More (40 page)

“No. I don't have either.” I staggered back. My calves smacked into an ottoman, and I tripped. I caught myself before I fell. I was trapped. A couch sat on one side, my father on the other, and this shithead in front of me.

“Well, I don't think I'll take your word for it.” He moved the wand over my feet and worked his way up. My breath quickened. The device made no sound until it passed over my chest.

I squeezed my eyes shut. The rapid beeping gave me away. I opened my eyes and saw the fury in the man's face before me.

My father's voice rang out. “Did you think I wouldn't suspect you'd try to trap me? You're my son after all; you've got intelligence. I'll give that to you.”

Fowler threw the wand on the couch and stepped closer. He reached out, tore my shirt open, and yanked the taped listening device off. A few chest hairs ripped away with it. He threw the device on the couch and skimmed his hands down my legs. Once he reached my ankles, he repeated the search up the inside.

“Don't enjoy this too much, you faggot. I don't do this for your enjoyment.”

As if I could ever enjoy his touch— the man who had tried to hurt Matthew. His hands were a brush painting and layering evil all over me.

Satisfied I posed no further threat, he stood, gathered the wand and listening device I'd worn, and with a last smirk, left the room.

I stood alone with my father again. I debated walking out the front door. But I couldn't. At least with his discovery of the hidden recording device, my father might talk honestly.

I closed my gaping shirt— there were no more buttons to hold it together— and shifted on my feet. The soaked leather shoes squeaked. The wet socks squished between my toes.

My father stepped closer. He adjusted his tie and tugged the cuffs of his shirtsleeves in a practiced primp.

“Did you get my message, son?”

I snorted at his use of the fatherly endearment. “You know I did. Did you get mine?”

He stalked to the center of the room and spoke as if giving a lecture on a proposed tax bill. “I don't think you understood the choices I laid out for you.”

I stepped away from the ottoman but kept my distance from him. “I'm not leaving. You can threaten us all you want. I came here to make sure you understood.”

Rage descended. His eyes narrowed. With the storm brewing in him, I should have left. Richard would be furious that I stayed when my father gave me a look like that— that is if I ever got a chance to tell him or Matthew about it.

My father sighed, unclenched his hands, and sat. His voice softened. “Let me ask you this. You love them?”

My throat tightened. A chill crept over the base of my neck.

“Answer me, son. Do you love them? The one who so graciously donated to my campaign and the one who had the knife at his throat. Do you love them?” He screamed the last of his words.

I fended off the sting of tears. “More than anyone in my entire life.”

His eyes searched mine. He wasn't trying to understand me. He was trying to get me to understand him. “Well then, I'd have thought the choice to save them would be easy for you. I won't relent, Luke. I need my life and the lives of those around me to be perceived in a certain way if I'm going to move forward with what I want.”

“You mean if you're going to con people into electing you president?”

“Making the hard choices has helped me reach every goal I've ever set. I'm not going to stop now. I can do a lot for this country.”

I took a step in his direction. “Hard choices? Is that what you call stealing millions of dollars, interfering with Richard's financial investments, and threatening to kill my lovers?”

“Yes! Those weren't easy decisions for me. You think being a man with my ambitions is easy?”

I took another step. My hands clenched, ached to lash out. I refrained. I was the better man. “But you did it. You stole from investors— people who live in this country you supposedly serve. And you threatened to hurt people, to hurt someone I care about.”

His face reddened and his jaw clenched. “I'll do more than hurt them. If you could have just done as I'd asked. If you could have only pretended to be a good son, then none of this would have happened. You have never worked for anything in your life. You have never committed to anything more than yourself. You go from man to man and do what feels good to you. You don't know about making difficult decisions and devoting yourself to anything.”

This wasn't just about getting me to do what he wanted. He was punishing me for who I was. I staggered backward and slumped into a chair. I stared at the floor, but I didn't see the Oriental rug for long. I saw a smiling dark-haired kid and bright green eyes filled with compassion. When I spoke again, a quiet, childlike voice slipped out. “You'll really kill them if I don't do what you want?”

