In fact, all there was in my chest was this feeling of hollowness inside of me that was getting bigger and bigger by the second.
“Sure thing,” one of them said. “We’re stopping for lunch, but it shouldn’t take us much longer than that to get it back.”
Stopping for lunch.
They acted like seeing a man die was nothing to them.
And, maybe it was.
Maybe it really was nothing to them.
But before I had a chance to ask Derek about it, someone else called my name.
I turned to find an older man shuffling toward us.
The older man who was sitting in the back row during the execution was looking directly at me.
I frowned and turned. Derek turned with me so he didn’t have to let go of my hand.
“Avery,” he said once he was finally close enough. “I just wanted to apologize.”
I frowned. “Ummm, for what?”
Derek’s hand tightened as if he knew something that I did not. Something that I learned in the next few breaths as the man continued.
“My son was Jorgan O’Malley,” he said. “My name is Ansel O’Malley.”
My heart hitched and my breath caught in my throat.
I took a step back almost on reflex, but Derek’s hand had moved during Ansel’s words, wrapping his strong arm around my hip and pulling me in tight, making it to where I had nowhere to go.
Not with the steel band he called an arm wrapped around me.
I almost froze as I took in the feeling, but Ansel’s distressed face had me focusing in on him instead of the way I was feeling—at least on the outside.
He truly looked upset, as if his world had just ended.
“My wife and I adopted Jorgan when he was eleven,” Ansel said, his eyes filling with tears. “He’d been in multiple abusive situations, and we knew that he’d been taken from his mother for abuse as well.” He paused. “I’m not condoning his behavior in the least. I just…I wanted to give you a little insight into his head.”
Derek opened his mouth to say something to Ansel, but I placed my hand on his belly and patted it, telling him without words that it was okay.
It wasn’t. I didn’t want to hear anything about the man that had killed my father.
But I also could see the guilt and fear in the older man’s eyes.
He was hurting. He was hurting because of me and because of his son.
“I’m a profiler.” He paused. “I have multiple degrees in psychology, and I’ve been working for the FBI for years on serial killer cases.” He paused again. “I’ve written multiple books in my time about serial killers. If there’s something someone needs to know when it comes to a criminal’s head, I know it.” He swallowed hard as if he was about to lose his lunch. “I should’ve seen it happening in my own son, but I didn’t. Not until it was way too late. And for that, I’m deeply sorry.”
“You’re the one who realized who it was that was doing the killings, weren’t you?” Derek said suddenly. “They said that a famous author had figured it out.”
Ansel nodded. “It was me. I figured it out… but it was way too late. Way too late.”
God. To have to inform the police on your own son. That had to be one of the hardest things ever to have to do.
“Anyway.” He looked at me, letting me see the tiredness in his eyes. “I just wanted to apologize. To meet you and tell you that the man you saw in the room today? That wasn’t my son. I don’t know when I lost him… but that man in there wasn’t him. My son, the one I raised and threw baseballs with for hours and hours… that wasn’t him.”
With that, he turned and walked away, but I stopped him by calling his name.
“Ansel?”
Ansel turned and looked at me tiredly.
“Yes?” he asked.
“I don’t blame you,” I informed him. “And I don’t want you to blame yourself, either. We’re all our own people, making our own decisions. You did what you could, and you have to hope that when they’re old enough to make their own decisions, that they make the right ones. Jorgan didn’t do that, but that is nothing to do with you. Maybe he was just too broken to fix.”
Ansel gave me one more tired smile. “You’re a beautiful girl, Avery Flynn. I hope that you have a very nice life.”
With those words, he left, and Derek and I watched him leave.
“That’s sad,” I finally said.
“That’s life,” Derek countered. “I think I’m happier to know that guy isn’t related to him than I am to see him leave.”
I snorted and gestured to the bike in the parking lot.
“Let me guess, you drove your bike?” I drawled, unsure what to say at this point.
“Rode, and yes,” he said. “I was on it this morning when I realized what you were doing. I didn’t have time to get home and change my vehicle out and then follow you here after going to your place. So I rode.”
I thought about being smushed up against Derek’s hard body for hours as we drove back to Kilgore, and decided that it sounded like the best thing to happen to me all day.
“Let’s go,” I muttered.
He handed me the helmet like he did last time, waited for me to get it on, then mounted the bike before holding his hand out to me.
I didn’t bother taking the offering of help, mounting the bike behind him and scooting in close just like last time I was on it with him.
He grunted something unintelligible, then started the bike up, drowning out thoughts.
“Are you hungry?” he asked over the roar of the engine.
“No,” I answered, shaking my head.
He gave me a level look over his shoulder, then started off, not replying to my denial.
My mind spun through a thousand thoughts as we were riding back home.
What I was going to do when I got home.
Where I would move to.
It would have to be somewhere affordable. Somewhere that I could put a down payment on and afford on my limited income until I was able to get a job.
I had just enough money in my savings to put this month and last month’s rent on a decent apartment.
Then there was moving itself. I had to go get some moving boxes.
I also had to grow a pair of balls and use my dad’s truck.
That was the only one logically that would work for transporting boxes.
It was only as we were pulling over for gas that the question finally popped into my mind.
I debated whether to ask him for all of two seconds before I shrugged and went for it.
“How many people have you seen die?” I asked softly, not moving off the back of his bike as he unscrewed his gas cap.
He froze, his eyes going distant for a few seconds before he focused back on his task.
“More than I can count,” he admitted. “Why?”
I thought about why I’d asked him the question in the first place, then decided I wasn’t going to scare him off with my morbid thoughts.