Chapter 10: Oh daddy

Sunlight flooded the bed and Dani opened her eyes. There was no disorientating moment where she didn't remember what had happened or where she was; she knew the man next to her was Charlie. She knew what had happened the night before and she didn't regret it. Perhaps that would come later.

She realised that, in her mind, she had started to call him Charlie. Sex did that. If you intended to stick around afterwards, it put you on a first name basis. Ready or not.

They hadn't bothered to close the curtains yesterday and now Charlie was awash in light. His body was warm, including the arm still slung over her shoulder. She eased out from underneath it, but the movement woke him. He stretched and yawned. Then he opened his eyes and smiled at her.

'Still here,' he observed, stroking her hand.

'Yeah.'

'And who am I today to you? Charlie or Crews?' he asked her. The bright light faded his red eyelashes to blond and, as he tilted his head a certain way awaiting her answer, sometimes they appeared to be translucent. In spite of herself, she opted for the safer choice.

'Crews,' Dani said. He nodded and his gaze followed her when she started to dress. I need to go home and change before going in to work, she thought. Quickly, she buttoned her jacket. Her clothes were wrinkled from spending a night on the floor of the bedroom and Tidwell would be sure to notice this. As she turned around she caught a glimpse of Charlie's naked back before he put on his bathrobe. It was lean and muscular, like the rest of him.

He caught her looking and grinned. To hide her own amusement, she turned away briefly. Meanwhile, he unearthed her watch from under the bed and handed it to her. On his bare feet, he walked into the hallway. From downstairs, they heard the dog's growl and they instinctively reached for their service weapons. Both hands came up empty. They smiled wryly at each other and Charlie retreated to the bedroom. With a gun, he led the way to the stairs.

'I'm thinking about naming the dog George,' he whispered as they tiptoed down. Dani felt vulnerable without a gun. In an effort to distract herself from the fact that Charlie was now effectively protecting her, she went with the inane topic.

'It's a he?'

'I don't know. He's curious, though,' Charlie admitted, quietly. The low and deep rumble in the dog's throat intensified, but Dani wasn't afraid. She wasn't going to die in the midst of a conversation about the sex of Charlie's dog. The animal's ears and fur on its back were up and he or she was staring rigidly in the direction of the kitchen. Dani noticed movement there and she signalled to Charlie. As she inched nearer, stooped – smaller target – Charlie suddenly righted himself and strode into the kitchen.

'Do you want to get shot? It really seems to me that you want to get shot,' he addressed the stranger. With an exasperated expression on his face, Charlie slipped the gun into a kitchen drawer. The man was standing with his back to them, studying the postcards on the fridge. Dani relaxed when the man faced them and she recognised Charlie's father. His gaze slid over her, taking in her rumpled apparel. He raised an eyebrow, glanced at Charlie, at her again and finally his eyes came to rest on his son permanently. One of the postcards was in his hand and he waved it around emphatically.

'Olivia sent me a postcard. 'Bumped into Ted.' I'm thinking; Ted? Which Ted? I don't know any Ted. Until I remember that criminal who lives with you. What the hell is your Ted doing in Spain with Olivia?' Charlie's father yelled. Belatedly, Dani realised that the postcard he was waving in Charlie's face wasn't one of Ted's.

'Ted loves her. He told you, remember?' Charlie serenely answered. This seemed to send Crews Sr. over the edge and, as if on cue, Ted and a red haired woman hesitantly entered the kitchen. They were holding hands. Crews Sr. lunged at Ted, but before Charlie could intervene, the woman stepped in between them.

'Leave Ted alone,' she warned. Her voice was warm, but stern. Her body language was determined. This must be Olivia, Dani thought. She understood why Ted liked her; she was very beautiful. Voluptuous. But she also looked kind. Charlie's father glared at Ted, while Ted blinked owlishly and Olivia smiled sweetly at everyone.

Despite the fact that this scene afforded Dani an intriguing insider's look into Charlie's life, she was also feeling incredibly uncomfortable as she was herself subjected to the newcomers' attention. Considering her dishevelled clothing and the early hour, it must be obvious to everyone present what was going on.

