Promises

by Susan Rodgers

  She spied the pistol under her bed where she’d tucked it for safekeeping behind a spare pillow. It was time. In fact, it was way past time. With her left hand, she reached for it, but it lay just beyond her fingertips. She stretched and inched forward and almost had it, but then he kicked her and with a cry she instantly coiled up like a snake. She wanted to try again but the pain was overwhelming, and it took her a few minutes to attempt another reach. This time she fought the pain and like a lightning flash she whipped out and grabbed the weapon, but he stamped his booted foot down hard on her wrist before she could use it. She screamed in humiliation, frustration and pain as he twisted his foot around, and then she saw her last hope wither and die as McCall bent and retrieved the gun. He pocketed it.

  “Was this to be used on me? Or on you?” he demanded too calmly, his breathing heavy and labored with the exertion of his temper and sudden high blood pressure.

  Jessie laid her head on her good wrist and sobbed. This was too much. One golden hour with Josh was all that the universe gave her. One. It provided enough fuel to briefly rekindle her fire, her desire to defeat this madman once and for all. The touch of Josh’s skin on hers - the spicy, earthy scent of him - it was a heady cocktail. That’s why she had gone for the gun, finally. She felt she had no recourse left. She might die here tonight under the misguided power of Deuce’s fist. But she had failed miserably. She reached for it, for him. Yes. She wanted to kill herself, to end this.

  Deuce ignored her plea and then told her exactly how she pissed him off as he kicked Jessie and threw her around the room for the next fifteen minutes. Every second word was Josh. Deuce raged about the song, the way she stared into the audience - you knew exactly where he was sitting, didn’t you - the way she navigated towards Josh at the after party. The way she touched him, hugged him, held him, whispered to him. And Deuce left after only fifteen minutes of watching her with him. What happened afterwards? Did they fuck in a bathroom somewhere? Or in her dressing room, perhaps? The thought of what he saw and imagined incensed Deuce beyond all reason.

  “I will kill him, Jessie,” he screamed at her. “I will kill him!” And she could hear the knife again as it entered Sandy’s chest - thwunk, thwunk, thwunk, thwunk, thwunk, thwunk.

  Heartlessly, fired by a blinding white rage, Deuce dragged Jessie’s broken body up and forced her belly down on the bed so that her legs hung off the side. In a few fluid motions he had her jeans down around her beloved boots. He ripped her underwear and left it shredded on the hardwood floor, then he unzipped his pants and forced himself inside her. It was only a few minutes, but it was painful and rough and was a message about whom she belonged to, about who called the shots for Jessie Wheeler.

  By the time he kicked Jessie around a little more and then finished with her and left her bleeding and barely conscious on the floor, he had calmed down somewhat, yet he felt no remorse. As far as Deuce was concerned, Jessie was his property, plain and simple. He could do whatever he wanted with - or to - her.

  Breathing hard from the exertion and adrenaline, Deuce took the long way down, via the emergency stairs. He veered out a back door, a hoodie over his face, avoiding security cameras. He knew Matt would be out there, slunk down hiding in the car. What he didn’t know was that Josh was out there wandering around, too, and that Matt had an eye on the actor’s empty pick-up.

  Josh was feeling lonesome after time in Jessie’s company. He just needed to be close to her. But he picked a bad time to park at her building in the middle of the night and wander around. He didn’t see Deuce leave, nor did Matt. But Matt did see Josh climb into his pick-up at 3:11 a.m. Eyebrows raised, the Keating’s security chief noted the time and took some photos. Not much wonder Jessie didn’t want Matt to drive her home earlier. She had a date with someone not many people approved of, someone they all hoped she had long forgotten about. Hmmmm.

  Matt settled back into the Audi’s roomy leather seat after Josh left, listened to some heavy metal station which he hated but which kept him awake and then, at four a.m. was relieved by Dan, a burly blonde Scandinavian in a Mercedes.

  He went home to Julie and bed until nine, and then got up to shower, shave and make teddy bear shaped pancakes for his young daughter.

  Later that morning, Matt kissed his wife and daughter and went back to work. Jessie had a matinee that afternoon.

  It would be another long day.

