Rocks dug into my hands and arms. Cutting. Bleeding. I tried to push myself to my feet again, but everything was slippery and wet. Hot wet.

The thick scent of iron and copper coated my tongue, the inside of my nose.

I started to push my knees underneath me, and I screamed. Pain like nothing I’d ever felt before ripped through me. I pressed my hands to my stomach and something squished between my fingers.

It was slimy and bloody and wasn’t supposed to be outside my body.

I didn’t want to know what that was.

Someone screamed, and it wasn’t me. A child. Two children. Both screaming. The sound went straight through my head. Stabbing stabbing stabbing…

Why wasn’t someone shutting them up?

I knew the answer to the question, but I didn’t want to think about it too hard. I didn’t want to know. But I knew. I knew. I knew.

Crunch, crunch, crunching…

Someone was walking toward me on the gravel. I was on my stomach, all those inside parts mixing with the dirt and stones in the driveway.

“Stupid girl.” Daddy grabbed my hair and yanked my head up. “I always hated you.”

“No, no. You didn’t. You loved me before the accident took you away.” My neck was hurting now, and I didn’t know why I could feel it over the pain from where I was torn apart. “You did.”

“I didn’t,” he said. “I pretended to want a sniveling little brat like you so your mom would stop bitching. I would’ve rather had a boy. Someone I could teach things to. Instead, I got you. I hate you. I wish I would’ve killed you along with your whore mother.”

“No!” I screamed at him. “No! That’s not true! You loved us once!”

“Never.” He twisted his hand in my hair. “I didn’t want you, and I didn’t want the new bastard she tried to convince me was mine.”

New bastard.

He’d killed them both.

Killed them.

Killed me.

Killed–

I jerked awake, my heart racing. I flipped on my light as I pushed myself up. I bent my knees and wrapped my arms around them. I’d had dozens of different nightmares over the years, but these were the ones that shook me the most.

Most people assumed that when a victim of a violent crime had nightmares, they were about the event itself or about the person who’d hurt us. I’d read accounts of people who’d lost loved ones in sudden, violent ways, and they often said that the worst dreams were the ones where their loved one was still alive. Weddings that would never happen. Grandchildren they’d never see.

For me, there were two types. The nightmares where my father told me that he’d never loved me, that the good memories I had were lies. The others were the dreams where my father had never been hurt, and that we were a family. My parents, me…and the baby she’d been six weeks pregnant with when she died.

Then there were the ones that were both, ones like tonight.

I hadn’t known about the baby at the time and hadn’t learned about him or her until many years had passed. Shortly after Anton’s death, I’d been cleaning up some of his things when I found a shoebox of items I’d never seen before.

Some had been things I hadn’t recognize, but I’d assumed they’d been important to him. There’d also been pictures of him and my mom, programs from graduations and funerals. Pressed flowers. Ticket stubs from more than half a dozen Broadway shows. Rent, Wicked, Phantom of the Opera. We’d gone to those three together. I didn’t know who he’d taken to the other ones.

And then I’d seen an envelope with my name on it. Inside had been clippings from a dozen or so news outlets, all the stories about my family. More than one of them had mentioned that my mother had been pregnant when she was murdered. One had an interview with a friend of hers that had shed some light on things.

My mom had been scared to tell my father about the baby. Apparently, he’d been accusing her of cheating on him on and off for months.

I couldn’t keep thinking about this, or it’d drive me crazy. Whenever I had a dream like this, I had to get up and get moving, find something to take my mind off the nightmare that had been my life.

Fortunately, I’d neglected enough basic housework that I’d be able to stay busy for a few hours. After that, I’d see where things stood.

I was halfway through washing up some dishes when my phone rang. My heart jumped, and I barely took the time to dry my hands before I grabbed it.

“Hello?”

The moment the robotic recording started up again, I cursed. It took all the restraint I possessed to set my phone down instead of throwing it against a wall.

That was it. I was done ignoring the issue and hoping it would go away. I needed my father to stop calling me. Blocking the number wouldn’t do any good. Unlike most people, I still had a landline. Ever since that night, I’d been terrified of being in a position where I needed help and couldn’t get it. Having a landline made me feel safer because it gave me two different ways to call out. If one wasn’t working, the other could still possibly work.

I could try talking to someone at the prison, but I doubted they’d restrict outgoing phone calls without a real reason, maybe not without a court order. Since I’d never let it get to the point of actually talking to him, I couldn’t claim he was threatening me. I had no clue why he was calling. It could’ve been to threaten me. Or yell at me. Or a dozen other reasons I couldn’t think of right now.

If I called the prison, I’d simply be a daughter not wanting to speak with her incarcerated father. Unless, of course, I wanted to explain that the reason I didn’t want to talk to my father was because I was one of his victims.

I needed someone else to reach out for me. I hated asking for help, but I hated more the sick feeling in my stomach when I thought of how many times I was going to hear the phone ring and wonder if it was him. I’d spent too much of my life dealing with the consequences of what happened that day. I finally felt like I was moving past it, and I couldn’t let his persistence change that.

Clay.

Clay worked at the FBI. He could contact the prison or whoever he needed to talk to, use his position. Even though the FBI had no jurisdiction over things like this, he could make it a personal favor.

I needed to talk to him.

Today.

“I’ll make some calls this afternoon,” Clay promised.

“You don’t have to rush,” I said as I set down what was left of my chicken sandwich. “Whenever you have the time.”

“I’m not letting that…man take one more moment of your life from you,” he insisted. His tone was even, but there was no hiding the fury in his eyes. “In fact, no more talking about him. Tell me about how things are going at Burkart Investigations.”

The knot in my stomach loosened, and I smiled. Clay would take care of things for me like the good friend he was, and I’d be able to focus on the rest of my life.