'You have to get home?' Charlie asked. Recognising the lifeline he was throwing her, she nodded and retreated out of the kitchen. Charlie escorted her to the front door, ignoring the accusations that started up in their wake.

'We'll pick up your car after work, alright?' she suggested.

'Alright. See you in an hour?'

'Yeah, see you,' she mumbled. Like a couple of teenagers after their first date, they lingered on the doorstep until Charlie kissed her. She frowned. She wasn't quite sure why she was frowning. Maybe because she remembered when she had suspected Seever of sleeping with Charlie and performing the walk of shame and now she had ended up in a reality where that was her. Dani Reese was doing the walk of shame.

Or maybe she was frowning because it wasn't the walk of shame. Judging by the kiss, it wasn't. From one night stand territory they had somehow wandered into relationship land.

Or maybe, just maybe, she was frowning because she didn't mind the kiss and its associations.

(***)

When she came to pick him up, Charlie was vigorously trying to impress the new name upon the dog. Crouched on the driveway, he was tickling the dog's belly and talking to it.

'You're George. Yes, you're George. I'm Charlie and that is Dani and you are George. Even if you're a girl, George is still a good name, right?'

Smiling despite herself – dogs; any animal really, weren't her kind of thing – she approached them just as Charlie got up. He looked pensive. There was a faraway sort of look in his eyes.

'Do you believe in fate?' he asked. Before she could begin to formulate an answer to that doozie, he turned towards her and continued in a philosophical tone.

'Do you ever think that everything that happened happened for a reason?'

No, she didn't think that. God, fate; whatever. Life was a series of choices and accidents. There was no reason. The best you could hope to find was blame. The most interesting thing she thought, as Charlie gazed at her meaningfully, was how he had phrased the question. Not 'happens' but 'happened' as in 'has already taken place.' That in combination with his stupid insinuating gaze implied something that almost took her breath away.

'Everything...' she mumbled. It came fast and felt familiar. Anger.

'Is that so?' she snapped. Charlie reached out to touch her, but she slapped his hand away. She didn't even care that the volume of her voice was increasing. It felt so good to lose control.

'Was everything part of goddamn destiny? Rachel's family murdered, you in jail, me an addict: all so that we could fuck?'

'Dani...'

'Reese,' she bit at him. 'And don't you ever say that again. I'm not your reward for twelve years of wrongful imprisonment. I'm not.'

She was shaking with rage. Her father's daughter all the way through. If she couldn't drink her feelings away, the only emotion she wanted to feel was anger. It suited her. It always had. Calmly, Charlie waited until he was sure she was finished.

'That's not what I meant,' he simply said. She glanced at him. At his inquisitive face, his relaxed posture and everything boiling underneath. Perhaps they were more alike than she had thought and he was just better at hiding the darkness within. Or not hiding exactly; restraining.

'I know,' she admitted, brusquely. Ashamed, she avoided eye contact. He voiced no recriminations on the way to the car. No apologies were issued either. She had purposely misunderstood him and he knew it. It seemed as if he had even expected an outburst of some kind and now that it was over, it was truly over. They didn't need to talk it out.

George dawdled on the driveway and eventually seemed to make his way to the back of the house. Dani buckled her seatbelt and the clicking sound it made coincided with something in her memory sliding into place.

'Do you remember that throwaway comment from Mrs. Greer about George?' she asked.

'Yes. He was supposed to redo the garden, but he didn't. Why didn't George redo the garden?' Charlie mused. As she regarded him, there was nothing there to indicate the change in their relationship. No stolen glances, no secret smiles, no furtive touches. They were altogether Crews and Reese: partners. But she knew they were also Charlie and Dani, with all the things that entailed.

'I have an idea. I think I might know who George is and where he is now,' she admitted as she put the car into gear.

'And why he didn't redo the garden?'

'And why he didn't redo the garden. Let's swing by evidence and pay Mrs. Greer a visit.'

(***)

The ring was dull. It was in need of some polishing. Gently, Dani shook it out of the evidence bag. A bit of dirt still clung to the inside. With her nail, she dislodged it. She held the ring up to the lamp and allowed Charlie to read the inscription.