  ***

  Chapter Seventeen

  Whenever possible, depending on Jessie’s schedule, Saturdays were lazy mornings that commenced with strawberry rhubarb yogurt and French vanilla granola, highlighted by a quick trip to Rebel on a Mountain for a flat white or a latte. Sometimes Jessie even indulged in a mocha, depending on her mood. The barista, Chris, teased her relentlessly on mocha days. He was a diehard barista who believed in brewing the perfect cuppa joe. On mocha days he always asked Jessie if she wanted coffee with her chocolate, since he rightly thought the espresso was a complete loss when one drowned it in syrup. He would miss her this morning, but as Jessie stood in front of the mirror and inspected her battered body, she supposed the friendly barista would grant her this one absence based on the fact that she was between shows. But oh how she craved the comforting texture and taste of espresso on this crazy morning. She didn’t know what made her feel worse, the nausea and headache from the Jim Beam, or the beating she’d suffered. She contemplated calling Matt and asking him to bring her a coffee. She knew he would, but she also had some foggy memory of screaming at him at the arena. No, it would not do to call Matt, for more reasons than one.

  Fuck that Deuce, she screamed inwardly. Fuck him. Jessie felt like she was losing her mind, her tenacious grip on reality. She was slipping away.

  Her wrist was likely broken. That would hurt when she danced. For certain at least two ribs were cracked or broken as well. Her cheek was desperately bruised and sore. It hurt to breathe.

  Jessie ran some warm bathwater and sat in the tub for a long while, ignoring her phone, which she could hear faintly beeping and ringing somewhere off in the distance. She sponged off the blood and seriously contemplated letting herself sink underneath the suds to a certain black eternity. Eventually she rallied and braced herself with her somewhat better (but still painfully bruised) hand on the side of the large soaking tub, arose agonizingly, and dried herself off carefully, patting softly the angry bruises and swollen wrist. She was thankful for the luxurious soft white towels Dee had given her for Christmas one year. As much as she was embarrassed by some of the luxuries her wealth provided, this was a day she was inordinately pleased for the presence of soft towels.

  She limped out to the living room and gasped as she bent over to pick up the phone from the floor. Without bothering to check messages, she laid it on the coffee table. In a daze, Jessie wondered that she was alive. Thank Heaven for small mercies, she muttered to herself sarcastically as she laid her damaged arm on the kitchen island and wrapped a hand towel around her wrist, securing it with an elastic band.

  Jessie sat on the couch and stared at the wall, pondering her options. She could not go to the doctor like this. She could not call the Keating physician to come to her place, either, at least not until after the show, or he would ask Dee to cancel it. But Jessie knew they were sold out. There were ten thousand fans waking up this morning excited to see the long awaited Jessie Wheeler concert. Many were coming in from out of town. She couldn’t let them down.

  She hobbled across the room to her silver MacBook. It was lying on the coffee table, where she’d left it the day before. Flipping open the lid, Jessie poked the power button. She navigated to Facebook and selected her fan page, and then sighed heavily. Although the comments and photos from the previous evening’s concert were unanimously positive and inspiring, she pictured what the page would look like tonight. She was right about one thing - there would be passionate comments on the page that evening, but they were not anything close to what Jessie imagined they would say.

  ***


  The first thought Jessie had when she got to Rogers Arena was that it was inordinately warm in there. She went early so that only a few people would see her on the way in. They were busy and just glanced at her briefly, from a distance. With a baseball hat pulled down over the hoodie on her head, she slipped by them easily. At any rate, they figured she was just hung over. The place was hopping with gossip about how wasted she’d been last night.

  In her dressing room, she let out a sigh of relief. Heidi had not yet arrived and the journey from her condo to the arena had been excruciating. How the hell could she do this show? Jessie spied a new bottle of Jim Beam on the craft table with some other snacks. She twisted the lid open and poured herself a hefty glass. Sweet nectar of the Gods. Relief, as it washed through her body and cleansed the pain, the pain, the pain. The searing pain.

  The searing pain.

  The searing pain.