“No.”

I lifted my head and stared at him. “Then your threats are empty, meaningless to me.”

“I won't kill them because if you don't agree to my terms right here, right now, you'll never leave this house.” The twisted grin that spread over his lips and the angry, wrinkled flesh around his eyes were not the look a father should ever give his son. He reached inside his suit jacket.

I'd seen the gun before, of course. Fifteen years earlier.

I was a different man then. He wouldn't get the frightened reaction he once did.

“Didn't you know we had a break-in tonight? While my son was visiting. The grieving father makes for a much better image than a perverted son who prostitutes himself at a sex club, selling himself for his own sick pleasure.”

A laugh escaped me. The sound pierced the silence left by my father's threat. Richard had been right. Why was that funny? The man fretted and cared like no one I ever knew, but that wasn't what caused the odd laughter. The entire situation was too damned unbelievable, and the realization my father thought murder was his ticket to the White House and that he'd rather kill me than see me live my own life caused the tension-relieving laughter to bubble up and out of my mouth.

He gripped an arm of the chair and rose, holding the gun steady. “Stop fucking laughing. Do you find this amusing?”

I shook my head. The laughter abated somewhat. “No, none of it's funny. If you kill me, what makes you think Richard and Matthew won't be able to convince the police of all you've done?”

The resulting grin painted the perfect picture of a madman. “The police chief and I have always had a good relationship when it came to protecting our citizens. He will not allow you or your depraved friends to destroy me with lies. There's no proof, nothing to connect me to anything. Why the hell would they believe a couple of disgusting men like them? I've seen what they've done to you. I have pictures. I've seen them fucking you on your goddamn dining room table, sucking your cock and licking your ass. They are perverts. They are not people anyone will ever listen to.”

Pictures? From inside our home? While I ignorantly went about falling for Matthew and Richard, my father had sent his man into our lives. And I had done nothing to stop it.

I'd heard the confession the FBI wanted, but I needed more. I rose from the chair, ignored the gun, and kept talking.

“Tell me about Danny Conner, Dad.”

His face paled. “How— ”

“I know all about your lover. I know you killed him.” I pulled the watch from my pocket and held out my hand. The watch sat on my flattened palm, shining and pristine despite its age. It felt heavy, as if the weight of my father's lies was tucked inside.

He shook his head, moving the gun from side to side with him, his eyes on the watch. “What?”

“You had his watch that night. You gave him the cocaine. Was there something in it?”

“No. I... I gave him his watch back because I couldn't keep it.”

“You put the coke in it!”

“Yes. But... I had to tell him it was over. I knew I'd break his heart. I wanted to ease his pain. I didn't want him to be lonely, to be sad. I-I didn't want to hurt him. Oh, God. But I did... I... ”

“Killed him.”

“No! I hurt him when I told him we had to end it. He was fine before then. He was high, but he was fine. He said he wanted some time alone. I left him in the bathroom and— I loved him. I didn't want him to die. I didn't want him to kill himself like that. I knew the moment I saw him on the floor that he'd done it to himself.”

A part of me hadn't wanted to admit the possibility existed that Conner had committed suicide. I'd never trust my father, but at that moment, I knew he was right. Whether he did it or not to hurt my father, Danny Conner had done the worst thing he could to his lover. He'd left him with a lifetime of guilt.

My father looked at the gun. He twisted his hand until the gun lay flat like the watch in my own hand. He stared at it as if he couldn't figure out how it had gotten there. “Oh, God. He'd hate me. He'd hate who I've become.”

I took a step toward him.

He shoved the barrel of the gun my way again. “Don't move!” His hand trembled. He jammed the gun in the air. “I cannot give up after everything I've done to get here. Don't you see that? I can't have lost everything for nothing.”

“But you have.” I gave up on the gun and looked at my father. “You can't control everything. You don't know everything.”

He glared at me and raised the gun higher. “What are you talking about?”