'George and Margaret. Always,' he recited. There was no date. She was glad it was something as plain as 'always.' Of course, it had never going to be forever, but it had turned out to be a lot shorter than either of them must have imagined. She wondered what her mother had engraved in her wedding ring. Swiftly, she recognised her mood for what it was – overly sentimental – and kicked back into work mode.

'Do you think she will tell us where her son is if we show her this?' she asked Charlie, suddenly wanting her intuition confirmed. This was it. Their leverage. The straw that broke the camel's back. The thing that would make Mrs. Greer disclose her son's location. Charlie nodded.

They informed Tidwell about what they had. The last body from the back yard was now, almost certainly, also identified. Fifteen minutes later, Tidwell was following them as they drove over to the Greer residence. Dani knocked.

After about a minute, Mrs. Greer opened the door and invited them in. She looked a lot better than the last time they had seen her. It was as if a burden had been lifted from her shoulders. When Dani showed her the wedding ring, however, her face crumpled. Tentatively, she made her way to a big arm chair and sat down.

'Do you recognise this ring, Mrs. Greer?' Charlie asked. Though she was trembling, she fixed a steady gaze on him.

'Please do call me Meg, dear. That's George's ring. My husband.'

A painful silence followed wherein Dani thought they were going to have to explain how they had come to possess the ring, but then Mrs. Greer broke down and started to sob. Charlie handed her a handkerchief and she composed herself fairly quickly.

'It was the cats, you see,' Mrs. Greer said. Uncomprehending, Tidwell stared at her. Dani exchanged a glance with her partner. 1973: the year of the murdered cats. When Mrs. Greer saw that they were waiting for further clarification, she continued.

'Tim swore he had nothing to do with the cats, but George didn't believe him. He was very angry. He was angry with me too for defending Tim. That's why I thought he left us.'

After a moment, she added, thoughtfully, 'But maybe I knew. Yes, I think I have known it the whole time.'

Apologetic, she looked at them.

'It was just too horrible to believe, you understand? I didn't dare confront the possibility that my son had...'

In the trunk of the car were bulletproof vests and assault rifles. Tidwell had the SWAT team on speed dial. It turned out they didn't need them. Very calmly, Mrs. Greer explained that she had been diagnosed with leukaemia. Before Tim had left, she had baked him a chocolate cake to take with him. She confessed that it had been chockfull of her medicine: arsenic trioxide. Tidwell stayed with Mrs. Greer, while they verified her claim.

Tim's hiding place was a seedy motel. Half the neon letters making up its name were missing; the other half were hanging askew or flickering half heartedly. No wonder there were still plenty of rooms available. They donned their vests and took the rifles. Procedure demanded precautions. The manager eagerly pointed them towards room 23. Dani knocked, Charlie unlocked the door when there was no answer.

The stench that wafted out to meet them was unmistakable. Death. And not a nice death either. Mingled with the sickening sweetness of decomposition were the sharp smells of every possible bodily fluid. After a short glance at the body on the bed, Dani's gag reflex forced her outside into the warm, but clean air. Stoically, Charlie followed her. He placed the call to the coroner's office as she sucked fresh air into her lungs to dispel the offending odour.

The manager tried to peek into the room, so she quickly closed the door.

'You didn't smell that?' she asked him. Feigning innocence, which was a difficult task with a face like his, the manager said the room's occupant had paid for a month in advance. Regular cleaning was apparently not included in the price of the room. The state of the motel suggested that cleaning wasn't a part of the services on offer at all. The adjoining rooms were empty, so there was no one to complain about the smell.

While Charlie finished the call with the coroner, she called Tidwell. He seemed reluctant to arrest Mrs. Greer, but eventually agreed that he had to. After all, the woman had confessed to murder. The stink of the corpse clung to Dani's clothes, skin and hair. She could feel it on her, like a disgusting organism, working its way into her pores. As the partners put away their cells, their eyes met. Charlie didn't smell so good either.

'Not so attractive now, huh?' he remarked, with a lopsided smile. A laugh welled up within her chest and she leaned against the wall, succumbing to it. Considering the circumstances, the manager's outrage at her roaring laughter was probably justified, but she ignored him nonetheless.

(***)

It was Saturday and Dani was only now finding the time to run this particular errand. She had been meaning to do it all week, but somehow she had kept finding other things to do. In all likelihood, she had been postponing it on purpose. It was long overdue. The back door was locked and she remembered that her mother was babysitting, like Haleh nowadays usually did on Saturdays.

