Two

Lincoln

I stared down at the white sheet that covered my father.

No, not my father. My father’s body.

My father was gone. He wasn’t under that sheet.

I turned away to look at anything else. The wall. The silent machines. My mother’s hunched form as she cried on my brother’s shoulder. She’d pushed me away moments after I arrived and continued clinging to him.

Somehow, I couldn’t stop myself from looking back at the sheet.

How can my father be gone? I’d seen him today. Hours ago. He’d been laughing with one of the interns, clapping him on the back for something the kid had done, and I’d been struck with a sharp stab of envy.

My father had never laughed and joked around with me when I was that age. I would have given anything to see that kind of approval on his face. Instead, I rarely saw his face at all. He was constantly traveling for business or working long hours.

He didn’t teach me to play catch. My tutor did. He never saw me score a touchdown in boarding school because he could never fit my games into his schedule. He wasn’t around to tell me about girls and sex and using condoms. My friends did, and then Commodore hammered it home when I was older. My father . . . was conspicuously absent from the memories of most of the important moments in my life.

I remembered the week before I’d found out I had to come back to Gable a couple of months ago. My father had flown out to New York City for a meeting, and we’d had dinner at one of my favorite places. He’d complimented my wine selection.

And then immediately hit on the waitress.

I pushed that memory away too, and stared at the sheet with silent regret until Commodore walked into the room. I didn’t know where he’d been, but water dripped from his rain jacket.

He looked at the sheet. Then at me. My mother. My brother. He crossed the room and sank into the chair beside my father’s covered body. I watched as he braced himself to lift the sheet. It was the first time I’d ever seen the old man’s hand tremble like that.

As soon as he saw my father’s face, Commodore’s eyes snapped shut and he dropped the fabric.

“How did this happen?” His voice was rough and quiet but grew stronger and more demanding. “How the hell did this happen?” The question echoed in the room and down the hall.

His head snapped around, his gaze scouring me, my brother, and my mother.

“We don’t know yet, sir,” I replied.

My grandfather’s jaw ticked. “I want answers now. My son is dead, and the Gables were involved. No one sleeps until someone tells me exactly how the hell this happened.”

I cringed as he said Gables, but thankfully the doctor stepped inside the room.

“Mr. Riscoff? Sir, I’m so sorry I wasn’t here when you arrived. I was with the man who arrived first on the scene. The police have finished interviewing him. If you’d like—”