Charlie. Josh’s old friend.
***
Somehow, Josh and Jessie managed to stay together that night at Jessie’s place. They made dinner together and she stopped smoking and drinking, and then they snuggled up and watched an old Nora Ephron movie starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. They hardly spoke. She avoided his eyes as much as possible, but he felt her watching him more than the film, and he responded when she traced his chin and played with his hair and kissed his neck so tenderly that he wondered if he’d only wished it, and not really felt her soft lips nuzzling his skin.
Three quarters of the way through the film, his arm around her and a blanket over their laps, he felt her even breathing and was glad that she finally slept, although he doubted it would be for long, if her patterns over the last few weeks were any indication.
“Jessie,” he whispered. “Little one. Come back to me.”
An hour later he drifted off as well. They slept on the couch until five a.m. when another horrific nightmare woke Jessie with a start. This time, instead of running away she stayed nestled in his arms and sobbed endlessly, to his utter terror and confusion. He whispered to her and rubbed her back, touched her cheek and kissed her tenderly. Their intimate touches escalated, igniting a deep burning within, and they made love, which calmed her for a time. Together they slept a little more there on the couch, because they were too afraid of impending endings to change the dynamic. Later, she forced herself to get up and pull away from him, although they showered together before going off in separate vehicles to join the others for brunch at Jethro’s in Dunbar.
Jessie excused herself early in order to get caught up before dance rehearsal since she’d skipped out the day before, but it was everything she had in her to leave Josh’s side. He walked her to the door of the popular diner, and then they wrapped their arms around each other and held on for dear life before she steeled herself and left him there, hands in his pockets, watching as she drove away.
He went back inside the busy dining room and dropped into his chair.
“Okay,” he said to the others, interrupting a hearty conversation about the potential storyline for season three. He looked at Steve. “Call Charlie. We need to talk. My place. Now.”
Silence.
Then Steve pulled out his phone and texted Charlie, who happened to be in town and so responded right away. They paid their brunch bills, drove to Josh’s where the shrubs were shorter and new motion sensor lights were already in place, and they held their first meeting of many where the main subject of conversation was Jessie Wheeler.
***
Charlie showed up with a big box of Tim Horton donuts, curious as to why the close group of friends had beckoned him. He set the box unceremoniously down on the coffee table and plopped down beside Maggie on the leather sofa in Josh’s media room. He looked around - the Drifters gang was all there, even petite blonde Sophie, around whose shoulders Steve’s arm was draped possessively.
Usually in control but this time giving away his nerves by pocketing and un-pocketing his hands, Charlie opened the conversation.
“What’s the deal, then? I know from Charles and Dee that Jessie’s sick. You guys are freaking me out by calling me here. Is she okay?”
“You tell us,” Steve said in response. Josh remained quiet as Steve filled Charlie in on Jessie’s strange behavior the night of the Agassiz season opener, and her downward spiral and withdrawal from everyone since.
Charlie wrinkled his forehead and leaned forward. “So the only thing that doesn’t fit here is how sudden this came about. Otherwise you think – Josh - that she’s upset about the public’s response to you?”
Carter growled. “No need to gloat, Charlie.”
Charlie threw his hands up in surrender. “I’m not gloating. I’m worried. The only time I ever knew Jessie withdrawn like that was when I met her. It took her a few years to chill out, period.”
“It took her a while to warm up to us, too,” Maggie added helpfully. Charlie smiled gratefully at her. The last thing he wanted was to be ambushed by Jessie’s new pals.
Josh finally spoke up. He looked questioningly at Charlie. “Did she ever tell you what happened in Charleston?”
Charlie reached out and seized a filled donut from the box. He licked the white sugar off his fingers before he spoke. I’m an ass, he told himself. He hadn’t really tried to find out what happened in Jessie’s life before he met her. He looked up at Josh.
