How to Kill a Man in Thirty Seconds

Chapter 78: Admission

PRESENT

I'm your father.

The words echoed in my mind. They refused to sink in. I had forgotten to breathe, the air stilling in my lungs.

I'm your father.

"No, you're not," the words slipped out harshly, but I didn't miss the panic that gripped them, or the way my heart thudded frantically in my chest.

The words caused Morgan's face to contort into one of pain. He struggled to mask what looked like hurt, and failed. Guilt rushed into his eyes, "It was one drunken mistake eighteen years ago, Charley. Your mother regretted it the moment it happened."

Morgan swallowed harshly like there was a ball lodged in his throat, "I went to the motel that day to remove the evidence, Charley. It was the only thing I could think of to protect you."

I suddenly remembered then, the eerie smile on Caroline's face each time she saw me, as if we were playing some kind of game and she was waiting for me to catch up to her.

The chilling words she had uttered rushed back to me, and my heart squeezed frantically at the recollection: There are many things daddy would like to do with you, Charley. Many many things. Ask him. Perhaps he'll let slip his deepest, darkest fantasies. For you, Charley. Anything for you. Anything with you.

The air rushed out of me. Colton's voice filled my mind then, laced in fury: When you burnt up that shed next to his house ... do you know much it upset him? When you packed up your bags and disappeared... Do you know how hurt he was? It was hard enough for Morgan, to have you hide from him for three whole years...But you decided to return... to interrogate him and search him, to prove he was the murderer. It drove him crazy; did you know that? You brought back all the memories he'd been dying, for decades to forget... If I'd had it my way, you'd have been dead the day you were born.

"No, no, no," A ghastly tornado of fear and panic surged within me. I wasn't sure if it was my own voice muttering in desperation and denial or those in my head, pleading for salvation, "You are not my father." I realized my voice had risen, anger lacing it even as Morgan flinched, "My mother married my father. My father is dead. She did not kill him." My tell-tale finger pointed at the dead man laying by me, cocooned in a pool of his own blood, "He did."

His gaze dropped, hooded lids masking the agony that haunted his eyes, and when the blue orbs met mine again, my heart squeezed at the sight of the moisture that drenched them. I felt angry; I wanted to scream, to force him to turn back into that bland-faced, cold hearted monster I wanted him to be.

"Haven't you ever wondered," Morgan spoke softly, breathing shallow, "... why people always said you never looked like Anthony?"

The question stopped me in my tracks.

My, you don't look a thing like Anthony! Valeria Garcia's surprised words when I had first visited her mansion, rushed back to me. It had been an ongoing comment to me a long time ago. They had been met with a brush over the shoulder.

Morgan swallowed against the emotion, and I didn't miss the unmistakable crack to his voice, "My mother died young, but I remember her eyes. Aquamarine. You have her eyes, Charley... And my hair."

My brain swam in a losing battle to register his words. My hair was blonde, but not a curly and dark-blonde like my mother's and Lily's was. It was an odd light whispery shade, and though slick straight now, they had once been tight unruly coils I had detested having. I had been surprised when my mother had agreed to have them straightened out.