Hiding Jessica

by Alicia Scott

  “If you’re just quiet, sugar, he won’t even notice you. He’ll go away and you’ll be okay. You just gotta learn to be quiet.”

  The memory came from nowhere, but suddenly she could see herself sitting on the edge of her mother’s bed, watching her mother in the mirror. Seated at the vanity, her mother had a pot of makeup in hand. Slowly, with practiced strokes, she covered up the bruise on her cheek.

  “There now, sweetheart. Good as new. Don’t your mama look beautiful? Come along, now. We’d better get the roast in the oven. And remember, sugar, don’t make a fuss tonight. For Mama, okay? Just be quiet for mama?”

  But she could still hear the sound of her mother crying in the kitchen, still feel the sharp sting of the descending belt. Somehow, quiet had never been quiet enough. At least her mother kept a lot of makeup in that vanity.

  She looked in her own mirror and tried one last smile. The movement just didn’t match with her years. She found herself smiling cynically instead. Oh, but her mama could be proud now. Her daughter had learned to be quiet. She’d learned not to fuss, or talk back, or move at the wrong time. And she’d learned more tricks with makeup than her own mother had known.

  So here was Jessica. One giant, controlled glacier that had made all her mother’s mistakes. One incredibly smart, capable, strong woman who didn’t even know how to smile.

  You’ve got to leave Jessica Gavornée behind.

  She couldn’t. The ties were beyond skin-deep, and drew her to the past as surely as they ever had. She would become a new name, but she would never truly escape. Her only hope was simply for respite. She just wanted a quiet, steady existence in which nightmares remained nightmares and could never come true. Her mother had married a loser who’d beaten them both until that last fateful day. Jess had gotten entangled with Les.

  If you learned lessons from the past, then family history dictated that having no man was better than having one.

  And if Mitch Guiness even suspected the secrets she still kept...

  She looked at the mirror one last time, willing a smile onto her new face. But once more, the twist of her lips refused to match the look in her eyes.

  She shook her head and moved at long last to her bed. Tomorrow was going to be a big day. And the day after that, even bigger. She willed herself to sleep.

  But not even her willpower could keep the nightmares at bay.

  * * *

  She was already waiting in the entryway when Mitch came downstairs. She was practicing her loose-shouldered stance and twisting the ring on her right hand with far more nervousness that she would ever admit to. He arched a dark brow, glancing her up and down as he observed her new stance combined with her new look.

  “We’re getting there,” he said, and she didn’t have to ask what he meant. In fact, Mitch was pleased by the progress they’d made. Compared to the first day when she’d stepped out of the dark sedan with her sleek blond hair and tailored white silk suit, the woman in front of him was different.

  She kept her short, dark hair down, the left side tucked behind her ear while the rest of the chin-length waves swept forward. Her jeans and the thickly corded sweater completed the picture of a young, girl-next-door appearance. At least, until you looked at her face. Her eyes were still much too wary, her expression too settled. But they would work on that, he assured himself as he shrugged into his own coat. After all, today she owed him a smile. He picked up a small bag with the necessary equipment and headed for the door.

  She followed him wordlessly outside, bundled up in Bill’s jacket. From what she could tell, Jamie and Bill worked eight-hour revolving shifts. So Jamie was on watch now, working the 2:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. shift. Bill would then work ten to six, with Jamie then covering from six to two. She would have thought the schedule would totally ruin their body clocks, but they seemed to handle it. And it made it easier for her to figure out who was watching when. Her project for this afternoon was to determine their watch posts, or any walking patterns they made. Then she would be all set.

  “Here, this ought to be far enough out,” Mitch said. Jess came to a sudden halt to find herself standing in a small clearing beyond the edges of the property markers. Mitch opened up the plastic bag and took out two empty two-liter bottles. Then he withdrew two sets of headsets and finally, a small leather holster containing a gun. He handed her one headset, and she draped it around her neck like he did. Finally he turned toward her, his face serious.