Slightly irritated, she fished in the flower pot hanging against the window and found what she was looking for. She let herself in with the shoddily hidden key. Out of habit, she checked her father's study. The hair was still in place. Then she went upstairs. She stopped outside her old bedroom, but didn't go in. Instead, she lowered the ladder from the attic and penetrated the dusty darkness.

The light bulb unwillingly sparked to life. Tiny particles floated in its swinging beam, swirling lazily as she moved around. It was hot in the cramped space. She shuffled aside a lamp to get to the back. A carton, smaller than she had imagined, had her name scribbled on the side. As she opened it, the layer of powdery dust that coated its flaps got into her nose and she sneezed. One enlarged photo from her police academy graduation ceremony covered others. She put the shoe box with pictures to her left.

Her baseball bat. A year book, which she resisted flipping through. Kid fingerprint kit. High school report cards. Finally, she located what she was looking for and her hand closed around her old walkman. Under the narrow roof the heat was oppressive and with every breath she was inhaling thick dust. Feeling increasingly stifled, she began to put everything except the walkman back into the carton.

The noise downstairs halted her movements. It sounded like a curse. A man's voice. Inside the house. In lieu of her gun, which she didn't have with her – because who the hell takes a gun to their mother's home? – she grabbed the baseball bat. Its weight felt familiar in her hand. She stuffed the walkman into the big pocket of her jacket.

Slowly, she descended the ladder. She briefly considered calling out. It might scare off the intruder. If it didn't scare him off, it would merely alert him to her presence and the element of surprise would be gone. Dani settled on silence. Danger would not dissipate as quickly as it had with the break in at Charlie's house earlier that week, she was sure of that.

She discovered she still knew the house intimately. The steps to avoid because they creaked. The carpet that muffled the sound of your footsteps. Quietly, she made her way downstairs. The door of the study was open and she couldn't remember whether she had left it that way. A man was sitting in the chair facing the desk. The contents of the bottom drawer were scattered on the desk and he was listlessly rifling through them.

'Dad?'

He swivelled round and trained his gun on her.

'Dani.'

Her heart raced. She could feel its pulse in her throat. Carefully, she lowered the bat.

'I gave it to Charlie,' she defiantly lied. Her father flinched. It was so unlike him that it gave her pause. He sighed and kept staring at her. The gun remained aimed at her, but his continued silence gave her strength.

'You were simply going to take it and leave her in uncertainty, weren't you?' she spit out. He regarded her with something akin to pride and it filled her with loathing. He didn't even try to formulate an answer. Her father just sat there, absorbing her undisguised hatred.

Jack Reese behaving meekly; it was enough to make her want to vomit.

'I wish Roman had killed you. I really wish he had,' Dani whispered.

It made her so fucking mad that it was a lie; that she had to say it twice to make it sound true and it still wasn't. It simply refused to be true. What she thought was disgust at her father's behaviour turned out to be disgust at her own feelings. At being unable to decide what she felt. Was she glad that he was alive or disappointed? Shit, she didn't know. A little bit of both.

She wished Charlie was there, which made her feel worse. WWCD: What would Charlie do? The really grotesque thing was that Charlie would know what she was doing and would probably not do what she wanted him to do, which was make the decision for her. As she moved, the walkman bumped against her stomach. A hissing breath escaped her as she chose.

'Go,' she ordered. Her father was the one holding the gun, but she was the one calling the shots. He got to his feet and approached her. Unable to endure his proximity, she stepped aside. Standing before her, he hesitated. Dani felt that he was about to say something to try to justify his actions, to try to explain and she didn't want to hear it.

'Whatever it is, I'm not interested. Go,' she repeated, forcefully. To her relief, he complied.

Trembling all over, she steadied herself against the desk and listened to the front door opening and closing. The key being turned in the lock. Gradually, the shaking subsided and she threw everything back into the drawer without bothering to lock it. Upstairs, she switched off the light and secured the attic ladder unto the ceiling. After locking the back door, she deposited the key into the flower pot and drove home.

