“June 2nd.. only daughter of a single dad.”

“Born on June 2nd. According to his Facebook posts for your last four birthdays, and your friend Kendal’s birthday post on instagram. You guys looked so cute in those old pictures. So young. You’ve grown up so much.”

“I wondered how important 0-6-0-2 would be to him. I wondered, would 0-6-0-2 be his front door code? Surely it couldn’t be so simple, but I had to test my theory.”

“So I waited, waited for old dad to get done with his 9-5, pull up past his chipped white picket fence. He should really have one of the neighborhood kiddos come by and touch that up… anyways past his fence into the driveway, up to the door and… 0-6-0-2! Happy Birthday Lily right! Every time you walk in the door, Happy birthday to you. The numbers were a little blurry through the binoculars but I knew what I was looking for. And I was right, but wait! What was that noise? As he opened the door, I heard a beeping and it didn’t seem to stop until a few seconds after he shut the door.”

He leaned down and lifted Lily’s head above the grass field she laid cold in so that he could bring her in close enough that he not have to raise his voice. Not that anyone would hear them out here.

“Is that an alarm system? Now! I got to wondering what could the code to the alarm be…”

“You don’t think?”

“Lily your father surely wouldn’t use the same code for the door as his alarm system? Right”

“Another theory to be tested.”

“When did I do it”

“Anytime during the forty hours any given week your father sat in that cubicle selling stock paper and you even more that you were off at school or with Jason who your father always thought was Nicole you slut!”

“Now that I have the code to the door I walked in. Broad daylight. That beeping is annoying let’s take care of that. 0-6-0-2”

He grabs Lily’s red splattered cheeks and pulls them back to make her blueing lips crest a smile.

“Alarm disengaged”

“Wow!”

“So I decided to make myself at home, his flat was tidy, I expected a mess based on how wrinkled he keeps his wardrobe but I guess not everything about your dad is worn on his sleeve. I found your room.. and took a few souvenirs from your top drawer. I found your dad’s room too, and I remembered him posting pictures at the shooting range. Where does he keep his pistol I wonder. In a four-digit combination locked safe tucked under his mattress”

“I wonder what code that takes?” He chuckled laying Lily’s head down in the grass field off the side of I-74. Her hand tipped with her blood falls beside her.

“People should really be more careful.” He muttered getting back into the car.

Danny thinks to himself as he gets out of his Toyota and starts toward the front door. Fourteen days have passed since the passing of my daughter. I can’t eat, I don’t want to. I feel empty.

He goes to punch his code into the door when he realizes his foot is brushed up against a package. Is his mind so worn from the past two weeks that he hadn’t noticed? Neighbors and friends were dropping of meals and baskets by the truckload but they stopped the past week. Everyone has moved on to their normal lives. That pissed him off, like his Lily was some trend to them all, his angel, but he was to tired to be mad at the world.

He bent down to the brown neatly wrapped box, and grabbed the small letter off the top. He opened the envelope, it smelled of glue as he broke the seal. And he pulled out a birthday card. The front covered in balloons and cake, and the inside… the card trembling in his hand read

“Thanks for the loan but it seems you need it more than me. I left a round for you.”

And written in small red ink in the corner, so small Danny almost did not notice “06/02”.

He dropped to his knees ripping at the box to reveal its contents. Stunned after opening the lid he sees his 1911 pistol, the silver peppered with red, and a Polaroid picture of his baby girl laying bleeding from her chest.

*bang*