“No,” he said. “But Josh, I just accepted her without question. I knew bad shit had come her way, but we were all about just hanging out from day to day, from film to film or show to show. It was party land, you know? I didn’t want to bring up bad memories and change our dynamic. It was stupid of me. I expect it’s also part of why I lost her - we weren’t really connected.”
He took a bite of the donut, licked a few more fingers, and then risked asking a big question. It would hurt if Jessie had opened up to Josh. He swallowed. “What about you? Has she ever told you anything?”
“No,” Josh said. “But she cries in her sleep.”
Charlie nodded, humbled. “She’s cried in her sleep as long as I’ve known her, Sawyer.”
“Sucks,” Josh mumbled, squeezing his bottom lip worriedly with his thumb and forefinger. “It had been getting better until these last few weeks, though.” He looked down at his feet. “Maybe it is just all this crap that’s going down.”
Sue-Lyn, sitting on the opposite couch with her legs crossed under her, one arm leaning on a crooked elbow, tossed in tenderly, “Honey, Jessie is crazy about you. She couldn’t keep herself from touching you at brunch.”
“She’s a cling-on,” Sophie threw in helpfully. Steve grinned and gave her a hug.
“She’s not going to give up on you because of a few assholes,” Carter said, his shoulder length raven hair framing his high cheekbones attractively. But he, like the others, was surprised to hear about Jessie’s night terrors. It broke his heart.
“A lot of assholes,” Josh muttered, eyes downcast.
Charlie jumped in, his donut consumed in three big bites. “Josh, Jessie is a big girl. She doesn’t concern herself with fame the way that some of us do. Okay, me. The way I do. Carter’s right. She’s a fighter. She won’t let them get to her.” He added, “Is that why you called me here? To get an opinion on whether Jessie will crack under all this pressure? That almost does make me want to gloat, but…”
Maggie elbowed him.
He leaned forward, his eyes morphing from their usual playful shade to one with decidedly darker flecks. “Seriously, though, I miss the hell out of her, but it’s obvious she’s in love with you. I know I’ve lost. So what is it you really want to ask me?”
The room was quiet with the exception of the odd muffled movement.
Meeting Charlie’s eyes for the first time, Josh spoke. “Charlie,” he said. “It’s like a light went out in her eyes when she saw the knife by the truck yesterday. All four tires were slashed, and it must have happened just after she left for rehearsal because I left, like, fifteen minutes after she did. So whatever asshole did that, he was likely watching her. It scares the shit out of me to think what he could have done. Maybe that’s what’s going through her head today. She wouldn’t take my calls or answer my texts yesterday. Then when she finally let me into her place, she had a fucking ashtray full of cigarettes and had been drinking all afternoon.”
Josh couldn’t sit still. His anxiety was increasing as he spoke. He jumped up and paced the room. “Then she told me she didn’t know whether she could do this - us. I get the fear, but I guess what I want to know from you is whether this has happened before. Like - I’m thinking maybe there’s more to this than just assholes who like you better than me. I’m thinking that she recognized that fucking dagger, and that we need to get Matt on this. He’s got the tools to really investigate this. Maybe he can figure shit out before something really nasty happens.”
“Like what?” Charlie asked, not unk
indly. “Like she dumps your stupid ass?”
“Charlie,” Maggie chided.
“No,” Josh said. “Like someone hurts her.”
They were quiet as they took in the implications of that simple phrase.
He continued. “Maybe that knife was a message.”
“It was obviously a fucking message,” Steve said, removing his arm from Sophie’s shoulders and taking her hand instead.
“The thing is, Josh,” Charlie spoke up tentatively, leaning further forward, placing his elbows on his thighs. “If you’re asking me to go to Charles and Dee on your behalf, then you’d likely better be prepared for the third degree yourself. You know what Dee thinks.”
“Yes, I fucking know what Dee thinks. But I wouldn’t hurt Jessie. I would never lay a finger on her! But I’m afraid that someone is planning to.”
