Chapter Twenty Five

Danny rolled away from Lacey with a shuddering breath, the thick sexual haze that had enveloped him finally clearing from his mind in the wake of his orgasm. The full enormity of everything that had just transpired in the last twenty minutes hit him all at once. Despite the exhilarating high that had come with confessing their love for each other, he and Lacey had actually failed to settle a single issue between them. In addition to that, they had also been careless enough to have unprotected sex. And, as good as being inside her without any barriers had felt, it had been so very wrong and the last thing either of them needed. With everything going on in his life at the moment, adding teenage father to the list of his growing woes didn't seem like the greatest choice.

"Don't worry," Lacey said softly, easily reading his thoughts right then, "I'm pretty sure the timing's off. Either way, we'll know in a few days. That's about when I'm due for my period."

"God, Lacey..." he groaned, dragging both hands over his face.

Lacey turned her head to regard him in the flickering firelight. "Is that a 'God, Lacey, I'm so glad. We probably dodged a bullet' or is that a 'God, Lacey, I can't believe we slept together and now I regret it' groan?"

"Neither. It's a 'we still have a ton of stuff to work out between us and I don't know what the hell we just did' groan."

"Yeah," she agreed in a timid mumble, "I guess that's understandable."

He shifted on his side to face her fully, propping himself up onto his elbow. "So what is this, Lace? Does this mean we're back together? Because...it feels like we're back together."

"I want us to be..." she began in a careful tone, "...but..."

"Of course, there's always a 'but!'"

"Can you blame me? I still don't know what's going on with you, Danny!" she cried softly, "You've been acting differently ever since we came back from Connecticut...isolating yourself, blowing off Rico and Jo, pushing me away, just generally being an ungrateful ass all around... So what gives? What happened?"

Surprisingly, Danny never made any conscious decision to tell her the truth. He had imagined that when the time finally came, if it came, he would struggle mightily with himself before making the confession. But it didn't happen like that at all. He simply opened his mouth and the words came without reserve.

"When we were looking through that apartment there was stuff all over the place that reminded me of my dad," he explained gruffly, "Coffee, soap, aftershave...the place even smelled like him. It was eerie and weird but, I couldn't shake this feeling I had that it wasn't a coincidence. And then I found something that pretty much confirmed what I was thinking."

"What?" Lacey prompted in a soft whisper, "What were you thinking?"

"It would be easier to show you."

Before she could question him further, he rolled to his feet and started sifting across the ground in search of his jeans. Once he had located them, he pulled something free from his back pocket and then came back to kneel at Lacey's side. "I found this in the bedroom," he said, passing her what appeared to be a photograph which had been folded in half.

Lacey slowly flipped open the picture and gasped, stunned by what she saw. "Why would Michael Patel have a picture of you and your dad in his apartment?"

Danny sucked in a fortifying breath. "Because I think Michael Patel is my dad," he revealed in a hoarse whisper, "I think that my dad is alive, Lacey. That's why I've been acting like such a jerk lately. I feel like the floor pretty much dropped out from under me."

"What?"

"I've gone over it and over it in my head and the more I think about it, the more it makes sense."

"Danny, are you sure about this?" Lacey prodded gently, "I know you miss your dad and you want answers from him but...could it be possible that you're only seeing what you want to see?"

"No. He's alive, Lacey. I know it!"

Lacey shifted upright and began groping around on the leaf littered ground for her shirt. "Okay, I can't have this conversation with you while I'm naked. Let's get dressed first and then I'm going to need you to start again from the beginning."

Once they were fully clothed, Lacey and Danny sat down together before the fire and then Danny proceeded to recount in detail how he had arrived at the incredible conclusion that his father was still alive. When he was done, Lacey sat speechless for several minutes. She was having understandable difficulty processing everything he'd just revealed to her. Not only was his theory disconcerting but there were a wealth of unfavorable implications that accompanied it as well.

"Danny, if this is true and your dad is really alive then that would mean he might be the one responsible for Regina's murder," Lacey considered in disbelief, "Which could also mean that he's the one framing you to take the fall for it. That's crazy!"

"Not really," Danny muttered despondently, "After all, it wouldn't be the first time he's done it."

Lacey swiveled to face him, shivering with the sudden chill that overtook her. "What does that mean?"

He closed his eyes, took a breath and figuratively stepped off the precipice on which he had been teetering for five, long years. Now that he had revealed one secret, he wanted to unburden himself of them all. "I didn't kill my Aunt Tara, Lacey," he confessed with quiet emphasis, "My dad did."

