quincy." She says and I stand up, glancing at Harry, as she walks over to the dog and he nods.
"Tina..." I say and she turns and looks at us.
"What?" She asks, crossing her arms.
"He wasn't in an accident, he was murdered, he was shot in the chest." I say and she stares at me.
"No, no-." She stops herself and tears begin to well in her eyes. "Go!" She shouts and Harry ushers me into the car and I quickly drive off, leaving her to wallow in her own tears.
"It was in the paper." I say when we are safely sitting in our driveway.
"Maybe she didn't read it all?" Harry suggests and I shrug.
"He was leaving her house. By the looks of it, her house is in the middle of nowhere so that means..." I trail off, running my hand through my hair.
"Someone followed him." Harry says and I look up into the house's window and see Liam staring down at us. Was he the one who followed my father? But if it was him, how had he known my father?