Slowly, Charlie stood and faced Josh. Steve shot a look of warning to Carter, silently asking him to be prepared to jump up and break up a fight should the need arise.
“You ass,” Charlie grumbled. “What makes you think any of us believe that you wouldn’t hurt her? Maybe you slashed your own damn tires. Maybe you’re just covering your own fucking tracks.”
They stared icily at each other for a few moments before Josh responded.
“She’s everything to me, Charlie. And that’s why I called you here. Because I know that despite all the shit that went down, she’s still everything to you, too. “
And that was the moment when Charlie realized that Josh would indeed never hurt Jessie. Because he cared about her so much - and was so scared for her, for them - that he called in her ex-fiancé. He was admitting that he needed help, that he was seriously worried about Jessie, and that he would have to rely on people who were not necessarily on his side to help him. He was almost begging, and Charlie would have enjoyed that, had he not seen the deep fear in Josh’s eyes.
Charlie nodded and picked up the box of donuts. He held it out to the others. “Want some more?” he asked. At their negative responses, he tucked the box under his arm. “Alright then. I’m off to North Van. Dee invited me for dinner.”
He let that sink in, and Josh almost bent over as a sharp pain assaulted his stomach. Would Dee ever accept him? Then his cell beeped, and he instinctively looked down to see if it was Jessie. It wasn’t. It was Kayla, texting from rehearsal.
Jessie with you? one hour late for rehearsal get out of the bedroom and get her here Priya having a fit
As the impact of the text sank in, the color drained from his face. He offered the phone to Charlie, who took it and stared hard at the message. When he gave the phone back to Josh, he was also pale.
“Okay,” he said. “Something’s fucked up. In eight years, I’ve never known Jessie to miss rehearsal.”
He stepped over Carter’s long legs and waved goodbye as he made a hasty exit, calling behind him, “I’ll talk to Charles. We’ll get Matt on it.”
The matriarch of the bunch, Maggie, stood up and hugged Josh. “Hey,” she encouraged him, a calming voice of hope in the wilderness. “She’s got every right to be scared. Maybe Dee can wave her magic wand and get some positive PR going, now that she knows how much this bullying you is hurting Jessie.”
“And if it’s more than just some psycho fan who can’t stand me?” Josh implored her, the luster in his eyes fading from their usual liquid brown.
Maggie rested a cool palm on his cheek. “One day at a time, honey. Go find Jessie and hold her close and tell her you love her; maybe she’ll open up to you. Then we can all solve this together.”
They chatted a while longer about the fears they all shared. What if this psycho found his - or her - way onto the Drifters set? Steve assured them that Charles had ordered increased security on the set, which relaxed them a little. But it was sobering, the idea that any of them could be at risk.
At home, where she’d gone in order to do some Internet research, thinking she’d just be a little late for rehearsal, Jessie would have been mortified to know how scared her friends were. This was what she was trying to avoid. This was why she was dealing with Deuce on her own. This was the reason she was on the Internet.
She had typed in stalkers and, in doing so, sufficiently scared the crap out of herself even more. She read stories of the damage done by celebrity stalkers, including the deaths of famous stars like her hero John Lennon, who had been ruthlessly gunned down outside his home in New York. She read about the different kinds of stalkers, such as rejected stalkers, who pursue their victims in order to reverse, correct, or avenge a rejection. She figured rightly that this was a good definition of Deuce McCall, a man who thought he had been wronged because she’d left his employ and thus caused him financial damage. The other types of stalkers - resentful, those who pursue a vendetta because of a sense of grievance against the victim; intimacy seekers, who seek to establish an intimate, loving relationship with the victim whom they consider a long sought after soul mate; incompetent suitors with a fixation or sense of entitlement to an intimate relationship with those who have attracted their amorous interest; and predatory stalkers who spy on the victim and plan a sexual attack on the victim; were all horrifying. And perhaps Deuce had some qualities of each. But over and above all, the stalkers were all described as delusional, on some level. Psychotic. And Deuce was, indeed, that.
