Book 9 - Page 56 (1/2)

When I got back to the table, she was wriggling in her seat like a puppy, like she was about to lead me to a boy trapped in a well.

“What is it, La.s.sie?” I asked.

“I found him,” she said excitedly.

I don’t know what expression came on my face. Probably fear.

“Timmy O’ Toole?”

“No,” she said, holding up a napkin with writing scribbled on it. “Your father. He’s in Queens.”

I tugged at my eyebrow ring. “Interesting. Are you sure?”

“Dex,” she huffed out in annoyance, getting to her feet. “You’re the one who wanted to hunt him down. We’ll we hunted him. Or I did. He’s in Queens. I found him first in the paper for winning a regatta off of Long Island. Then I traced him through the online phone book. He looks, well, he looks like you, Dex. Or at least you when you’re older. Do you want to see?”

I didn’t think she could tell any better than I could about whether the guy looked like my father or not but before I could say anything, she was pulling an article up on the iPad.

And there was picture of Curtis O’Shea. My father. He hadn’t even bothered to change his name.

I frowned, trying to feel something between me and the pixelated face staring from the screen. I don’t know if I felt anything, though I had to say there was some resemblance between me and him and more than that, well, it was him. I may have been a teenager when he left, but he was in his forties. Now he was in his sixties and the aging process had been kind to him.

He had salt and pepper hair, but it was still thick and worn parted on the side. His face looked saggy but his eyes were dark and sharp, framed by impressive eyebrows. He could have given Jack Nicholson a run for his money.

It was my dad.

I rubbed my lips together and looked away. Okay, maybe this wasn’t a good idea right now.

“Hey,” Perry said, hand on my forearm. “Let’s just forget about it. You know he’s alive. He’s out there. And if you want to say h.e.l.lo one day you have that option. But you don’t owe him, or me, or yourself, anything.”

I nodded and sighed. I knew all of that. “Let’s do it.”

She studied me for a moment, perhaps trying to figure out if I was in fact Dex Foray and not someone else. I couldn’t blame her.

“Let’s do it,” I repeated, putting my hand on her shoulder and squeezing it. “Let’s go meet my dad.”

She gave me a small but supportive smile and nodded her head. We left without talking, the air heavy around us as we navigated the subway system that I still knew like the back of my hand. The closer we got to Queens the more she started to wriggle around again. It was so f**king cute. I would have banged her in the nearest disgusting washroom if we weren’t about to find my father.

It wasn’t long until we were walking down the street that she had mapped out for us. It was a nice neighborhood. Not as posh as the one on the upper east side, but it was one of the nicer ones in Queens and the townhouses and duplexes would have fetched a lot of money.