Chapter 7
Lizzie sat on the porch steps, watching the road. She'd been there since the crack of dawn and slowly watched as the night's dew soaked back into the ground. He'd promised he would be there.
"Butterball, come get some breakfast." Sam stood at the door.
"I'm okay." She didn't bother turning to answer, just kept her eyes on the road, willing his car to show up.
"Lizzie, he'll get here honey. But staring at a dirt road ain't gonna make him come any faster." She sighed, knowing he was right but unwilling to admit it. So she continued to sit there in silence.
"Fine." Sam sighed. "I'll put the pancakes in the oven to keep warm for you."
"I hate pancakes." Lizzie mumbled as his footsteps receded back into the house.
Lizzie began kicking around a pebble that lay at her feet on the steps, dribbling it between one foot and the other. Then she heard it. The distant rumble of a car coming up the brown dirt road. She looked up, a biting her lip warily as she watched the cloud of dirt that proceeded all cars down the lane as it came closer.
After what seemed a lifetime, the car stopped in the drive and she was jumping down the steps and opening the door, bouncing on her feet as she waited for him to climb out of the car enough to wrap her arms around his neck in a bear hug.
"Ah Lizzie—" Her name came out in a sigh as he held her to him.
"I'm sorry, Dad. I'm so sorry!" The sobs she'd been holding in ever since their phone call now crawled from her throat.
"No Lizzie, Sweetheart. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. You were right." Red paused here, stepping back to put his fedora on and carefully placing it on his head in the jaunty angle he'd recently started to favor. "You deserve some answers."
Lizzie smiled, content for now to know that she was going to get her answers. Taking Red's hat off his head and, mimicking the same angle that he liked, putting it on her own as she stepped back to admire his car. Red laughed at her antics, leaning against the car with a grin as he shook his head in good humor.
"A Mercedes, Dad? Is one of these secrets you're going to tell me how a traveling business man can afford a freaking Mercedes?" Lizzie lifted a brow in question and Red looked down at the dirt, scratching his head in consternation.
"Uh… yea."
"Hey Red! Now that you're finally here, maybe we can convince our girl here to eat, yea?" Sam shouted, holding the door open in invitation.
/\/\/\/\/\
Red cleared his throat for around the thousandth time.
"Dad. Just tell me. It can't be that bad."
"Lizzie, frankly, it is. And I have no idea where to start." Red sat at the end of her feet,unbuttoning the vest of his suit, having discarded the jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his dress shirt before coming to her room. Lizzie sat up against her head board. He couldn't bear to look at her, surrounded by a mountain of pillows and stuffed animals, the proof of her age —of her innocence. He slouched forward, his forearms resting on his knees as he massaged the knuckles of his hands nervously.
"The beginning's always a good place to start. Just pretend it's like the bedtime stories you used to tell me." She teased, trying to lighten the mood as she hated seeing her dad so upset. "C'mon Dad, chapter one! How does it begin?"
Red turned his head to hide his wince. This was far from one of the fairy tales he used to read to her. Or maybe it wasn't. Maybe he was the villain.
"It uh… It starts with a man who is in the Navy. Navy Intelligence. He has a wife and a daughter. But then he met this other woman. She was his asset." It's surprisingly easy to tell the story as if it happened to someone else.
"What's an asset?" Lizzie interrupted.
"It's… well, it means that she had information that I…he needed. And she had the means of getting more. So they worked together for a couple years and they grew close until one day, they had a daughter."
"Me?" Lizzie's voice was small and Red looked up just long enough to see her clutching her bunny. That damn bunny.
"Yes."
"You mean… my mom. She wasn't your wife?"
"No Lizzie."
"Is that why you weren't able to visit much at first? Cause you… cause you had a wife and another daughter?" She choked out.
"Lizzie —"
"No! You left me with Sam to hide me! You said it was for my safety but it was cause you had to keep me secret from your real family!" She couldn't see through the tears and her aim was a bit off when she threw her bunny at him but still managed to hit him in the back. But once again, the effect the bunny had was dulled by the whisper of a flump it made on contact.
"No Lizzie! Don't ever think that! It was to keep you safe, damn it!" Red took a deep breath, realizing his voice had risen. "Are you going to let me finish the story or is this enough for one day?"