Jessie took down notes about how to deal with her stalker. In some way, she found this empowering. It gave her a better understanding of the man she was dealing with, although it terrorized her even more about wanting to protect Josh from McCall, a man who was likely beyond capable of any sort of reasoning. The most important thing that came out of the research was the advice to keep detailed notes on any communications about what Jessie experienced in relation to Deuce, and in relation to what he did to her and when. A diary, of sorts. Jessie started one that afternoon. She had a quaint old leather notebook that Charlie’s mother Lydia had once given her as part of a Christmas gift. Jessie hated to tarnish it with such a terrifying, methodical journal, but it was all she had at hand. She wrote down the date McCall had shown up at Agassiz and then she described where he was standing in the photograph, as well as his gesture. She then described exactly how close he was to Josh. She continued her entries with yesterday’s date and the meeting with McCall on the dirt road, and described the knife that had slashed Josh’s tires. She noted that she was familiar with the knife, as she had seen it up close in Charleston.
Finally, Jessie tucked the notebook between her mattress and box spring, and then she did a web search for handling instructions on the gun that she was scheduled to pick up from Arnie today at five. After all, what was the point in having a gun if she didn’t know how to use it?
By the time she was done it was three o’clock and her phone had been buzzing incessantly. But she was driven. She had to deal with this shit.
She threw on a pair of black Lululemon dance pants and ran for the door. At least she would get about an hour in at rehearsal, unless Priya decided to growl at her for the whole hour, in which case she’d tell her to fuck off and she’d leave. Jessie wasn’t fooling around anymore. No more nice Jessie Wheeler. She was on a mission called survival, and it would be the difference between sharing this planet and her life with the man she loved, or giving up and calling it a day, period.
She texted Josh from the elevator.
Yeah I am running late going now
She didn’t offer any excuses.
Jessie jumped in the Mustang and shoved the gas pedal down.
A black Ford Fusion pulled out behind her and followed her to rehearsal. He wouldn’t touch her, for now. She would be more agreeable if he gave her the two weeks he’d promised. But Deuce was still ascertaining her patterns, so he did a lot of watching these days.
He kept a respectful distance. Deuce McCall was a reasonable man, after all.
***
Chapter Thirteen
The next two weeks found Jessie busy trying to finish off her oblig
ations to Drifters as well as rehearse on weekends. She was also swamped working with Dee and the rest of the team on her music and on the various events she was scheduled to perform locally, nationally and internationally. Jessie’s one-on-one time with Josh was limited, which made it easier to pull away from him. She continued to smoke - although she did it with the Drifters technical crew, away from her friends - for no other reason than just to create another version of herself, to separate herself further. In the evenings she either went to Dee’s to plan and hide, or to an out of town gun range, where Arnie gave her a few basic lessons on the NAA Guardian pistol she’d picked up from him.
She spent select nights with Josh at his place and allowed herself to just be with him, to make love and to cherish him and to miss him. She prayed she could some day salvage their relationship, that he would accept her explanations. But right now the priority was to simply save his life.
On Wednesday of that first week, Charlie sat down at the meeting he’d planned with Charles at their dinner the previous Sunday. Matt was also present. As the head of Charles’ security, he would be key to figuring out what was going on with Jessie. He had been with her from the beginning, and knew her as well as she’d let anyone get to know her. Matt was often frustrated with Jessie’s disregard for his policies and protocols; he called her his wild child when his pretty wife Julie asked about his day job. A fitness fanatic, forty-five-year-old Matt was trim and fit, although he made a point of hiding his rather perfect physique under blazers and long sleeved button down shirts. His short black hair was spiked with gel, and his wife often teased him about needing to have each strand in perfect order before he’d leave the house. Matt was a man of order and discipline. An ex-RCMP officer, he was well versed in Canadian Criminal Law, and dedicated his life to stability and orderliness.
Promises Page 14
