Entangled (33 page)

“He did.”

The look on his face didn’t make me feel
vindicated, but only sad. I took his hand and led him to my room.
He stood awkwardly in the doorway as I went to the bed and slipped
the Polaroid out from under my pillow. Like a shameful secret I’d
held it back, but now I was ready to share the truth and be set
free.

I handed it to him. His eyes narrowed as he
examined the photo and I had to look away. “Do you have a brighter
light?” he asked after a moment.

I pointed toward the bathroom. “In
there.”

He stepped in the bathroom and flipped the
switch on. “Oh my God,” I heard him say and then he stood in the
doorway, his eyes wide with horror. “It’s my grandfather’s watch,”
he said, his voice husky with emotion.

“What?” I took the picture and minutely
examined it in the bathroom’s brightly lit interior. The arm of the
man holding me down was in frame. He wore a gold watch with a dark
band. But to me that watch looked like any other. I shook my head,
completely confused. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that is my grandfather’s antique
watch,” he said, pointing to the picture. “He gave it to me before
he died, but my father stole it from me.”

I reached out and pressed my hand to the left
side of Handel’s chest, certain that I would feel his heart
breaking. But instead, I felt it beat strong and sure beneath my
fingers. He slipped past me and strode toward the kitchen. I
hurried after him; afraid he’d do something crazy. “Where are you
going, Handel? You can’t just run off and confront him. What
happened to innocent until proven guilty? You were willing to give
Jack that, why not your father?” But I knew the answer. Jack had
treated him like a son; his father treated him like dirt.