  “Now remember what I said earlier,” he told her evenly. “Today’s lesson should be used as a starting point, not an instant license to shoot to kill. It takes years of practice and training to become a good shot. Plus, guns are not an immediate problem solver, and really should be used only as a last resort when facing immediate physical threat.”

  She looked at him impatiently. “I’m not going to sue you,” she said pointedly. “And I’m not in the FBI, so you don’t need to quote me the official party line.”

  “I’m quoting you common sense,” he corrected sharply, his brown eyes narrowing. “Now we do this my way, or we don’t do it at all.”

  Her lips thinned, but she gave in with a curt nod.

  “Now, then,” he continued. He held out the leather holster and unsnapped it to reveal a decent-size gun. “This is a Smith & Wesson Chief’s Special, your basic .38 revolver. You will find a lot of people running around today with semiautomatic guns, but this is still the best gun for a beginner. It has solid firepower and five chambers. Considering the fact that most gunfights occur with people just seven yards apart, you don’t need a huge weapon, just control. It doesn’t matter how big a gun you carry nor how many bullets if you still can’t aim. The gun supplies the firepower, but you must supply the brains.”

  She nodded, looking at the form in his hands. It looked solid and heavy. Unexpectedly, she felt a strange achy feeling open in her stomach. She tried to swallow it back down and focus on Mitch instead.

  “First, I want you to just get familiar with the weapon. There aren’t any bullets in it now. Just hold it, become accustomed to the weight and the trigger. This is a double-action gun, so you can cock it for a shorter trigger, or after the first full pull back, the trigger will remain set for short, rapid follow-up fire. Here, you take it.”

  He handed her the gun, and for the first time, saw that her hands were shaking. He looked at her sharply, but she didn’t say anything as she accepted the pistol. Her eyes were once more distant as she looked at the weapon, and her face remained expressionless.

  “Never point the gun at a person,” he said, his voice quieter now. “Even when you think the gun is empty.”

  She nodded, but he could see her hands were still trembling.

  “Jess,” he said softly. “You really don’t need to know how to shoot.”

  “I want to,” she said, but the words were unexpectedly low. She turned slightly away, raising her arms to point the gun toward the trees. The weapon felt unexpectedly heavy in her hands, and the shaky feeling wouldn’t leave her stomach. Fear. She could taste it in her mouth, feel it in each light tremble rippling through her.

  A gun is just a tool, she reminded herself. The only true evil is the person who carries it.

  The gold carpet, the pattern of red and brown leaves. The distant thud of footsteps, drawing nearer, nearer, nearer...

  “Pull the trigger.” Mitch’s voice came true and deep. “Feel the weight of the trigger. The first pull won’t be easy.”

  She nodded, narrowing her eyes as she focused her attention on pulling back the trigger. It was tight and hard. Then abruptly, the trigger came back with the echoing click of an empty chamber.

  “Come on, baby. Where are you hiding? Come say hi to your—”

  She pulled the trigger again, hearing the empty click register in the silence. She turned back to Mitch, who took the gun from her nerveless hands with intense eyes.

  “A gun is a serious weapon,” he said quietly, “and is nothing to be taken lightly.”

>   “Bullets, please,” she said.

  He showed her how to load the gun, inserting five .38 special bullets into the chamber. Then he had her put on the earphones. The outside world was abruptly muzzled, leaving her feeling suddenly alone in the clearing, too aware of her own solitude. Mitch gestured her to stand aside, and she mutely obeyed, her stomach hopelessly empty.

  She suddenly thought she might vomit.

  The first crack of the gun made her jump, even with the earphones on. The sound ricocheted through the silence like a boom of thunder, loud and abrupt. One of the two-liter bottles jumped back like a man possessed. A second shot cracked and the last empty bottle sprayed backwards. She could smell the acrid odor of gunpowder.