  Jessie perched on the closed toilet in the bathroom and drank great gulps of the bourbon, the broken wrist resting uncomfortably on her bruised lap. The warmth of the whiskey did nothing to calm her spirits or quell an intensifying throbbing pain. She sank to the floor and closed her eyes, leaning her pounding head on the welcoming cool porcelain of the toilet.

  After a while Heidi arrived and called out to her.

  “Jess? About an hour and a half before show time, they tell me. Want to get dressed? Jess?”

  From the bathroom came a small voice. “Heidi? Can you come in here?” Jessie would need some help figuring this out. In her now feverish and drunken state, all she could see were clouds of lovely pink tinged cotton, like a Prince Edward Island sunset on an early November evening. All she could hear was music. She was in her place again, too numb to be frightened. She could trust Heidi, couldn’t she?

  Outside, Josh and Stephen arrived. They scooted past security on a guest pass to bring hot coffee to Kayla. It was Josh’s excuse to see Jessie. He hoped he could sneak into her dressing room like in the old days, even just to give her a peck on the cheek and to tell her to break a leg. He was feeling like maybe she was trying to tell him something last night. Like any spurned lover, any positive actions were a sign of reinforcement, of hope. As they neared the dressing room his younger sister shared with the other female dancers across the hall, he peeked down at the second coffee in his hand. Was he just being hopeful? Would Jessie even see him?

  He gave Kayla a hug and handed her the first compostable cup, then turned to saunter across to Jessie’s space, where both Matt and Dan were now on guard, eyeing him curiously. He wondered if Matt had spotted his truck last night. Oh, well, if he did, no biggie. Jessie was with Josh at the after party. It made sense that they might have hooked up. He gulped. Matt could be rather terrifying, if he disapproved of you, but Josh always figured Matt was okay with him. Whatever. More the big blonde guy he should be wary around, anyway. The Scandinavian guy was a fucking mountain.

  Josh was about to wander over, the nauseating smell of hot dogs and popcorn from concessions wafting down the hall, when the door to Jessie’s dressing room flew open and Heidi hollered at Matt. The security guard disappeared inside, Dan hot on his tail, just as Dee, uncharacteristically in jeans and a summer top, was making her way down the hall with Charles. Josh saw her grab her husband’s arm, and then the two of them picked up their paces and rushed into the dressing room, the door slamming behind them. Josh took two quick steps towards the offending door before Stephen managed to secure a vice-like grip on his arm. Josh swiftly turned towards him, his brown eyes flashing, but he knew before his friend shook his head that he, Josh Sawyer, was no longer invited to that party. Whatever was happening across the hall was not of his concern, at least it shouldn’t be. He felt sick. Something was seriously wrong, he could feel it, and onlookers in the area were clueing in as well. Soon there were others crowding into the room and then, unbelievably, paramedics and a stretcher. Cops. There would be no concert this afternoon.

  Kayla and the other dancers gathered together, watching, huddled in the horrifying fear of the unknown. She reached forward and grasped her brother’s arm, then clutched his hand and crushed it tightly. He turned away, towards the wall, and leaned his forehead against it. What the hell was going on in there? They seemed to be taking forever.

  Soon enough, the door opened and the next few minutes seemed like slow motion to Josh. Out came Dan and Charles, and then a paramedic pulling the stretcher on which lay Jessie, small and quiet, a cloth bandage over her cheek, a splint on her wrist, and a white blanket pulled up to her chest covering her still body. Dee and Matt followed, and then Heidi was standing there in tears, watching.

  Dee stopped in her tracks when she saw Josh, and then she ran for him. She was so quick that she was on him before he had time to think, to move, to react. She pounded him again and again. From the stretcher, Jessie discerned movement through a cloudy haze and looked up in time to see Dee wailing at Josh.

  Dee was screaming, “You bastard, you bastard, you bastard, I knew you were no good, I knew you were a loser, I knew you’d hurt her, how could you do this? How?!” She was sobbing profusely. Josh let her hit him as he absorbed the shock, then he grabbed her arms and held her aloft until Stephen and Matt could grab Dee and pull her off him. He stood there, stunned, then turned to the stretcher where he could see that Jessie was trying to pull herself up.