He scooped up the rest of the pictures and
the letter and stuffed them inside the envelope. “I’m not
confronting him. I’ll let the police do that.” He was out the front
door and nearly to his car before I’d grabbed my cell phone,
punched in the security code, locked the door, and ran after
him.

~~~

CHAPTER TWENTY

T
he drive to town was
silent except for the soft purr of the car’s performance engine and
the whine of rubber on asphalt. The sun had set and darkness fell
quickly as we drove along. Headlights pierced the interior, shining
briefly over our faces as cars passed. The grim set to Handel’s
mouth remained unchanged as he guided the car toward our
destination.

“Where exactly are we going?” I asked
finally.

He glanced in the rearview mirror as a
motorcycle advanced upon us and quickly passed, the thumping of
pipes drowning all else out for a moment. “The police station. I
have a few friends there. They can pull his record. I should have
done this before I allowed him to move back into our house and into
our lives.” Bitter self-recrimination came through loud and clear
in his voice and words.

I reached out and ran my fingers through the
hair above his collar. “It’s going to be okay,” I said to him, to
myself. “We’ll find the truth one way or the other.”

We hurried up the steps of the station and
down a brightly lit hallway. A uniformed officer sat behind a desk
facing a waiting room, reading a newspaper. He didn’t glance up at
our approach, but grinned and snorted at the article before
him.

“Hey, Mike. Is Sam around?” Handel asked,
without waiting for the officer’s attention.

Mike took a gulp of coffee, and grimaced. He
tipped his head toward the double doors to the right. “I think he’s
in his office,” he said.

“Thanks.” Handel took my hand and we entered
a large room filled with desks in double rows, with just enough
space to walk between. Plainclothes officers sat at a couple of the
desks but most were empty. Handel pulled me along toward the rear
of the room and knocked on a closed office door. We heard a muffled
grunt that could have been,
come in
, and Handel pushed the
door open.

“Parker! Hey, good to see you, buddy,” the
man behind the desk said, his voice weak but welcoming. He stood
and held out a hand.

Handel stepped forward and clasped it firmly.
“Hi, Sam.” He turned to me, “This is my friend, Billie Fredrickson.
Billie, this is Lieutenant Sam Harper.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” I said, trying not
to look surprised by the frail image of the man before me.

The Lieutenant inclined his head and grinned,
revealing a set of overlapping teeth reminiscent of spokes in a
bicycle wheel. Even standing he was shorter than me, and skinny as
an anorexic teenage girl, obviously unwell.

“So, what brings you here tonight, kids?
Looking for a good time at the old police precinct?” He resumed his
seat and waved us to the stiff-backed chairs across from him.

“I need a favor,” Handel began.

Sam coughed, covering his mouth with a
handkerchief. The sound was brutal and seemed to sap his energy. He
finally caught his breath and smiled. “Well, now would be a good
time, buddy. I may not be around next week. And I do owe you
one.”

I glanced at Handel. His eyes said what words
could not. He shook his head slowly. “How’s Janie doing?” he asked
instead.

“She’s baking me stuff I can’t eat, trying to
fatten me up for my grave clothes I guess.” Sam leaned forward and
folded his skeletal arms on the desk. “She’s not doing too good.
She’s going to need her friends around when I’m gone,” he said,
raising his eyes to Handel.

Handel nodded. The room was quiet as a
tomb.

“What’s the favor?” Sam asked, curiosity
flaring in his sunken eyes.

“I need you to bring up any record you can
find on my father.”

Sam raised his brows but didn’t ask any
questions. He turned toward his computer and started typing. “How’s
that sister and nephew of yours?” he asked after a moment of
silence.

“Fine,” Handel said shortly, “and I want them
to stay that way.”

Sam gave a low whistle. “We’ve got quite a
record here.” His eyes met mine for just a second and then flashed
back to Handel. “Did you know he spent some time in the Arizona
state pen?”

“No - but I’m not surprised.” Handel didn’t
pull away when I reached out and took his hand, squeezing his
fingers reassuringly. He swallowed. “What was the conviction?” he
asked, his voice tight.

Sam looked up from the screen. “Sexual
assault of a minor.”

Handel’s grip made me wince. He released my
hand and leaned forward. “Anything else?”

“He was released on probation last month.
Looks like he’s already screwed that up,” Sam said, his voice grim.
“He didn’t check in with the probation officer. There’s a warrant
out for his arrest.” He turned the computer screen so that Handel
could read it.

My cell phone rang and I quickly apologized
and stepped out of the office to take the call. The voice on the
other end of the line asked, “Is this Wilhelmina Fredrickson?”

“Yes,” I said, holding a hand over my other
ear to block the office noise.

“This is Breckinridge Security. We have an
alarm going off at 14409 County Road 7.”

I gasped. “Someone’s breaking into my
house?”

“We’ve already dispatched police to the
scene. Do you know if anyone is at home and could have set off the
alarm accidentally? We rang the residence but there was no
answer.”

“No, I don’t think so. My mother went out and
I don’t expect her back this early.” She knew the code and had used
it before without mishap. I glanced in Sam’s office but Handel’s
attention was still on the computer screen.

The dispatcher directed me to return home and
speak with the officers at the scene.

When I entered the room, the men were in the
middle of a heated discussion, their voices low but intense. I saw
the envelope of pictures between them on the desk. They looked up
at my return, cutting off their conversation mid-sentence.

