Left To Die

Even the grass, in the lawn, though it may have just been Adele’s imagination, was a half inch taller after trimming than the other houses on the cul-de-sac. Her father did the yard work himself and painted the house himself. He didn’t believe in hiring people to do something he could do. Of course, after eight hours on a job, coming home only to pick up more projects had left little room for time with the wife and kid once upon a time.

Adele twisted at her sleeves and stalked up the sidewalk, passing a fire hydrant and nodding toward someone peering at her through the window of a neighbor’s home. She sighed in nervous little puffs of breath. She hadn’t necessarily wanted to visit her father. It had been a few years since she’d actually seen him in person.

But if he found out from his law enforcement buddies that she’d been in Germany and hadn’t visited him, she’d never hear the end of it.

“The ever doting father,” Adele murmured to herself, jamming her hands back into her pockets as she strode toward the two-story, stone veneer house at the end of the block.

She could hear the neighbor’s dogs yelping and barking, and vaguely thought of a childhood without pets. Her father hadn’t wanted to clean up after them. Adele had gotten the turtle with Angus more out of spite than any actual desire to own the poor creature.

Already, bitter thoughts circled her head, and Adele felt like she was back to being twelve all over again.

She strode up the sidewalk, took the patio steps, and knocked politely on the front door.

The Sergeant hated it when people rang the bell. There were a lot of things that annoyed her father, and Adele had a memorized list. Walking on eggshells around Joseph Sharp wasn’t only a necessity, it was a practiced skill. And of everyone Adele knew, she’d practiced best.

Still, though, she wasn’t looking forward to the visit. She knocked again, politely, and heard a voice call from inside, in German, “I’m coming—hold on!”

Adele waited, and the door clicked as locks shifted and bolts rattled as chains were removed.

Her father was safety conscious. He didn’t trust security cameras, but he had more locks on the windows and doors than most banks. And the collection of firearms permitted to him, thanks to his job, also served to provide him peace of mind.

The door swung open, revealing a bald man with an enormous mustache. He had a bit of a belly, but the arms of someone who spent a good amount of time in the weight room.

He had no tattoos, nor any sort of piercing. He was wearing a T-shirt with a stain down the front, and the smell of soup wafted in from the kitchen, gusting past him.

“Hey, Dad,” said Adele, fidgeting and smiling nervously. She also spoke in German. Her father had been born in the States, but he’d lived in Germany now for most his life. She wasn’t sure why, but he hated it when she tried to speak to him in English or French. Secretly, she suspected it reminded him of her mother.

Christ, she was thirty-two. Why was she acting like a ten-year-old all of a sudden? The Sergeant studied her, his bristling mustache twitching more than his lips. If she’d expected a smile in return, she’d been sorely mistaken.

It took her father all of two seconds to recover his wits, and then he nodded at her in turn. “Sharp,” he said.

Her father had referred to her by their last name since she was five. At one point, she’d thought he’d done it to infuriate her mother, but after his ex-wife had died, Joseph had continued calling her by her last name. She supposed it was an old habit from police buddies; he’d always wanted a boy after all.

“It’s good to see you,” she said, still smiling. “I brought a gift.” She reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out the can of condensed cream of broccoli she had picked up from the store on the way.

Her father’s eyebrows shifted, and he reached out and took the soup from her, then turned and entered the house again. “Welcome,” he called as an afterthought. “Come in if you want.”

Her father liked soup. Especially if it came in a can. He’d been preparing for the Third World War for the last forty years, and he had turned the basement into a bunker.

“I just thought I’d stop by,” said Adele calling into the house, still standing on the porch in front of the open door.

“Shut the door or you’ll let the cold in!” he called back.

For a moment, the idea of turning and marching back down the patio steps and leaving her father was all too appealing, but Adele thought better of it, and with a quiet breath, she stepped into the house and closed the door behind her. She made sure to do it gently as her father had a pet peeve about slamming doors. She also followed her father into the kitchen, through the living room. Habitually, she flicked off the light near the entrance. A house rule: the last person to leave a room had to turn the lights off to conserve electricity.

Christ, she felt ten all over again.