Dad has spent the last two hours filling us in on the past fourteen years. My head is spinning with everything I am trying to process. The night he went missing, he believes Mum drugged his whiskey, and had one of Lance’s men come to take him. When he woke up, he was locked in what seemed to be a basement. Ironic how we both woke up to our worlds tipped upside down.

“What about Kyle?” Tanner directs his question to Dad as he holds my eye contact;I know he’s watching for any cracks to surface; knowing it’s the question I have been desperate to find an answer for all these years.

“Kyle came looking for me,” he sighs. “I caught a glimpse of them one night; him and Jesse. I knew they saw me but, dammit, I didn’t think he would come for me — he was so young. I can still hear his tortured voice; his screams — he fought so hard.” Dad stands and begins pacing the room. “I don’t know how long they beat him, but when they threw his limp body into the room they had me locked in, I knew he didn’t stand a chance. They left him there with me. They —” He drops to his knees, unable to string any more words together.

“It’s okay, Dad,” I soothe, kneeling down beside him. “There was nothing you could do.”

“She let them,” his voice getting louder; it has so much force I shuffle backwards. “She declined the autopsy and let it get swept under the carpet as a fucking hit and run!” Standing once again, he throws his arms in the air.

Tanner approaches with a short glass of amber liquid. Here, Warren, have a glass of whiskey, it’s not drugged this time. I shake off my inner thoughts that have no place here, why would I even think that right now?

Dad tips the liquid offering back in one go.

“Another?”

“No.” He shakes his head. “I think I might go for a walk to cool off.” His knuckles go white with the tension he’s holding onto the door handle with, “Meadow?” he says much more softly now.

“Yeah, Dad?”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t express my frustrations that way.”

I run into his arms. He stumbles back a step; it takes him a moment to gather his wits about him to return the gesture. We stand there for a moment, arms wrapped around each other before I release him. With his eyes trained on me, he slips his hands into his pockets in a relaxed manner, we smile at each other before he pulls his brows together, glancing down. Out of his pocket he pulls a phone. Jesse’s phone.