“What’s going on?” Handel asked immediately,
my face no doubt bearing signs of shock. He stood and reached out
for my hand.

“That was the security company. Someone is
breaking into my house right now,” I said, still unable to believe
it was happening.

Sam stood up. “You better drive her home,
Handel. The officers will be there. They’ll need her to help fill
out a report.” He smiled. “It was very nice to meet you,
Billie.”

“It was nice to meet you too, Sam,” I said,
knowing in my heart that it would be the last time I’d see him.

Handel took Sam’s hand and held it for a long
moment. “Thank you, Sam. For everything.” He followed me to the
door then looked back one last time. “Give Janie my love.”

The drive home was tense and uncomfortable.
Handel didn’t speak, but drove at reckless speeds, as though
exorcising his demons through hairpin curves. I closed my eyes and
tried to relax, although I gripped the sides of the seat with both
hands. My thoughts were a jumble with the past as well as the
present. Images and faces swirled round and round in my head, Uncle
Jack, Sean Parker, my father.

I remembered being in the cellar waiting for
Uncle Jack to come that morning. He was late and I started snooping
through his desk. I found the pictures of my mother and him kissing
and holding one another. It made me want to cry. I didn’t know why,
but it felt wrong. I took and hid them in the hole behind the file
cabinet. When I turned around a man stood behind me; I hadn’t heard
him come in. His head was covered with a black stocking, two slits
cut for his eyes. I was scared, afraid to move. He reached out and
touched my hair, then my face. I pulled back and he laughed, a
horrible muffled sound that chilled me to the core. I wanted to
scream, but he pulled me against him and clamped a hand over my
mouth. “You’ll do whatever I say or I’ll kill your little friend,
Handy,” he whispered in my ear. And he did things to me while I
clenched my eyes shut and listened to the tick of the clock on the
wall.

I counted 729 ticks of the clock before there
was a scrape of a boot on the stair and the door creaked open. I
refused to open my eyes even when I heard Uncle Jack’s voice raised
in anger, “I’ll kill you, Sean! How could you do this to her?
You’re a sick animal!” The man moved away and I pressed myself
against the wall while sounds of fists hitting flesh and grunts of
men in a struggle over life and death went on above me. Then
someone pounded up the stairs and the room fell silent except for
heavy breathing. “You’ll be okay, Billie. You’ll be okay,” Uncle
Jack said breathlessly as though reassuring himself. “Here,” he
said, placing my scattered clothes beside me. “Put these on while I
go get help.” I heard him run back up the stairs and I slowly
opened my eyes and started to dress. When I heard a light step on
the stair a moment later, I cringed back against the wall and
scrunched my eyes closed, praying the bad man had not returned. But
it was my father. He helped me finish dressing and cradled me to
his chest, then carried me to the house like a precious package,
covered and secure.

“We’re back,” said Handel, and I opened my
eyes. “The police are still here. I hope they caught whoever did
this.”

The police cruiser sat parked before the
house, lights flashing. We hurried up the steps and through the
open front door. An officer put up a hand. “Are you Ms.
Fredrickson?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said, looking wildly around my
living room. “What happened?”

“Looks like you’ve had vandals, Ma’am. Look
around and see if anything is missing, but as far as we could tell,
the perp spent most of his time in here.”

I gasped as I saw the damage. My brand new
glove leather sofa had been shredded. Someone had taken a knife to
it, cutting huge slits and pulling out chunks of stuffing. The
picture I’d spent so much time reframing had been pulled down and
smashed against the fireplace. It lay in a twisted, pile at the
foot of the hearth.

I bent down and lifted one side of the
shattered frame, reminded of the portrait I’d destroyed myself.
This one was much lighter. The bottom section was hollow. I
wondered why I hadn’t noticed earlier. Taking a closer look, I saw
something that made my eyes widen.

“Handel, come here,” I said, gesturing for
him to come quickly.

“What is it?” He stood over me.

I lifted the section of frame. “This was made
with a secret compartment. I think whoever broke it was trying to
cover up that fact.”

“Who but Jack would know something like
that?” he asked, and then went still. “My father used to work with
wood.”

I nodded and stood up. “He told me he made
this frame for Jack’s birthday.”

“What could possibly have been so important
that he would break in here to get it?” Handel dropped the pieces,
his face suddenly pale with shock. “His wood working shop. The big
shed behind the winery. I wasn’t allowed in there. Sometimes he
would spend the night, too drunk to go home. He had a cot in the
corner.” He paused. “He was probably looking for the pictures.”

The officer stood nearby listening. “You know
the person responsible for this?” he asked.

Handel glanced up. “There is a warrant out
for the arrest of Sean Parker. He’s the man who broke in here.”

The officer narrowed his eyes. “How do you
know that?”

“He’s my father. And he’s a dangerous
criminal.”

After the officer left, Handel called his
sister on the phone in the kitchen and I looked around the house to
see if anything was missing. Sean Parker had obviously come for one
thing. Whatever was in that frame. Although he wasn’t in too big of
a hurry to destroy my couch while he was there.

“Margaret’s a mess. She can’t believe this is
happening.” Handel ran his fingers through his hair and expelled a
weary sigh. “She said her car was missing. She didn’t know he’d
taken it. He never came home for supper.”