He Leaned In and Said, "Pretend I'm Your Dad"

CHAPTER 4 - THE PROMISE HE KEPT FROM A DISTANCE

Lena couldn't sit.

She paced the ruined kitchen while June cried quietly into the same dish towel she had folded and unfolded for years.

"Two years ago?" Lena said. "He was here two years ago?"

June nodded.

"At night. Just for ten minutes. He watched you through the window before your shift. You were tying your apron." Her voice broke. "He wanted to come in. I told him if he loved you, he'd leave."

Lena pressed both hands against the counter. The red diner top flashed in her memory, coffee spreading like blood.

"He missed everything," she said. "Graduation. Grandma's funeral. The surgery when I was seventeen."

June shook her head. "No."

From her apron pocket, June pulled a worn envelope tied with kitchen string. Inside were copies of money orders, each from a different town, each made out to hospitals, schools, and once to Lena's landlord when she had fallen behind in college.

No note. No name. But the sender's mark was always the same small penciled D.

Lena looked at Wyatt.

"He was protecting you all along," Wyatt said softly.

She hated that those were the same words from the diner, and hated more that they now sounded true.

The phone on the wall rang. All three of them jumped.

Wyatt answered, listened, then handed it to Lena.

No greeting came from the other end. Just breathing.

Then a man's voice, older and rougher than she remembered, but familiar enough to split her open.

"Lena-girl."

Her knees nearly gave out.

"Dad?"

"I can't come to the house," he said. "They'll follow me. Listen carefully. Thomas Bell works for Rourke. The ledger they want is in the diner."

Lena blinked. "The diner?"

"In the mirror behind the counter," he said. "I left it there the day I came to see you. You have to get it before they do."

The line went dead.

A second later, Wyatt looked out the kitchen window and swore.

Thomas Bell's car had just turned into the driveway.