It was the first time Danny had ever uttered the words out loud, the first time he had ever referenced the details of that day to anyone besides his father and he was surprised by how freed he felt once he had. He had carried the weight and shame of that awful secret for half an excruciating decade. In a sense, keeping that secret had felt more like a prison than juvie had. Now that the truth had been exposed, he had truly been liberated.

Lacey, on the other hand, was left reeling for the second time in less than half an hour. It wasn't an easy truth to swallow, especially after she had spent five years believing something entirely different. "No...no," she protested weakly, "You strangled Tara while she was sleeping. That's what happened. That's why you went away for five years, because you...because you did it. You killed her."

"But I didn't do it, Lacey."

"You were guilty! You said you were guilty!"

Danny favored her with a somber smile. "I lied. I'm pretty good at that."

Tears of disbelief and sorrow welled in her eyes as the full burden of truth settled upon her like a heavy, black shroud. "Danny, please tell me you did not spend five years of your life in prison for a murder you didn't commit! Please don't tell me that."

"I did."

Lacey surged to her feet with a pained whimper. She stared down at him with glittering eyes. "Why? Why would you do that?"

"Because my father asked me to do it," Danny replied thickly, "Because I loved him."

"Oh my God..."

"I went back into the house to get the snacks that day just like I was supposed to do," Danny recounted shakily, "I knew you and Jo were waiting so I tried to be extra quick so we could get back here to the fort. I was in the kitchen when I heard them. I knew they were fighting and that was nothing new but this time seemed different from all the other times. They were throwing things. I could hear the glass breaking. And they were yelling at each other, saying awful things, calling each other awful names.

"I remember Tara said to my dad that he was done," he continued, "that she was going to ruin him and he was going to lose everything because she had stolen all of his security."

"What security? What does that even mean?"

"I have no idea," he said, "All I know is that it seemed to set my dad off because I heard Aunt Tara yelp, like he had taken her by surprise and then she started screaming. It took me forever to work up the courage to come out of the kitchen and, when I did, I saw my dad with one hand over her mouth and the rope in his other hand. He started choking her and that sound she made...that horrible gurgling sound...I still have nightmares about it.

"I wanted to scream. I wanted to run but, it was like I was frozen in place. I hated her so much, Lacey, but I didn't want to watch her die. I don't even remember running forward or trying to get my dad off of her...just the feel of my hands getting trapped between the rope and her neck and how my dad just kept on pulling and pulling until she finally stopped moving.

"I started to cry after it was over but Dad said I shouldn't cry for her because we did what we had to do...like we had killed her together...like it had been a plan between us... For a long time, everything was so twisted in my mind that I thought that it had been."

Lacey cradled her middle and paced in small circles, feeling like she might actually throw up right then. "When Jo and I came into the house, your father was there," she recalled in a tremulous tone, "He was standing over her body...like he was so devastated...like he couldn't believe what you had done. He told us to run into the kitchen and call 911 but we ran away instead." Lacey stared down at Danny with haunted eyes. "But it was him. It was him all along."

"Yes. It was."

"God! We left you alone with him, Danny!" she uttered self-deprecatingly.

"You didn't know."

"Why didn't you tell anyone?" Lacey cried, "You just let us all think that you had done this horrible thing! You let us hate you for something you didn't do! I don't understand! Why, Danny?"

"Dad said it would destroy our family if he went to prison," Danny explained, "He said that there were people who wanted to hurt us because of what Tara had done and that he wouldn't be able to protect us if he was in prison. According to him, I was just a kid and they wouldn't give me any real time. If I told everyone that I did it, I would be protecting my family. I would be protecting him." He looked up at her with solemn eyes. "At the time, I thought I was doing the right thing."

"But he turned his back on you! He left you! Why would you keep his secret after that?"

"I started questioning him about the reason he killed Tara," Danny replied, "I doubted him. I was suspicious of his motives and I started to resent him. He stopped coming to see me after that. I always thought that it was my fault and that I had driven him away because I had stopped believing in him. After he 'died' there just didn't seem to be any point in telling the truth anymore. I had lived with the lie for so long it was starting to feel real."

"Oh, Danny..."

"So, that's it. That's the whole story. There aren't any more secrets, Lacey. I've never told another living soul what I just told you."

"I can't believe this," Lacey uttered brokenly, "You live through the trauma of watching your father murder another human being and then you take the punishment for the crime. No, Danny, that is not it. None of this is okay."

"Who knows? Maybe I did deserve it," he mumbled, "I certainly wished her dead often enough."

