‘Christ. Fuck. Scarlett.’
Something is very wrong. Dad was frail, yes, but just yesterday, just hours ago, he was still fighting.
‘W-what are you doing here?’ I ask warily, unsure if I want to know the answer. ‘Gregory!’ I shout at his blank expression. The colour drains from his flushed cheeks and his desperate breaths stop. ‘Gregory!’
He opens his mouth to speak but nothing comes out. His face twists and his eyes darken with something – anger or pain, maybe. He bites his knuckle and pulls his free hand through his hair again. This usually composed man is undone.
‘Gregory, you’re scaring me.’
‘Scarlett,’ he croaks, moving closer to me.
I take a step back, pressing my legs against Dad’s bed. Gregory reaches his hands towards my face but drops them when I flinch.
‘There was a note,’ he says, his voice more certain.
‘What kind of note?’
‘At the apartment. Jackson left me a voicemail but – but I didn’t get it until I dropped you off and checked my messages.’
Jackson. The man who thought my dad had been pushed down the stairs. The one who’d seen – who’d shared – the seed of doubt I’d refused to let grow.
‘What did the note say? What did the note say, Gregory?’
I don’t need an answer. I know what it said. Jackson was right. I was right. Pearson was seeking revenge. Gregory’s father has killed mine.
Realisation comes crashing to me. My hands rise to cover my face. ‘It was him. All along. Jackson knew. It was him. Pearson was at my house but he found my dad instead of me. He put my dad in here. He put him here and the sick fuck came back to finish what he started.’
‘Scarlett, baby.’ He steps towards me and I lash out, smacking his hands away.
‘I’m not your fucking baby! I’ll never be your baby. This is?—’
I stop myself short of telling him that this is all his fault. I don’t know why but even now, I can’t say those words.
‘Why?’ I cry. ‘Why me? Why my dad? Why us?’
Gregory takes a deep breath and pulls his body to stand straight. He looks to the lifeless body on the bed and back to me before saying, almost inaudibly, ‘Because of me.’
The words impale me. The words I was expecting but didn’t want to hear strike my body like lasers, burning deep beneath the surface.
Pearson killed the person I love most in the world. Murdered him to avenge that deal. Gregory’s deal. The one I helped him close.
I killed my own dad.
Cramps tear through my stomach, causing me to fold forwards then drop to my knees. I open my mouth to scream through the agony but no noise materialises. Pain courses through me, a pain so bad, I think my head might split into two halves. Gregory steps towards me but I manage to raise one hand to tell him to stop.
‘Get out!’ I whisper through clenched tenth.
‘Scarlett, please,’ Gregory begs, taking another step towards me.
Finally, I find my voice and scream, ‘Get out!’
As if hearing my cries, Sandy is at the door.
‘Jackson told me,’ she says to Gregory before running to be next to me on the floor. ‘Breathe, darling, I’m here,’ she says softly into my ear, then kisses my brow.
‘He’s gone,’ I sob into her chest. ‘It wasn’t time. He wasn’t ready. He’s gone.’
What I don’t say is, He was murdered.
