by Emma Vikes
He pulled me into a fierce hug and kissed the top of my head. Even though things hadn’t work out romantically between Paul and myself, the fierce protectiveness and loving friendship remained.
“God, I was worried sick when Mr. Heckles reported he heard gunshots from your house the other night. Then the hospital called and told me that you hadn’t shown up for work. We went to your house to investigate and found no one there but there were drops of blood in the foyer. You scared me shitless, Jasmine.”
“I’m sorry,” I murmured. “I promise I’ll tell you everything.”
“In the women’s section in Target?” he asked me, eyeing me with confusion written on his face. I shook my head. I only asked him to meet me here because asking him to meet me at a café was not appealing, especially if I had to wait alone for him to arrive. At least here, I looked like I was doing something other than waiting.
“Treat me lunch?”
He nodded his head and we headed out of Target and into his car. Thank god he didn’t bring his cruiser with him. He brought me to a nearby In-N-Out and ordered for the both of us. I stood with him in line, not wanting to be left alone while waiting. We decided to sit in a corner booth and neither of us talked as we took the first bites of our burgers.
“What happened, Jasmine?” Paul finally asked after a while.
I lowered my burger on the table. “Before you react and tell me how stupid I am, please understand that I did things because I thought I was protecting someone who was being hunted down. Someone that I personally believe is innocent.”
His eyebrows rose and he looked skeptical. “It depends on what you’re going to tell me.”
I exhaled loudly and launched into the update of everything since I had snuck Wes out of the hospital. “When you asked me what happened after I visited John Doe, I lied, Paul. When I went to visit him, I offered to buy some decent food for the both of us. That was when I bumped into an unfamiliar nurse using Andre Blackthorn’s ID. I saw that he had a lethal dose of potassium with him.
“Norwynne is a small town, Paul. No one’s going to want to murder someone they’ve known their entire life.”
“Which meant that he was there to kill a stranger.” Paul said, nodding his head in understanding, “He was going to kill John Doe.”
“I had the same train of thoughts and in another corner, I saw another unfamiliar nurse carrying the same thing. I knew I had to help him escape. I went back to Wes’ – John’s – room, got him out of there and brought him to my house.”
“You brought a stranger to your house?”
“It’s not like yours was taking in strangers,” I responded, grimly. “So, anyway, the other day while Wes – John – and I were having lunch at the diner, I saw two men talking with Owen. They weren’t locals and they were looking for Wes.”
For a moment, I contemplated whether or not I should tell him that they asked me if I knew about Wes, too. And that they had told me they were agents looking for him because he was a murder suspect. As far as I knew, the CIA wasn’t supposed to randomly question civilians, just the ones they suspected. But withholding that piece of information would only lead to even more questions later.
I went on. “The men questioned me, also. They showed me a picture of Wes and said he was a suspect in murdering a fellow agent.” My voice cracked as I said it, the disbelief still so clear in my tone. Wes couldn’t have murdered someone. It was impossible. He was a good man. I believed that he was a good man. “Later that night, someone ambushed us in my house. They got in without us hearing him and he had a gun. We escaped and we’ve been staying at a motel here in New Greenwich.”
Paul rubbed his face with a hand and sighed, a grim look on his face. “Jasmine, this is one hell of a mess you’re in. On top of that, he might actually be the person that the CIA is looking for!”
His statement made me pause as if my world had suddenly stopped and now spun on a different axis. “So, they talked to you?”
He nodded his head slowly. “They came the other night and told us about the situation. Apparently, one of their agents was murdered.”
A chill went through my body. “How?”
Paul’s jaw clenched as he answered my question. “I’m not quite sure I have the specifics but there was a bomb involved and the agent died in the explosion. They found a part of his leg in the debris but the rest of his body was nowhere to be found.”
“Did they tell you that they suspected Wes?”
I wanted Paul to answer me. I needed him to answer me. Paul sighed. “Yes, they were looking for our John Doe, too. Jasmine, you haven’t just kidnapped a John Doe and dragged him along with you. You’ve aided a suspect. Maybe if you turn him in now, we could do something about it.”
My blood ran cold at the suggestion. “I’m not doing that, Paul.”
“You’re helping a criminal.”
“He knows Damien,” I whispered and Paul’s eyes widened. Paul and I had been searching for a lead on Damien for a year and we never had any luck with it. “Last night, he told me that Damien seems familiar to him, that sometimes in his nightmares, he sees my brother. He recognized him from a photo at my house.”
Paul stared at me in shock and, slowly, I saw the shock turn into icy anger in his eyes, as if everything suddenly clicked into place. “That changes everything, Jasmine. We need to turn him in as soon as possible. I don’t care if you care about him or if you’re worried about him. He’s a fucking criminal and he needs to be behind bars!”
I knew that Paul would march to the hotel room and haul Wes out of the room on his bare ass and put him in prison. He was as frustrated with Damien’s case as I did. After years of friendship, Paul naturally loved my brother, too.
“Then what are you gonna do, Paul? Haul him from the motel and bring him to jail? And that’s based on what? His own fuzzy memories that he may or may not have something to do with my brother’s disappearance. Damien’s been gone for a year, Paul. And Wes has only been here for less than a month.”