"No. Tell me all of it. I need to know all of it. Rip it off life a band aid." She whispered in the wake of his anger, running her thumb along her scar.
"I can't tell you all of it. There are things that you cannot know, that it isn't safe for you to know."
"Fine. Just tell me what you can."
Red took a moment to regather his courage, grabbing the bunny from behind him and offering it back to her. Once she took it from his hand, he rested his forearms on his knees once more and continued.
"My asset — your mother got in touch with me one day. Said that you both were in trouble. That she'd done something and was worried she was being followed, that they were onto her. So I brought you here. To America."
"WHAT?! I wasn't born here?"
"No. And don't ask me where you're from. It's one of the things I can't tell you. Yet."
"But Dad—"
"No 'buts,' Lizzie! I cannot bend on this! I'm sorry, but believe me when I say, it's for your own good. Maybe one day. I know I'm withholding something that you should know. You have the right to know where you come from. But it's my job to protect you."
Lizzie stared at him, her brow furrowed and her eyes igniting in anger.
"Fine." She ground out through clenched teeth. "Please continue." Even to her, it sounded more like a curse than a request.
"Everything seemed fine for awhile. But I was in over my head. My superiors - I eventually realized that they didn't actually want me to get the information. They wanted me to babysit her, make sure she never talked. She had information that they couldn't bear to get out and that's what kept her alive. Your mother...she was brilliant." Red paused here, a small wistful smile on his face.
"Then she called me one day, told me that she thought she was being watched, that someone was watching the house. So I came to her. I had been home with my— with Carla and Jennifer. It was quite a long drive, I had to cross state lines. By the time I got there… the house was in flames." His voice had gotten quieter as he spoke and Lizzie was afraid to breathe for fear of missing a word.
"I was too late. I found her laying on the floor. I was too late, Lizzie." This was the second time in her life she'd seen her dad cry. She hated it.
"You saved me though." Red looked up at her and gave her a watery smile.
"Yes, that I did. She had hidden you in the closet. I called out for you as I ran through the house. I could barely see or breathe but then I heard your little voice." He paused, closing his eyes, a small upturn to his lips. "Music. Sweet music. You were so afraid. But when I heard your voice, I knew everything would be okay."
Lizzie sniffled, trying to smile as he glanced at her but failing miserably.
"So I brought you to Sam. Because I knew the people who came after your mother were most likely after me too. I needed to think that you had died in that fire. They could never know you were alive or know your connection to me, know you're my daughter. You see, some of these people had a lot of control here in the U.S. I soon realized that I had been assigned to get the information from your mother, to learn what she knew. But your mom was smart. She didn't tell me much. Just enough to get them worried but not enough for them to treat her as a threat. Or so she thought."
"But you said you were in the Navy, wouldn't—"
"No, Lizzie. The people who were looking for me were—" Red sighed, running a hand over his face as he searched for words. "They were powerful people. So I did the only thing I could do. I told them that I had the information that your mother died for. I blackmailed them."
"What's that mean?"
"It means that I held it over their heads so that they would leave me alone. And it worked, for a little while." Red stood and walked to the window, staring out into the darkness. "They began to think I was lying. So they killed my wife and my— your sister."
Lizzie gasped, smushing her bunny against her face as she remembered that night. The night she snuck downstairs and overheard her dad and pop talking.
"That's why you were so sad that Christmas."
"Yes." He sighed, coming back to sit on the bed. "And that's why you're with Sam. Because I cannot lose you, Lizzie. Not you too. You are everything."
Lizzie nodded her head slowly, finally beginning to accept his choice to leave her with Sam. "What happened next?"
"Well, I was in fact lying. Your mother hadn't fully trusted me with the information, remember. I didn't actually have it. But when they came after Carla and Jennifer… I vowed to get it. To find them all and take them down." Red looked at Lizzie, trying to gauge her reaction, and received an encouraging nod in return.
"And because some of the people I was—am hunting are very powerful in the legal world…I had to become equally powerful in the illegal world." Red looked over at Lizzie, his face void of emotion. He didn't look like her daddy in that moment. He looked scary. Like a villain from one of her fairytales.
"What does that mean?" Her voice quivered as the courage it took to ask drained from her.
"I'm a criminal, Lizzie."
She ran.
