“Mr. Caldwell, it wasn’t me. I never called you. I didn’t know about Addie and I didn’t know about some secret pass code,” Gregory was near to whining and Reese thought she might scream if he didn’t shut up.

“Gregory, we know it wasn’t you,” she snapped.

“How do you know it wasn’t him, Reese?” Her dad asked in an accusatory tone. He crossed his arms over his chest, jacket flopping. A bottle of pills spilled from the side pocket and bounced on the tile floor. Both father and daughter reached for the bottle. Reese grabbed them with the intention of handing them back to her dad, but she glanced at the label, expecting to see something like high blood pressure medication. She didn’t recognize the name of the medicine.

Her father reached out and in a quick, smooth move, snatched them from Reese.

“What are those?” Reese asked. She was curious and definitely intrigued by her father’s swift grab.

“Nothing.” Mr. Caldwell shoved the bottle back into the pocket of his jacket and then walked to the kitchen table where he draped the jacket over the back of a chair.

Reese followed her father’s movements. “Dad, what are you taking?”

“Nothing, Reese.” He smiled weakly.

“Dad, what is Zyprexa?” Reese saw Paul’s expression change from curiosity to surprise. He quickly covered his mouth with his hand and drew down on his lip like he was in deep thought.

Mr. Caldwell jerked his head in Paul’s direction. Paul peered up at Mr. Caldwell with his hand still tugging on his bottom lip.

Reese watched the two men exchange looks. “What is it? Are you dying or something?”

Mr. Caldwell broke the stare between him and Paul. He coyly shook his head. Reese waited for her father to say something, but no words came out of his mouth. She looked at Paul. “Paul? You know what it is, don’t you?”

He nodded as Mr. Caldwell slumped into the chair with his jacket hanging over it. He looked at Paul and gave a defeated expression. “Go ahead, tell her.”

“You should tell her yourself, Mr. Caldwell.”

“Will you stop calling me Mr. Caldwell? It’s Landon.” Reese’s father looked up at his daughter. She walked closer to him and he reached out for her fingers. He sandwiched them lightly between cool, soft hands.

Reese allowed the sweet gesture because she was waiting to hear about some god awful disease which was ravaging her father. She had prayed so many times as a teenager for her father to get hit by a bus or have a heart attack in his sleep, especially once he moved out, leaving her to tend to her drunken sick mother alone. But now as she waited to hear his end was near, she found herself praying that he wasn’t dying.

“Reese, honey, it’s an antipsychotic.”

The word didn’t compute in her brain. It didn’t make sense. He couldn’t be psychotic. That’s what antipsychotics were for, right? Psychotics? Crazy people? Scary, crazy people?

“Don’t look so alarm, Reese.” Mr. Caldwell patted her hand. “I take them for hallucinations and I haven’t had one in years, decades even.”

“Hallucinations? What kind of hallucinations?” She gently pried her hand out from her father’s weak grip. “Does Heather know?” Reese had no idea where that question came from.

Her dad looked perplexed. “Heather? Why would Heather know?”

“I don’t know, maybe because she had your baby and she should know the father of her child is on antipsychotics.”

“Reese, honey, I just found out about Addie a couple of weeks ago. I know it’s a shock. It’s a shock for me too.”

Reese sighed angrily. “Whatever possessed you to have sex with my best friend anyway?”

“She wasn’t your best friend anymore Reese.” Mr. Caldwell was compassionate in manner which only elevated Reese’s level of anger. She felt her face heat up and clenched her knuckles into tight fists by her sides.

Gregory slipped into a chair and propped his elbows on the table after pushing Paul’s black bag away from the edge. He placed his chin into his tented fingers and watched on as if he was in front of an interesting TV show.

Reese snapped her head in Gregory’s direction. She raised her arm and pointed to the back door. “Gregory! Go find Mom and Addie.”

He rose as quickly as an obedient child being reprimanded. But at the back door he stopped and turned to look at Reese. “I’m here if you need me, Reese.” He didn’t wait for her reply but squeezed through the slight gap he opened.

“Reese, you need to calm down,” Mr. Caldwell sounded like a father who had participated in her upbringing.

She rolled her eyes and circumvented the table so she was across from her father. She could feel Paul watching her movements as he backed up to the stove where he leaned against it. Just enough space to give them the illusion they were alone. She pulled the chair away from the table and turned it so the back was facing the table. She straddled the chair and sized her father up and down.