  And the man falling, down down down onto the gold-patterned carpet. The soundless scream, echoing down the hall. The burning smell, the taste of bile—

  “You try.” Mitch’s words penetrated abruptly, startling her. Slowly her new brown eyes turned to the gun, held out to her with its barrel pointed so carefully at the trees. “There are three shots left,” he said, his voice muffled by the earphones. “Aim for the fallen bottles.”

  She looked up wordlessly, registering both plastic bottles now on their sides, several feet back. She could see the holes, jagged mortal wounds in the bottles’ sides. She accepted the gun.

  He got behind her, using his hands to guide her into the proper stance. Her muscles were rigid to the touch, her body strung so tight, he wondered how she didn’t snap in half. “Arms straight,” he told her, his voice whispering lightly against her neck. “There you go.” He could smell the scent of peaches again, light and fresh like a rainstorm. And he could feel her tremble as he guided her arms up.

  Suddenly the Ice Angel didn’t seem so controlled. He was struck by the urge to step closer, to embrace her own trembling form with his solid warmth. If she needed his strength, he would give it to her. He was that kind of man.

  But then, she wasn’t the type of woman ever to ask for his help. He stepped back just a few feet, watching as she adjusted the gun in front of her. She sited one of the bottles, leveling the gun in front of her. For a long moment she just stood there, the gun frozen out in front of her. Then abruptly her arms dropped down, her body trembling harshly.

  He felt something wash through her, something dark and anguished. But even as he stepped forward, her arms came back up and she fired the gun three rapid times. One bottle leapt to sudden life, exploding plastic fragments as it plummeted back down.

  She remained staring at it, the bulletless gun still poised before her.

  He wanted to see her face, Mitch realized suddenly. He wanted to see what horrors had flashed through her eyes in that one instant when her arms had come down. For one moment her control had been gone. For one moment he had sensed the torture of the woman beneath.

  But now her arms slowly returned to her sides, and she looked at him without a single expression on her pale, blank face. He didn’t know whether to admire her or shake her.

  Or hold her close.

  “You owe me a smile,” he said instead.

  She nodded a slow emotionless nod, then turned away. He saw her inhale, then exhale slowly. Abruptly she turned back around and smiled. But it wasn’t the natural, simple smile he’d been seeking. It was the full sensual smile of her cover pages, slamming him straight in the gut. He felt his breath catch in his throat, while his body went immediately hard. He had to clench his fists against the fire, wanting to curse her even as he wanted to pull her into his arms and show her just what that smile did to a man. His eyes darkened, his feet stepping forward on their own accord.

  Abruptly he saw something else flash across her cool arctic face: fear.

  He brought himself up shortly, cursing her for looking at him like that after smiling such a smile, and cursing himself for having all the self-control of a rutting boar. To make matters even, he also cursed Les Capruccio for instilling the fear in her to begin with.

  Angry and disgusted, he retaliated curtly.

  “Too bad that smile isn’t real,” he told her. He stormed past her to the two-liter bottles before he could see the sliver of pain slash unexpectedly across her eyes.

  Her gaze fell to the metal gun, hanging so limply at her side, while his words echoed in her head. He was right, after all. The smile wasn’t real. It was merely part of the package meant to hide the contents. Meant to hide the sharp blades of fear slashing through her stomach, the persistent taste of rust and bile in her mouth.

  She looked at the gun dully. She’d made the two-liter bottle explode. She had accomplished her goal.

  And the man had fallen, fallen, fallen. Down on the gold-patterned carpet, while the soundless scream had echoed through the hall.

  Oh, she was capable all right. She could kill a bottle while her insides screamed and the pain raked through her like heated coals. And she could smile a sensual smile, when she wanted to break down in the snow and cry.

  And she could look at the tall dark man coming toward her and feel the fear even as her mouth opened with the empty plea of his name.

  Why couldn’t she call him back?

  The confusion wracked her, but then she slowly stiffened her spine. This was her choice, and this is what she wanted. The gun was merely a tool.

  “Are you ready to go?” Mitch said, his voice still cool as he raked her up and down with impatient brown eyes.