"Stop it! You did not deserve any of this," Lacey told him fiercely. She gathered him against her then and cradled his head against her belly. Lacey stroked the loose strands of his hair, a shaky sigh escaping her when he buried his face against her hip and banded his arms around her tightly.

"Do you hate me now?" he whispered.

Lacey gently lifted his face so that he could see her eyes when she said, "If I didn't hate you when I thought you were a murderer then why would you think I could hate you now that I know the truth?"

He nuzzled his face across her belly. "I love you so much, Lacey."

She bent forward and brushed his lips in a tender kiss. "I love you." Lacey stood with him a few minutes more, content to hold him close and stroke his hair, hoping that she could somehow undo the pain he had endured for most of his life with her touch alone. Eventually, however, her need for answers compelled her to ask, "So what happens now?"

Danny reared back to regard her. "I need to know for sure if my father is alive," he said, "I need to get back to that apartment."

"Then let's go. Tonight."

They both opted to do the "responsible" thing and let their mothers know that they had no intentions of returning home that night and not to worry. Karen Desai had mostly taken the news in stride. She wasn't exactly thrilled by the idea but she didn't threaten Danny with any punishment. Instead, she made him promise to take care of Lacey and himself, to stay safe and to wear a condom. Once he had agreed to all of those things, she had given her grudging consent. Judy Porter, on the other hand, had been livid. She had been mid-rant with threats of eternal grounding when Lacey decided to hang up the phone.

"We'd better make this trip count," she informed Danny in a dire tone, "because I'm pretty sure my mother is going to place me on permanent lockdown after this."

"Are you sure you want to go?" Danny pressed, "I can do this on my own."

"I know you can. But you don't have to."

Danny offered to drive during the first leg of their journey and Lacey was more than happy to let him. After so much upheaval for one day, she was left feeling weary and distracted. She had every expectation that she would be asleep within the next half hour. In the meantime, she and Danny filled the silence with idle small talk. They conspicuously avoided talking about what would happen should Danny's theory prove true. They avoided all conversation about their mothers and the hell that would very likely have to be paid upon their return home. They were also rather skittish about discussing the unprotected sex they had engaged in earlier and the possible consequences from that thoughtless act. The only neutral subject seemed to be Danny's undeserved prison sentence and even that topic was fraught with tension.

"You should tell your mom," Lacey advised him.

"Not happening."

"Danny, come on! You've carried this secret long enough."

"The truth won't make a difference to her now."

"At least she'll know her son isn't a murderer."

"Are you saying that it would be better for her to know that her husband was and that he allowed her 11 year old son to go to prison for it?"

Lacey expelled a frustrated grunt. "Okay! I see your point. But none of this is fair! You should be able to clear your name, Danny."

"The stigma will always be there whether I'm cleared or not, Lace. If I'm not a murderer then I'm the son of a murderer. That will always follow me. It's done anyway. I went to prison. I did my time. I just want to put it behind me and live my life now."

"Okay," she relented gruffly, "But I hate it."

"I know you do...and I love you for it. It feels good to have someone in my corner."

"Can we, at least, tell Rico and Jo the truth?"

"Yeah. I think they should know." Having tackled that particular subject successfully and without too much drama, Danny braced up his courage to broach yet another of their taboo topics. "So...I...um...might have gotten you pregnant tonight. That's a pretty big deal."

Lacey responded with a dismissive roll of her eyes. "You did not get me pregnant."

"How do you know? It's not like I pulled out or anything...not that it would have been enough but, at least, it would have been something."

"The chances are so small..."

"But they still exist," he stressed meaningfully, "We should talk about it, don't you think?"

"What's the point in worrying about something that hasn't even happened yet?" Lacey considered, "If I miss my period, then we'll freak."

Danny released a self-deprecating laugh and shook his head in chagrin. "I can't believe we're actually having this conversation," he muttered, "If you are pregnant, my mom is going to kill me. That's like her worst nightmare. 'Wear a condom, Danny. Wear a condom, Danny.' That's been her mantra since before she even found out we were having sex!"

Lacey cut him a sharpened glance and reared upright in her seat. "Wait a second! Your mom knows we're having sex?"

"I've been sneaking over to your house in the middle of the night, Lacey. I doubt she thinks we're playing board games."

"There is a difference between having a suspicion about something and knowing it outright, Danny! Which one applies to your mom?"

"The last one."

Lacey buried her face in her hands and groaned. "Oh my god, your mom knows that I'm...that I'm..."

"...pleasuring her son, riding him like a surfboard, getting it done?" Danny provided with a cheeky smile, "Yeah, she's aware."