“What kind of hallucinations do you have?” She asked pointedly.

Landon Caldwell stared at his daughter for a few seconds. He shifted in his chair like he wasn’t comfortable. He fidgeted and looked away, eyes darting here and there until finally they rested on one of the white pillar candles. He reached out and scraped the wax with a thumbnail.

Reese was about to prompt him to speak when he said, “Remember that night you tried to kill yourself?”

Reese ignored Paul’s abrupt posture erection. “Yes.” Her voice was low, embarrassed by the memory of her weakness.

“I was in the den asleep on the sofa. Sound asleep when I woke up to screaming. Loud screaming.”

Reese waited. Mr. Caldwell dug deep into the candle and watched transfixed as a perfect curl of wax folded on its self until it flopped onto the tabletop in a squiggly translucent stripe.

“It was Luke’s voice. He screamed at me to wake up. He just kept saying it over and over again. I tried covering my ears with a pillow. I told him to shut up. When I couldn’t take it anymore, I got up to go to the bathroom. And that’s when I found you.”

Reese stole a glance at Paul. He nodded ever so slightly.

“Dad, he saved my life. Why didn’t you ever tell me this before?”

He shook his head. “I didn’t want you to know I was losing my mind. After that, I heard him other times. I was slowly going crazy. Hearing his voice was chipping away at my sanity. That’s when I went to see my doctor and he referred me to a specialist in losses. The doctor said it wasn’t uncommon to have a psychotic break when under undo stress. After several weeks of no improvement, she started me on meds. Not these.” Landon tapped the side of his jacket. “They didn’t work that well. I still heard Luke in my head. That’s when I decided I needed to move out. The doctor switched my meds and the voice stopped.”

Reese narrowed her eyes. “You’ve been on meds since then? That seems a bit extreme. Wouldn’t she have taken you off the meds when the symptoms subsided?”

“Oh, she did. This is a new prescription. I started hallucinating again a couple of weeks ago. I didn’t think they were working because I kept hearing Luke, but then suddenly a couple of days ago, his voice stopped. So I guess the meds just took a while to work.”

Reese looked over at Paul again. He pushed off the stove and walked over to Mr. Caldwell. Paul placed a hand on his shoulder. “Mr. Caldwell, when Luke started to talk to you recently, what did he say?”

Mr. Caldwell shrugged. “What difference does it make? It’s not like it was Luke. It was me hallucinating again. I guess something probably triggered the episodes but I can’t figure out what that trigger is.”

Reese hesitated for a second and then said, “Did you know Mr. Albreck’s body was discovered a couple of weeks ago?” Reese watched as the color drained from her father’s face. He was ashen within seconds of the words leaving her lips.

Mr. Caldwell slid his hands across the table so he grabbed at his loose biceps. He squeezed until his knuckles went white.

“Apparently he was shot. Years ago.” Reese continued to watch her father’s expression as he cringed at her words. “Do you know anything about his death, Dad?”

Tears welled up in Mr. Caldwell’s eyes. He fidgeted some more, squirming like a kindergartener needing to rush to the toilet.

Reese leaned over as far as the chair would allow and outstretched her hand. “Dad? Do you know who killed Mr. Albreck?” She said it softly but firmly.

Paul removed his hand from Landon’s shoulder and walked to the back door and peered out through the window.

“Dad? Did you shoot Mr. Albreck?” Reese said.

Her father lowered his head and started to cry.

“Dad?” Reese wiggled her fingers on the table. “Dad? Did you kill Mr. Albreck?”

Mr. Caldwell nodded furiously and grabbed Reese’s hand. With his other hand, he covered his eyes while his body pumped in heaving spasms.

“Reese?” Paul said while still looking out the back door.

She ignored him. She needed to keep talking with her dad. She needed to find out why he killed Mr. Albreck. But before she could ask any more questions, Paul said in a concerned voice, “Reese, where is your mom? And Addie and Gregory?”

Reese looked at her dad and then up to Paul. “Maybe they walked around to the front of the house. Reese tightened her grip on her father’s hand and he cried harder.

Paul breezed by father and daughter to the living room and seconds later called out, “My car is gone!”