(***)

Back in her apartment, she took a lemonade glass out of the cupboard and filled it to the brim with vodka. The smell of alcohol almost made her sick. It occurred to her that her father might not believe that she had given the notebook to Charlie, so she took her gun and put it on the kitchen counter next to the drink she had prepared. After that, she dug up the notebook from the back of her closet. That she also placed on the counter. Lastly, she extricated the walkman from her pocket and used it to bookend the row of objects.

The legs of the chair scraped across the floor as she dragged it closer to the counter and sat down.

Bottle, glass, gun, notebook and walkman stood there, mocking her, tempting her. All she needed was Charlie's tape and Tidwell's bullshit harassment form and the tableau would be complete.

'Stop giving me choices,' she said to no one in particular. The universe perhaps, since it was definitely making fun of her.

(***)

When Charlie arrived, the bottle was half empty. Or half full, depending on what kind of person you are, she guessed. After knocking, he let himself in when she didn't answer. He took in the scene, but didn't say anything. As if there was nothing unusual or alarming about finding a recovering alcoholic with a freshly poured glass of vodka in front of her, he brought over a chair and sat down at the counter.

'What is wrong?'

Dani squinted at her drink. The clear liquid managed to be enticing and revolting at the same time.

'It's deciding. I wish I wouldn't have to choose,' she said.

'Life is a series of choices,' Charlie stated. His tone was unconcerned; breezy. Always so calm. So good at keeping everything under wraps. Why couldn't she be like that? Who cared if he was angry too as long as he projected that meticulously constructed serenity unto the world? Weary, she sighed.

'Then I wish I could decide not to care when I do the wrong thing.'

'There is no wrong. Whatever you do is right.'

'That's bullshit,' she protested and he smiled mischievously.

'Maybe,' he admitted, 'What is the choice?'

'To drink or not to drink,' she deadpanned, gesturing towards the glass. Again he smiled. It was one of his phantom smiles. Barely there to begin with and when it was gone you were left thinking that it might just have been your imagination. It might not have been there at all.

'No, that's not it. That one's easy in a way. What's the other one? Does it have something to do with your father?' he probed. In response, she raked the nails of her left hand through her hair. The urge to bring her fingertips to her temples and push her worries away was overwhelming.

'Don't do that. Don't read my mind. I hate it when you do that.'

What got to her was that Jack Reese would never, not in a million years, have occurred to Kevin. No one except Charlie knew that a lot of her issues stemmed from having Jack Reese for a father. Daddy issues; it was as simple and clichéd as that. At the root of almost everything that was wrong with Dani Reese was her father. Leave it to Charlie to dig until he got there.

'You ask me a question, but it's really an answer,' she murmured. Not afraid of a silence, he used the time to examine the strange collection of items. She watched his face closely and the only thing that seemed to puzzle him was the notebook. With an abrupt gesture, she picked it up and slid it into his suit pocket.

'You were right: people are a lot of things. Jack Reese is a thief and a liar and a coward. The problem is that to me he is only one thing: my father,' she said. It was at best an attempt to rationalise her decision, because it didn't even begin to define her conflicted feelings.

'I'm sorry.'

He sounded serious. As she looked at him, she realised he was serious. What did he have to be sorry about? Telling her what she had known all along; that her father wasn't a good man?

'Someone spotted him. I wanted to be the one to tell you, but I wasn't fast enough,' he explained. They nodded. Dani felt she should tell Charlie about the decision to let her father go, but she didn't understand herself.

'I thought about arresting him, but he had a gun and I had a baseball bat. It's doubtful whether I could have pulled it off,' she mumbled. To her surprise, that elicited a chuckle from him. His smile was a pleasure to behold. It brightened her mood. Whereas before she had been sitting hunched over the counter, she now straightened her shoulders.

'And you thought I was weird,' he joked.

'I still think you're weird.'

Sliding his chair back, he got to his feet. Without asking her anything, he started to open and close cabinets until he found a glass. He filled it with vodka.

'A toast?' he proposed. They clinked. Waiting to see what she would do, Charlie held his glass aloft. She contemplated what might as well have been water as far as she knew and simultaneously they emptied their glasses into the sink. Satisfied, he nodded as if that was what he had expected.

'To relatively easy choices.'