"I hate you." She sank down into her seat with yet another groan. "I'll never be able to look her in the eye again," Lacey lamented, "It was hard enough when she caught us kissing that day!"

"I'm pretty sure she's okay with it, Lacey...as long as we don't turn her into a grandmother."

"Stop worrying about that. It's not going to happen. Not yet anyway."

They exchanged shy smiles at the tacit admission that babies might very well be a future prospect for them. Much too soon for Lacey's taste, however, Danny was back to frowning again. "It can't happen again though. If this was a close call, it needs to be the only one."

"What are you talking about? The sex?"

"No! The lack of condom," Danny emphasized.

"I guess you're right," Lacey whispered, "But it did feel really good without it."

"It felt freaking amazing!"

"But never again?"

"No."

"Unless..."

Danny perked with interest. "Unless what?"

"I could go on the pill," Lacey considered with a shrug, "Then we wouldn't have to use a condom at all."

He pretended to mull the suggestion over. "I'd be good with that."

Lacey laughed at his obviousness. "Yeah, I thought you might be."

A short time after they passed the state line, Lacey fell asleep. In the silence that ensued, Danny allowed himself to consider, for the first time since their trip began, what lay ahead of him. He was faced with the prospect of confronting his presumed dead father. The thought brought with it a plethora of conflicting emotion. Fear, dread, anger, despair, hope...happiness. There was indeed a part of him that was elated by the possibility that his father might be alive, the part of him that still naively believed they might be able to recapture the relationship they had shared during his childhood. It was the part of him that also clutched desperately to the hope that his father had a plausible explanation for everything he had done in the last five years and well before that. Albeit, it was a very small part of him, the part that hadn't been corroded by cynicism and bitterness but, it was there. Danny was hoping for the best even while he was expecting the worst.

About an hour outside of Newport, he decided to stop and refill the gas tank. He roused Lacey with a bag of Blue Ranch potato chips and a Coke. She offered him a sleepy smile of gratitude and a small kiss. "I can drive, you know," she said when he climbed back behind the wheel, "It's my turn, isn't it?"

"You should probably get in touch with your mom instead," Danny told her, "She's called like six times since you've been asleep."

It wasn't the most productive conversation. Mostly, Judy had railed at Lacey for being irresponsible and reckless while Lacey had tried to reassure her that she was being safe and that Danny would never allow anything to happen to her. The exchange deteriorated further when Judy demanded to know where she was and Lacey refused to provide an answer. Recognizing that there was little she could do to soothe her mother's frazzled nerves, Lacey merely promised that she would return home in the morning and disconnected the call.

"She's pretty frantic, huh?" Danny remarked in the tense silence that followed.

"She's so worked up about your past that she can't even hear what I'm saying."

"If it helps to know, I think your mom would be freaking out over this whether I was an ex-convict or not," he considered, "You are still a minor who is planning to spend the night with her unapproved boyfriend. That's gotta be a little aggravating."

Lacey popped a chip into her mouth and regarded him with a wide, affectionate smile. "Well, I do have a good reason."

"And what reason is that?"

"I'm pretty crazy about the guy."

Danny returned her smile warmly. "He's pretty crazy about you too."

The drive back to the apartment high-rise took considerably less time due to their familiarity with the route. This time around, when they buzzed into the private gate, they knew exactly whom to ask for and when they approached the security guard it was with a great deal less apprehension than they had the first time. Danny took hold of Lacey's hand and strode inside, offering the security guard an easy smile as they passed.

"I know it's late but, we're just here to see my dad," he said. He was taken aback, however, when the security guard rose to block him. Danny felt a brief trill of alarm but was careful to mask his anxiety behind a questioning look. "What is it?"

"I'm sorry to tell you this, son," the security guard said, "But your father cleared out of here early this morning. He took a few things from his apartment and left. I'm pretty sure he's gone for good."

Danny blinked at him in disbelief. "Are you sure? He was just here!"

"I'm as surprised as you are. Residents usually don't break their leases so suddenly like that but, I'm sure. Maintenance had his name removed from the mailbox this morning."

It was hard for Danny to mask his crushing disappointment over that setback. He was angry and frustrated but, most of all, he was hurt because it was evident that Vikram had somehow been tipped off to their presence. Yet, rather than sticking around to face the son he hadn't seen in three years, he ran away instead.

Danny wrestled with the feelings of worthlessness that knowledge evoked. He didn't speak again for nearly a full twenty minutes, not until he and Lacey were milling through the local Walmart for various toiletries, supplies and other items necessary for an overnight stay. "He must have known that we came looking for him before," he muttered as he and Lacey perused the aisles together, "It's the only thing that makes sense." He dropped his head forward with a humorless grunt. "I guess that answers that question."

