Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The next morning, I called Wendy and asked her to drop down to the office.
I wasn’t looking forward to describing what had happened, but I had the feeling she’d accept it better than thinking her husband had been kidnapped and tortured.
I also called the Federal Bureau of Supe Investigations and gave them all the information and evidence we had on Give A Hands Up. It was in their ballcourt now.
Finally, before the staff meeting, I tidied myself up. My father would be here at ten AM, and I wanted to look my best. The others had also come in looking all spiffy. Not that we didn’t look fine every day, but they seemed to understand how important this was to me.
We sat in the breakroom, early so we could talk about the night before. But nobody seemed all that talkative. The knowledge about the Darconians had left us all oddly subdued.
I finally broke the ice. “I called the FBSI about Give A Hands Up,” I said. “They’ll be taking over the case. And I talked to Wendy. She’s coming in this afternoon so we can tell her what we found out. I’m not looking forward to that.”
“She’ll have closure, at the very least,” Dante said. “And that’s most important.”
“Right,” I said. Then, finally deciding to voice what everybody was thinking about, I said, “So, my father will be here soon. Thank you, everyone, for looking so nice.”
“Look,” Dante said. “We’re all nervous about this.
You know we are, we know we are. But we’ll do our best to give him the benefit of the doubt.
And if he’s right—if the Elder Gallara are seeking their way in, and if Brim Fire is helping them, then we have to pull together on this.
So, we’ll just take a deep breath and get through the meeting, and see what the next step is. ”
I let out a long breath. “Right. You know, maybe this won’t be so bad. Maybe we can keep them at bay, and still not have to do much with my father.”
But inside, I could see a tall mountain, with a narrow rope bridge over jagged rocks below.
And we were setting foot on that bridge, clinging to the handholds which were few and far between, and on the other side, my father had a knife.
I could only hope that he wouldn’t take it into his mind to reach out and cut the supporting lines.
Because below us, the rocks were jagged and dangerous. Right now we were going on faith and trust, and it seemed truly ironic that we were hoping that the dire predictions he made were true. Because that meant we could trust him.
A rock and a hard place, I thought. But we had each other, and now I felt whole enough to stand strong, regardless of what came my way. With a deep breath, I crossed to the counter to fix myself more caffeine, and to breathe easy, at least for a little while longer.