Page 48 of All He Sees
Nicky shook her head. "We'll talk back at the precinct, Mr. Medina. You sleep off all that alcohol."
Charles laughed. "You're talking like I'm drunk. Guess again."
"I don't--"
"I'm not drunk," Charles said. "I'm drunk with power."
"Uh, yeah," Nicky said. "We already knew that."
Charles smiled, his eyes rolling back in his head. "You think I'm a bad guy, Nicky, don't you? I know what you think. That's why you came down here to interrogate me, right? To drag me away in cuffs, right? Well, you're wrong."
"Mr. Medina," Ken said, "we're just here to get the truth. That's all."
Charles shook his head. "No, it's not," he said, dragging a finger across his throat. "You think I'm a bad guy. You think I'm evil. You think I'm the bad guy, right?"
"You're not taking this seriously, Medina," Nicky said. "Do you want to tell us anything? Anything at all?"
Charles laughed. "Worried I don't take it seriously? You think I don't take this seriously?" He looked at Nicky. "You think I don't take it seriously, right? Tell me..." His eyes lulled shut as he passed out again.
Nicky looked at Ken and sighed. This guy was a wreck.
She just hoped she'd be able to get answers out of him.
As the helicopter flew over the endless blue sea, Nicky relaxed back in the seat of the helicopter. It seemed like lately, every time she had a moment to herself, all she could think about was her father.
Felix Anderson had put him back in her mind.
Nicky didn't have many good memories of her drunk, deadbeat father. But she did have one.
One good memory.
It was the year Nicky had turned seven, when her father decided that he'd change his ways. He was sick of being a deadbeat, sick of being drunk, sick of everything he'd been doing.
The car ride was long, full of nothing but silence. The only sound was the hum of the radio and the occasional gasping sob of her father.
Nicky's father was a lot of things, but the two emotions he exhibited more than any other were sadness and fear. That's what he was on that car ride: sad and scared. Nicky had never seen her father this way. Never. It was hard for her to admit, but if nothing else, she loved her father. She didn't want him to be sad and scared.
When she asked if he was okay, he shook his head. He was okay. He was okay, and he was going to be okay.
But Nicky knew he wouldn't be.
His father had just died. Nicky was young. She didn't fully grasp the concept of death yet.
But as they were driving, her dad looked at her and said, "Nicky, life is short. You have to cherish what you have in the moment, because someday it'll be gone."
That memory stuck with Nicky, but it also made her mad, because after that, her father ended up hitting the bottle more. She remembered he was sober for a bit, trying to be a better man, but it didn't last long.
He went right back to his old ways.
Nicky looked at Charles Medina, passed out on the seat of the helicopter. She thought of his son, Chad, and wondered if he ever felt like Nicky did.
Drunk dads. Dead moms. It seemed Nicky had a few things in common with this Chad guy. But of course, Charles was a billionaire, so Nicky was sure Chad was living a very different life from hers.
Charles snored and stirred. Alcoholics were tough to deal with when they were sober, but when they were drunk, they were even more unpredictable. She didn't know what Charles would do when he woke up.
She'd already made the decision that the best option was to wait it out. As much as Nicky wanted to get answers from Charles, she wanted to get them on her terms and not by tripping him up.
The helicopter flew through the air, carrying her and her colleagues farther and farther away from Charles Medina's home. She could still see it, but it was being swallowed by the ocean.