  “Jessie!” he cried, horrified, moving towards her with one eye on the frantic Dee. Dan grabbed him as he got close to Jessie, spilling the coffee he brought for her all over the arena hallway so that it puddled on the floor, an echo of lost hope and wasted dreams.

  Agitated, Jessie was panicking. She was trying to tear her splint off. In the far reaches of his mind Josh could distinguish her screaming from the hysterics of the hyper Deirdre, whose husband was now frantically trying to calm.

  “Get him away from me! Get him away from me!” is what Josh heard that day from the terror-stricken body on the white stretcher.

  He thought he stood there for hours, disoriented and shocked at this sudden bizarre turn of events, but in reality it was only moments before Josh was roughly thrown to the ground and violently handcuffed. As he was hauled back up to his feet, dazed and confused, bruised, Dee broke loose and went at him again. Josh would never forget the anger in her eyes - fierce, utter hatred. He wondered what she would do to the real guy that had hurt Jessie.

  And then he didn’t care about himself anymore. He’d been right all along. Someone was hurting her, badly. He managed to turn and look imploringly, despairingly, at Stephen and Kayla before the cops dragged him down the hallway.

  He expected to see anxiety, confusion, looks that read it’s okay Josh, we’ll sort this out together.

  But all he saw, in the faces of those two people whom he loved dearly, was a disbelief born of knowing. Of knowing that if Jessie implied Josh did this to her, then clearly he had. Stephen and Kayla were looking at the man they loved in the manner you ponder someone who has cruelly deceived and wronged you.

  They were looking at him with a mixture of disgust and pity.

  He let the police carry him away, and hardly noticed how badly the handcuffs tore at his wrists. They’d be off soon enough. This he knew from experience. Josh laid his head against the cool door of the police cruiser and closed his eyes.

  Well. This day hasn’t turned out at all the way I expected.

  He whispered a silent prayer for Jessie as the cops pointed their cruiser towards the station. A long line of concertgoers watched it pass moments before they were told there would be no Jessie Wheeler extravaganza that day.

  Deuce McCall sat nearby in his black car and watched the confusion. Fans were so angry they spray painted sprawling graffiti messages on nearby walls and mailboxes. Rubbing his knuckles, Deuce was surprised that they hurt. He had almost forgotten why.

  That was quite a workout last night at Jessie’s place. The thing about Deuce McCall was that he was a man with a short fuse and a long reach. But he was also a smart
man. He turned the key in the ignition and the Fusion roared to life. He’d better lay low in Charleston for a while. Someone might come looking for him.

  What a laugh he had late that night in Charleston when he flicked on the news and saw all the hype about how Josh Sawyer had brutally beaten up Jessie Wheeler.

  That was another thing about Deuce McCall. He always won.

  ***

  Chapter Eighteen

  At St. Paul’s Hospital Jessie underwent a rigorous physical examination. Charles had engaged a female lawyer friend - in consultation with her as well as the police and medical staff, Jessie was asked whether she’d also been sexually assaulted. Turning her head the other way she simply nodded. At that point a forensic medical exam was administered, and evidence collected for a rape kit.

  She knew that such evidence would prove that Josh was not her attacker and, given many people’s thoughts about him, she wanted that on file. She was also aware that it would take a few days, if not longer, for the results to come back. That would at least buy Josh some time under the protection of the province. If he was behind bars, Deuce couldn’t touch him. Soaking painfully in the bath that morning, Jessie had formulated a plan. It was the best she had. It wasn’t foolproof, but it would have to do. In the meantime, she succumbed to the sweet saving grace of morphine.

  Jessie had injuries to her face, neck, groin, back, legs, arms and chest as a result of blunt force trauma. Curved imprint bruising from Deuce’s boots were found, as well as evidence of bruising by a swinging object such as a belt. She was lucky, in the greater scheme of things. Although examined and then monitored for internal organ damage, in particular her kidneys, which often caused serious issues after blunt trauma to the body, she escaped serious injury and would survive the dreadful beating. Her wrist was broken and would require surgery, and she had severe bruises on her left leg. She was torn and humiliated, but as far as she was concerned she was done with Deuce McCall. Unfortunately, that would also mean a harrowing time for Josh, who would be suffering his own personal agonies right now.