"What question?"

"Whether or not he wanted to see me again. Obviously not."

Lacey's first and most immediate instinct was to comfort him, to pull him into her arms and hold him right there in the middle of everything. But, he was so touchy that she wasn't sure any gesture of affection would be welcomed right then. "Now what do we do?"

"I have no idea. Who knows where he's taken off! I'm probably never going to see him again."

"Danny, if your dad is really alive, then we should tell your mom or someone what we know. We can't keep investigating this on our own. I think the police should be involved, especially if we're right and he's the one who killed Regina that night."

"What's the point of telling anyone he's alive?" Danny muttered, "We'll just look like crazy people if we go to the cops without any proof! If my father doesn't want to be found, none of it matters anyway."

They found a cheap motel to bed down in for the night and, even then, Danny's brooding silence continued. He barely ate any of the snacks they'd purchased and only made a grudging attempt at conversation. After making an abrupt announcement that he was going to shower, he hopped up from his chair and sequestered himself in the bathroom. A few minutes later, Lacey heard the shower spray kick to life.

She remained seated in the center of the bed feeling helpless and alone. She didn't know what she could say to comfort him. Even after all his father had done to him and all the ways Vikram had betrayed him, it was clear to Lacey that Danny was still seeking the man's approval and love. He was yearning for Vikram's acceptance and learning that he had preferred to flee rather than staying to face his son had to feel like yet another desertion to Danny.

For the most part, her boyfriend was a resilient young man. There weren't many people who could endure what Danny had and come through it with the capacity for joy and love that he had. In his short life, he had been ignored and mistreated by the very people who had been charged to protect him and somehow he still took the burden of their mistakes upon himself. He blamed himself for Tara and he blamed himself for his father. Lacey imagined that Danny must feel that there wasn't anything worthwhile about himself at all, not if his own family rejected him. She wanted to prove to him how wrong he was.

Lacey rolled from the bed and quickly stripped out of her clothing before slipping quietly into the bathroom. The interior was balmy with thick clouds of steam. She was certain that Danny had heard her entrance but, if he had, he didn't acknowledge it. She pulled back the shower curtain and found him standing beneath the pelting spray, shoulders stooped forward, eyes closed, his long, wet hair plastered around his face. Wordlessly, Lacey climbed in behind him and encircled his waist, her nude body flush against his. She pressed her cheek against his back, ignoring the slight stiffening in his shoulders when she did so.

"I love you," she whispered, pressing a tender kiss between his shoulder blades, "This isn't your failure, Danny. It's not something you did. This was your father's choice and it's his loss because you are amazing and funny and decent and kind...and he missed out on the opportunity to get to know someone who is pretty incredible."

"It still hurts."

"I don't expect it not to hurt," she told him, "But you can't blame yourself anymore. You've spent too many years doing that and it needs to stop."

Danny released a shuddering breath, gradually relaxing in her embrace. "I just don't know what I did to make him stop loving me," he sniffled.

"A better question would be, what has he done to deserve your love in the first place?"

At her words, he turned in her arms and pulled her tighter against him, pressing a firm kiss to her temple. "Thank you for sticking by me. Today has just been one nightmare after another and I know I haven't been the greatest company. You've put up with a lot. I'm sorry about that."

"Well, I am the world's best girlfriend."

"I mean it, Lace. You've been so great. I don't know what I would do without you."

"And you never will."

Danny hugged her hard. "I really do love you, Lacey Porter. I know I've been hard to take tonight...for the last couple of days really."

"You're entitled. Besides I'm used to you being an ass."

He grunted a short laugh and then nuzzled against her mouth in a lingering kiss. "I guess I should probably try actually washing up now," he murmured wryly.

"Good idea."

With the tension between them considerably lessened, they took turns lathering one another up, squirting each other with the tiny bottles of complimentary shampoo and conditioner, flicking each other with wet towels and generally wasting hot water in between giggling kisses and soapy caresses. Horseplay gradually segued into foreplay. The couple was fairly waterlogged by the time Danny had Lacey pinned between his body and the tiled shower wall. He buried his face in the soapy column of her neck, his slender fingers trailing across her slick center in titillating circles.

"Are...are you feeling better?" she stammered in a moan when he sank them deep.

He stroked her lazily. "Yes."

"So can we please go to bed now?"

He dragged his hand from between her legs and took them under the spray for a quick rinse. "Yeah...let's go to bed."