“I'm talking about how you'll never be president.” I took a step closer. “You'll never be anything ever again.” Another step. “Including my father.” Step. His finger twitched over the gun's trigger.

I removed the small listening device from behind my ear. I let the smile of victory tell him what I held.

“You aren't the only one with connections. My friend Walter owns this wonderful technology company. They create all sorts of gadgets, undetectable shit to pick up the smallest sounds. He has a few friends in the police force himself, as well as the FBI. Would you like to meet them?”

That was the prearranged signal to let the agents know I was ready on my end. If they'd gotten what they needed, it wouldn't take long. If I could keep him distracted long enough...

His nervous gaze darted around the room. The fingers holding the gun squeezed around the handle.

Please don't let them lose me like this.

I fixated on the gun's barrel. One more step.

My hand rose before I'd decided what to do. At an inch from the gun, I met his stare again. A swell of tears filled his eyes. Mine met a similar fate.

I covered the last fragment of space between my fingers and the gun in a slow creep. I gripped the barrel and lowered it.

My father let his hand move. If he'd wanted to, he could have fought me on it, kept the gun pointed at me. And of course, he could have fired.

The gun dropped lower and lower. His shoulders slumped, and the furious, determined look disappeared, replaced with a vacant one.

When he spoke, his voice was neutral and possessed no emotion. “The moment I saw you fucking that boy in your dorm room I changed. That's when I lost everything.”

“No. It was when you took away every ounce of love from yourself that you lost it all.”

He blinked. A lone tear fell to his lapel. “Danny.” The misery of that whispered name sounded all too familiar.

The FBI forced their way into the house from every possible angle. My father recoiled two steps before they were upon him. They collected the gun and wrapped handcuffs around his wrists. His head hung low as they read him his rights and hauled him toward the door. Two other officers escorted Barry Fowler out behind my father.

An agent talked to my mother in the hallway. She nodded as the man spoke, but she never looked away from me. Tears overflowed with each blink of her eyes. When the agent stopped speaking, he led her out of the house.

I stared at the open door.

Sweat clung to me everywhere. I felt dirty, grimy, sick. I wanted to go home, jump in the shower, and wash it all away. I wanted to crawl into bed and sleep until morning.

Was I welcome?

A soft hand landed on my shoulder. Walter stood beside me.

“No matter what you were expecting, it isn't supposed to feel good to help get your own father arrested. But this isn't your fault. He has to live with the choices he made.”

“I guess we all do.”

“Move past this and live your life.” He gave me a slight shove toward the door. “Your men are waiting in an unmarked van down the street. I suggest you go to them. They were quite insufferable. The FBI let them listen in, and I think that made it worse.”

“They came?”

“They called me last night. I arranged it so they could be here.”

I cringed. Knowing they'd heard it all was a relief, but they'd heard my father's threat to kill me. I pictured three FBI agents holding Richard back from storming into the house.

I gave Walter a nod and made my way to the door. I stopped short of leaving. “Thank you. For everything.”

“I told you they'd be good for you.”

“Asshole.”

“Yeah. But I'm your friend. I'll only be an ass in ways that won't hurt you. You can count on it.”

“I will.”

The rain had stopped, and the dark sky had lightened with the passing of the storm. A droplet of rainwater dripped onto my head. I glanced up. Another drop leaked from the gutter above my parents’ stoop and hit my forehead. I wiped it away with the back of my hand and descended the steps.

Several police cruisers and unmarked vehicles lined the street. Traffic was blocked off. News vans and camera crews were setting up. Police officers and FBI agents were filing around the yard, moving in and out of the house, searching for any evidence to substantiate my father's confession. Their work wouldn't be over any time soon.

But it all felt over for me. Finished.

I had shoveled the last bit of dirt over my relationship with my parents.

I spotted a van with dark windows a few houses down the street. Would Richard be as angry as he'd been in the FBI offices? Would he be able to forgive me for taking on my father?

The back door swung open, and Matthew and Richard leaped onto the sidewalk.