  She raised her head, keeping her eyes carefully averted. Unconsciously, one hand pressed against her stomach.

  “No,” she said at last. “I would like to practice a few more times.”

  He paused, his eyes narrowing. He wouldn’t have imagined that. But then, with a shrug, he reached for the gun and reloaded it. He was tired of trying to understand her.

  “Fine,” he said curtly. “Five more rounds. Go.”

  And she took the gun from him, held it smoothly in front of her and fired five more shots in the brisk New England air.

  Chapter 6

  But in the dark of night, the control was hard to find.

  Every time Jess closed her eyes, she could feel the nightmare hovering just beyond consciousness. And her eyes would pop open again, only to find visions of a tall, dark-haired man haunting her waking moments. She thought she could smell his after-shave, feel the warmth radiating from his powerful frame.

  And then her stomach would tighten, and her nerves would tense with a confused mass of overloaded sensations. That tight, restless gnawing in her stomach, those spine-tingling ripples of old fear mixing with new demons. She wanted at once to sink down into the oblivion of sleep and to jerk awake, her hand reaching out to the vision of a man who called her back.

  She bolted upright in her bed, feeling her breath coming in gasps while her hands trembled like leaves in the dim moonlight. Too much, her mind thought. It was too much.

  Her life had come full circle, moments in time paralleling each other so closely, it was hard to keep the past the past, and the present the present.

  She kept seeing his face, Harry’s fat, red-flushed face. All the times she’d looked at him with hopeful eyes. All the times she’d held out her little arms, so happy to see him come home. And then the sudden cracking snap of his palm across her cheek.

  Always followed by the tears and the apologies. Never again. He’d never hurt her again. If she’d just behave better, be a little more patient, he wouldn’t lose his temper like that. If she and Mama would just understand...

  But each time, the slaps came a little faster, a little harder.

  She never knew whether to love him, or to hate him.

  Even now she didn’t know.

  She swung her feet over the edge of the bed, taking in deep gulps of air. Eventually, her breathing started to slow, but the aching restlessness wouldn’t quite leave her stomach. She hurt, she thought dully. She hurt way down deep in places she wasn’t supposed to hurt anymore. In places so old and dark, it was better not to remember them at all. But the persistent t
hrob was there, the ten-year-old pain refusing to go away.

  And in that moment she cursed Les Capruccio and Mitch Guiness and all other men who had ever walked the earth. And she damned them all for interfering with her life, when all she’d ever wanted was to live in solitude—cold and alone, but at least able to sleep at night.

  If she closed her eyes now, she would sink into the black pit that had slowly been dragging her back down since the first moment Les Capruccio had walked into her dressing room with his slick smile and damning envelope.

  She got out of bed altogether and, without really thinking about it, slowly began to dress. The clock glowed midnight as she crept out of her room. Downstairs she took Bill’s thick jacket off the peg, throwing it over her shoulders. Bill wasn’t due to relieve Jamie until 2:00 a.m., giving her over an hour to collect herself. It seemed tonight was as good a night as any for a little research.

  The front door squeaked as she closed it, and she held her breath for a moment. Given the supposed security of the location, she was afraid she’d suddenly look up to find three FBI guns pointed at her. But nothing moved in the house, and after a long moment, she released her pent-up breath.

  “Going somewhere?” a distinctly male voice said behind her.

  She stiffened immediately, even as she felt her stomach plummet to her toes. Slowly, she half turned to find herself face-to-face with one Mitch Guiness.

  “Shouldn’t you be sleeping?” she asked darkly, her own voice not quite able to hide her weariness.

  “I could ask you the same,” Mitch replied, sweeping her up and down with his gaze. He’d been listening to her toss and turn for at least an hour from the room next to hers. Then abruptly, there had been the creak of her feet on the floorboards. He knew her well enough to guess what she’d do next. After her five months of hotel captivity, she practically spent all day outside as it was.

  “Schoolteachers don’t need beauty sleep,” she answered him, and he grinned his response in the darkness.