Page 56 of Burning Daylight

My spine straightens. I hadn’t expected him to agree so quickly.

I pull the phone away from my ear and look at it, making sure I’m talking to my actual father.

It can’t be this easy.

“How much is it worth to you to keep a dead man dead?” I squeeze my eyes shut, my heart thrumming loudly.

This time, there is a slight hesitation before he responds. “Are you sure everything’s all right?”

My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth.No.Nothing is all right.

“Everything’s fine,” I say.

“So, tell me why you need the money.”

My heart jolts. “It’s Brooklynn.”

Now the line goes completely silent, no noise except for the pounding in my ears.

He clears his throat, and then asks, “Is she okay?”

No.

“She’s… I don’t know how to help her,” I say, letting a piece of the truth leak out. “She needs meds and doctors. Better doctors. And I can’t?—”

There’re a few seconds of silence.

“She’s sick,” he deduces.

A heavy sensation settles in my gut. Some part of me always hoped he’d been keeping tabs all these years. I don’t know if it makes me feel better or worse to realize he hasn’t.

And yet…there’s something in his voice. A flicker of care I didn’t expect. Because why would he care about a girl who isn’t even his when he can’t be bothered to care about the son who is?

“And your mother?” he prompts.

I swallow, my throat thick. “She’s…not in a place to help.”

“God damnit, Heather,” he mutters, more to himself than to me. “Did she put you up to this? You shouldn’t let her manipulate you, Ryder. It’s what she’s always done; it’s what she’s good at.”

Defensiveness thrums inside of me, even though the tang of betrayal from my mom sits on my tongue like sludge. Sheismanipulating me, and she has been for years. It doesn’t change the fact, though, that I need money to help Brooklynn.

The thought of telling him that makes me want to throw up.

“Listen, I didn’t call to play a catch-up game of twenty questions,” I say. “You eithercanor youcan’t. I don’t want to waste time if you’re not going to help me.”

A slight chuckle pours through the line. “You sound just like me at your age. Stubborn as shit.”

His words hit me low, just beneath my heart.

I want to scream that I’m nothing like him. But I swallow it down, letting it scrape against my throat like knives instead.

“Then you let him know we’ll stop playing dead.”My mom’s words float through my memory.

“Listen, if you don’t help her, then I’ll be forced to come visit with all my secrets, ones I’m sure you’ve spent a lot of time ensuring stay buried.”

The words taste acidic as I spew them. But I guess the truth is always a hard pill to swallow.

“Are you threatening me?” His question skates across the air like ice.