Chapter Text
This was not how I liked to present myself around guests. Even if unsaid guests were unwanted.
There wasn’t an ounce of makeup on my sleep-deprived face. Normally I’d had my makeup done shortly after waking up, but I hadn’t touched any foundation, mascara, or lipstick in almost a month.
Except once.
For the funeral.
My bleached hair was a rat’s nest piled on top of my head with an old scrunchie, the muddy roots showing beneath. It had been well over a month since I’d last been to the hairdresser, so split ends were abound and at this point, my whole head would need to be bleached again if I wanted to stay blonde.
I wasn’t even dressed; I had a bathrobe thrown on over some boyshorts and a tank top that was so stretched out that it barely contained me on the best of days. The bathrobe was doing all the work of keeping me decent.
My unwelcome guests were doing a good job of pretending not to notice. Maybe they didn’t. I heard people tended not to pay as much attention to you as you thought.
Said "guests" were two federal agents: Simmons and a lackey whose name I forgot. Maybe Kingly, or Kinsely. I wasn’t surprised to see them—agents had been hanging around for the past month. I could only hope that this was going to be the last I saw of them for a very long time.
In a perfect world, I’d never see them again.
They hadn’t told me anything about . . . anything. Not what branch they were from, not why they suspected foul play, nothing. Just that they had worked with my dad. He never told me any of that information, either, but these guys were high and mighty about it, whereas Dad had always been humble and assured us that if he had been allowed to, he would have told us about his work.
These guys were all bluster, self-importance, and power trips. I was so tired of it.
“Again, we give our most sincere condolences,” Special Agent Simmons told me. He always stressed his title like an asshole.
I was pretty sure I shrugged and gave him some inane, insincere thanks, but it still felt like someone else was doing it. I wouldn’t lift my gaze past their ankles. There were more agents behind him, waiting at the end of the driveway by their Tahoe. Hovering.
Just like they had at the funeral. You would have thought that the president himself was attending with how much security they had.
Maybe it was just professional courtesy. These were my dad’s people, after all. Special Agent Walker . . . though he was just a beaker: an engineer who dealt with the machinery that the other special agents used. Dad had been able to tell us that much, and it was all the other agents said. Official government business.
You don't have the security clearance to know.
For reasons I didn’t understand and they wouldn’t elaborate on, they felt the need to investigate my parents’ death “to the fullest”. It wasn’t like it was a hit-and-run. Our damn neighbors had run a red light going over seventy. Their large Suburban had wasted my parent’s Prius.
What was there to investigate about it? What would seizing both totaled cars do? The traffic cameras and the security system from their place of business, the convenience store where the accident had happened, captured the whole thing.
They ran that light going excessive speeds. They hit my parents.
Killed them. My life, shattered by people I’d shared meals with. That I saw every day. That my family had considered good friends. They slammed into my parent’s car and killed them both. The Richards had been hospitalized, too, but hadn’t been nearly as injured. The injustice ate at me like a slow-burning acid, leaving a festering wound of ire.
It wasn’t fair. The tickets weren’t enough. The Richards didn’t even get any jail time for manslaughter like people had been gossiping about. I was ninety percent sure that Simmons and his goons had something to do with that, too, because they’d been all but shipped off to jail until they showed up, and then the charges were dropped.
But beneath all that was guilt, too, that I should think such an awful thing about people I’d once thought of as family friends.
“Did you find anything?” I asked them, hoping to get to the point since I knew the answer.
The two men shared a look. Simmons said, “We are still investigating the car, but everything about Mr. and Mrs. Richards’ background checks came through and we have no reason to believe this was motivated by anything unsavory.”
My answer was an uninterested hum. Perhaps they thought those two were some sort of enemies of the state, sleeper agents bent on killing Dad to keep him from his work.
It was dumb. No, downright idiotic.
“Okay, what else?”
Simmons furrowed his brow. “What else what?”
“The Richards,” I demanded. “They were set to see justice, but then you guys showed up and now they’re just . . . free?”
He swallowed and shifted uncomfortably. “We don’t have anything to do with the courts, miss. It was ruled an accident and they got their licenses revoked and likely will never get them back, they must have thought that was good enough.”
A well of resentment sprung up in me. Why had they dragged this out for nothing, then? They’d canvassed the entire town as if they’d been looking for a fugitive. They’d swooped in with several of their black SUVs and well-suited agents that had turned the whole place upside down for a goddamn traffic accident.
And now, the perpetrators were getting away with barely any punishment?
They destroyed my entire world in the span of a few seconds and just had their licenses taken away? In a town where you can walk everywhere, anyway?
Park City was a small place with a population of fewer than a thousand souls. It wasn’t even technically a town. It was a “census-designated place”, but we just called it a community. There was no mayor or any other form of government . . . Basically, it was just full of people who worked in Billings or Laurel.
A “bedroom” community, if you will.
“We’ll be leaving today. I’ll ask you one more time . . . Are you sure you don’t want a job with us? We would train you, and then we could explain what’s going on and give you closure. You have a spot on the team since Lewis was—”
Finally, I snapped my head up to look this weasley man in the face and my deadened expression turned sour. “No, I do not.”
As if the things they had done during the last three weeks had given me anything but a sickening taste in my mouth. As if their conduct had been anything but repulsive during my time of vulnerability. Nothing about this had made me even remotely interested in working for whatever secret government sect they were a part of.
Though I wanted to tell him all of this, I couldn’t muster the energy required. I couldn’t promise myself I wouldn’t start crying if I did.
Simmons ducked his head and backed off, swinging his arms by his side. “O-kay. Sorry. Again, I offer our deepest condolences. Please, try to have a nice day.”
I simply glared at him and his gang until they drove off in their government-assigned black Tahoe. Two more followed after them, heading out of town and back into whatever hole they crawled out of to “pay respects” to Lewis Walker and his wife, Millie.
Dad and Mom.
They sure had a funny way of showing their respect.
For another few moments, I remained standing on my stoop in nothing but underclothes, a bathrobe, and bare feet. I sniffed back my tears and caught the neighborhood busybody across the street, Mrs. Redd, peeking from her front window. I turned around in a huff and slammed my front door shut behind me, then sat down right there on the floor with my head in my hands.