Ugly As Sin Read Online Free PDF

time Melissa had seen for herself the grisly results of his encounter with Rebel Yell and One-Arm. Perhaps whatever was troubling her was so awful she barely recognized the extent of her father’s disfigurement. Or she simply did not care.
    Why the hell should she? Nick thought.
    She sat there staring at a cup of coffee in front of her as if it held the answers to all of her problems. A cigarette burned in an overflowing ashtray in the center of the table.
    She wore no makeup. Faint acne scars dotted her cheeks and forehead. Her dark brown hair looked as if she had last washed it weeks ago. Nick reached across the table, gently pushed several oily strands of it out of her face.
    She flinched when he touched her. But then she offered him a halfhearted smile. A smile that did not reach her eyes.
    “Melissa, tell me what’s going on.”
    She sniffled, turned to stare out the restaurant’s plate-glass window. Across the street sat the white-brick building that housed the adjacent offices of the Midnight Sun and the Polk County Sheriff’s Department. The way she looked at the latter made Nick think of a junkie gazing upon her next fix, if said fix was located on the opposite side of a bottomless rift.
    His big hands reached for hers. “Talk to me, girl. I’m here.”
    “You’ll never know how much this means to me.” She continued to stare out the window, and her pale reflection gazed back like a phantom voyeur eavesdropping on their awkward reunion. “Your coming here, I mean.”
    “It’s the least I could do,” said Nick.
    “I didn’t want to bother you, Daddy. But I didn’t know who else to call.”
    He shifted in his seat, and now he stared out the window with her. He cleared his throat again. “There is, um, one thing. Before we go any further.”
    “What?”
    “I was thinking...maybe you shouldn’t call me that. You know I don’t deserve it.”
    She took a drag off her cigarette. He noticed her fingernails were chewed down into the quick.
    “After all this time, it doesn’t feel right, does it?” he asked her. “I don’t mind if you call me Nick. I think that might be best.”
    She shrugged, exhaled a wisp of smoke from one side of her mouth. Her tone was slightly defiant, or perhaps she was simply too tired to argue. “I’m a big girl. It’s not a huge deal.”
    “Somebody who was there for you, did the things fathers are supposed to do, he deserves to be called Daddy. Not me. That fella your momma married, what’s his name again?”
    “Warren.”
    “He took care of you, when I was off acting like an asshole. You should call him Dad.”
    “Warren was a pervert. And he died in that car accident the year after Mom got cancer.”
    Nick would have winced if his ruined features allowed it. “I’m sorry.”
    They were both quiet for the next minute or two. Nick’s heart felt heavier than ever.
    The orange-haired waitress appeared before their table. “Did ya need to see a menu?” she asked Nick, although her eyes were glued to the order pad in her hand.
    “Nothing for me.”
    “Refill your coffee?”
    Nick’s daughter gave a barely perceptible shake of her head. She took one last drag off her cigarette, snubbed it out.
    “I’ll get your check, then.”
    The moment they were alone again, Melissa buried her face in her hands and started sobbing.
    Nick sensed the other customers watching them, but he couldn’t have cared less. He removed his sunglasses, looked into his daughter’s swollen red eyes. This time she allowed his giant hands to engulf her own.
    “I want to help you, Melissa, but I can’t do that unless you tell me what’s wrong.”
    “Somebody took her,” she cried. “They took my Sophie away, and I don’t know whether she’s alive or dead. For all I know she could be lying in a ditch somewhere, raped and...murdered. And it’s...all my fault...”
    “What are you talking about? Who is Sophie?”
    Melissa blew her nose into a handful of napkins before replying,