"Ugh…Dani," he delayed sighing, "let's not do this now." He was thinking let's not do this - ever.
"No," she barked. For some reason she picked that moment to be angry. She dug in her heels, determined not to bend, not on this subject and not on this day.
"Crews, you fucked with my life, poked around where you weren't invited, dredged stuff up that was none of your business and now you're going to answer my question, dammit!"
He twisted his head to look at her. His countenance was fierce, but she was unbending and he knew it. "Okay," he said softly. "I guess I owe you that much."
"You're damned right you do," she muttered.
"Uh….well, first off he wouldn't let my mother come see me in prison," he gave her a detail she already knew. Everyone knew that.
"And," he continued in a neutral tone with no eye contact, "she died while I was inside." Everyone knew that too. It was like he was talking to IAD.
"But that wasn't when you starting hating him," she posited cagily.
This talk had been a long time coming, but now that it was here, there was more to be lost than gained in their verbal sparing.
His look was piercing. "No," he agreed, "it wasn't."
A contest of wills occurred in their stares.
"Tell me why you wanna know," he challenged.
"I hate my father too," she deflected. It wasn't an answer; it was a non-answer.
"Did he think you killed that family?" She switched up pursuing her original line of questioning. This was her interrogation and she wasn't about to let Crews turn this into a "why Dani Reese was fucked up" walk down memory lane. She was going to learn what laid behind the Zen façade – today.
He looked hard at her again, but answered anyway. "I honestly don't know. I don't know if he thinks I did, but what I do know is... my mother didn't. She never believed me capable of that. She knew I couldn't have and whether he kept her away to protect her or to protect himself – to guard against how it would look - I believe it's what killed her." The pain in his voice seeped through his words like blood through a bandage.
"Rumor is she died of cancer while you were inside," she offered.
"Yeah," he bit back his anger, "but that's not true. Pills and booze are what killed her. I think you know what a dangerous combination that can be," his barb was personal and mean spirited.
"So was it…accidental," she asked now genuinely curious without regard to his pain. It was a kind of morbid curiosity that she loathed, but could not resist.
"I don't know that either," his eyes narrowed. "How much more?" he tried to change the course of their conversation.
"How much more what?"
"How much more do you want?"
"All of it," she told him plainly.
For a long moment he just stared at her. It was as if he couldn't decide if she was punishing him, toying with him, or really wanted to know. The truth was this area of his life was shuttered and he wasn't sure if he even knew himself. But in the end, he gave it to her – because he'd give her anything. If she'd asked him to open his chest and hand her his heart, he'd have done it.
"My father," he began shakily, "is a pretty self absorbed asshole." That part he was sure of.
"Join the club," she commented in snarky agreement.
"If I'm going to bare my soul to you, the least you can do is be quiet and not interrupt," he chastised. She nodded and he continued. "He's a bully. He's a fake and he's very concerned not about what something is, but what it looks like."
"You weren't the kind of son he wanted," she fished.
"I was exactly the kind of son he wanted," he said darkly, smiling and his smile wasn't warm. It was mildly scary when he smiled like that. "I was good at stuff, school, sports, had lots of friends. Jennifer was very acceptable to my parents. They were pleased with our marriage."
"But…" she knew it had to go wrong. It always does.
"But," he teased, "he did not want his son becoming a police officer."
"Oh," Dani said surprised. "That's not such a bad choice."
"Yes," Charlie hissed, "but it wasn't his choice. Most, no…all of my life, my father chose for all of us. It was what he wanted, when he wanted, how he wanted and no one said no to my father."
"You did," she supplied the breaking point that she knew had come.
"I did," he confirmed. "It was loud, it was ugly, it was shouting and screaming and more than a little threatening and I left. Jennifer and I moved into a tiny apartment, I went to the academy and my father and I didn't talk for years. The next time I saw him I was sitting in county lockup getting ready to be arraigned for a triple homicide. My mother had insisted he post bail."
"Did he?" She didn't remember Crews ever being released on bail. It wasn't in anything she'd read on the case.
"No," he laughed. "He smiled and turned and walked away."
"Jesus," she exhaled.
"Yes, I believe even Jack Reese would have bailed his daughter out of county."
She bit her lip and nodded.
Charlie waited for her and then it came – the reciprocal disclosure. Any interrogation is an exchange of information – you give some, you get some. Now it was her turn to give. "He came and got me at the hospital when David died. He took me to rehab. He brought my mother to see me every week, but he never came in. He was ashamed of what I'd done, what I'd become."
"But he never gave up on you," Crews offered gently.
Dani nodded and met his eyes. Matters that words could not accurate convey passed between them, between deep brown and dazzling blue.
"But your father ? He came back…why?"
Charlie laughed, but it was a mean dark contorted shadow of a laugh. "Fifty million little green reasons, I suppose. Yet another in the long string of things I just don't know. All I know is that HE decided I needed to come to his marriage to a woman half his age, a woman he'd chosen to replace my dead mother – a woman I believe he killed. I think he sucked her soul dry and when she could no longer take it, take him, she left."
"You think she killed herself," Dani stated succinctly what he was only hinting at.
Again his long stare preceded his answer, but he ultimately answered her by simply repeating her words, "I think she killed herself. I think she wanted to be free of him and maybe that was the only way she could." He fell silent. It was a tough thing to share, but an emotion Dani knew well – doubt, fear, self-loathing.
Moments passed; time stretched and the air felt thin and dry. "Thank you for trusting me and for telling me the truth," she sort of apologized in her own way.
"Like you gave me a choice," his snide comment under his breath was audible and he meant for her to hear it. He didn't like to be forced into things, but it angered her nonetheless.
"Maybe now…. you know a little bit of what I felt the day I walked in here and you had Sarah," she said in a hoarse whisper. "Doesn't feel very good does it?"
His head bobbed, nodding several times, then he shook it. Words would not come.
"I love you, Crews," she admitted quite suddenly. Her expression of affection surprised both of them. His head snapped up and his eyes cleared as she finished her comment, "but that doesn't mean I'm gonna like all the things you do."
"That's fair," his lips were tight, but they hinted at a smile. His eyes sparkled in the bright sun. "That's good."
This storm had passed. The sun would shine again - in time.