Something flickered in his eyes. “Do you even hear what you’re saying, Jasmine? This is the only lead we have had with Damien’s disappearance and you’re protecting our only suspect? Besides, if we can’t charge him with Damien’s case, the CIA is bound to get him anyway! He’s a suspect for murder, Jasmine!”
I understood that the concept of me protecting someone involved in my brother’s disappearance seemed ridiculous and absurd. A month ago, I would’ve wanted anyone involved – anyone who had even the slightest connection to my brother’s disappearance – put in jail in a heartbeat.
Now, at this point, I did have someone like that. But he was also the man I had been sleeping with, protecting, and falling in love with. Of all the men I could’ve fallen for, I fell for the one who recognized my brother and who was a murder suspect.
“I know what you mean, Paul. This is the closest we’ve been to finding out what happened to Damien but we can’t simply dive into it unprepared. Wes may be innocent in regards to my Damien’s disappearance. And we won’t know that until we’re one hundred per cent sure that he has his memories back because I am not putting an innocent man in jail. Besides, why is the CIA so sure that Wes is the one who planted the bomb?”
“I’m not sure! All they ever told us was that he was a suspect and he needed to be dealt with!” Paul’s jaw was twitching and he was clearly very upset with my decision. “Are you protecting this man because the two of you have something going on? Are you sleeping with him, Jasmine?”
The judgment in his eyes was palpable but I looked at him evenly. I wasn’t ashamed of what was going on between Wes and myself. “That’s none of your business, Paul.”
“As your friend, I deserve to know.”
“Gee, I don’t remember the two of us agreeing with the whole ‘kiss and tell’ concept,” I countered, sipping the milkshake that he got for me. “Look, there are a lot of more serious things going on than what’s going on with my sex life. And I think those are
the things that we should address first.”
Paul nodded, sobering up with the whole thing quickly. He was still a professional and he was all business-like now. “So, what do you want to do?”
I sighed. I didn’t really have much of a plan. “I want you to find out more, Paul. I need to know why the CIA thinks that Wes killed their agent. There’s something that doesn’t add up in this situation and I do not want him to be wrongly convicted.”
“And if he is the bad guy?”
I swallowed. I didn’t even want my thoughts to veer in that direction. “This is my call, Paul. Please, you can put me in jail for hiding a suspect. I’ll turn him in myself if he really did what those people think he did and if he really did kidnap Damien.”
Paul wasn’t impressed with my plan. “We could go along with that until I figure out another way to approach this whole thing.”
There wasn’t anything I could say to that. We remained quiet as we finished eating our food. Paul and I went back to his car and he dropped me off near Target. He held out a hundred dollars for me to take. I stared at the money he was handing me. “I figured you’re low on that. You can pay me back once we’ve figured all this out.”
I smiled and then leaned to kiss his cheek. Sometimes I wished things had worked out between the two of us because then maybe life would’ve been easier. Maybe we could’ve moved into a different town and lived a different life with my brother. Maybe Damien wouldn’t have been taken from me, leaving me with the frustration of the unanswered question of what had happened to him.
But then I wouldn’t have met Wes. I touched Paul’s face and then patted him gently. “I’ll call you soon. Until then, Richard.”
I heard him groan when I called him his real name. Chuckling, I got out of his car and began to walk my way back to the motel.
I thought of how everything was unfolding, wondering what more revelations were up ahead to face. I wasn’t sure if I would be able to handle any more shocking developments. Taking into account the fact that my brother was familiar to Wes had been a hard enough blow for me, especially with the possibility that he may have done something to hurt Damien.
Still, deep down, I felt that I could truly trust Wes. Hope remained alive in my heart. I felt as though if Wes recognized Damien, it increased the chances that he was still alive and that was what I needed to know more than anything else.
As I neared the motel, I noticed that there was a car trailing behind me. I cautiously glanced back, my heart racing with fear that whoever was chasing Wes was now coming after me.
The car slowed down to a crawl.
I glanced back again.
Piercing blue eyes stared back at me and then the silver of a gun glinted from the sun.
I ran.
Chapter 12
Wes
Jasmine left about an hour ago and I’d already spent most of the money she left me to get myself breakfast. I’d showered and dressed in the clothes I wore yesterday and at the moment, I was flipping through the channels of the small television. I was trying to see if there had been any news about what happened to Jasmine’s house or if the people of Norwynne were looking for her. She had been AWOL since we left town that night. People would be looking for her if she didn’t come to work without calling in sick or whatever.
Paul would look for her.
I couldn’t shake off the feeling that she had gone to meet him. I didn’t know why. Last night, her reaction to my confession, to the possibility that I might or might not have a hand in her brother’s disappearance, was everything I’d hoped for. It wasn’t what I expected, though. I thought she would’ve been angry at me and called the cops on me but she had reassured me that it was a mere possibility and then allowed me to make love to her.
The way that she looked at me this morning when we woke up, the quiet trust that danced in her eyes, made my heart burst. I kept remembering the guy who ambushed us in her house and the way she had reacted. Pulling me down and aiming the gun at the attacker, never even hesitating to shoot. Frankly, it had been pretty hot but I hadn’t had the luxury to admire that moment because we had needed to get out of there fast.
As I was browsing through the channels, crippling pain filled my head without any warning. My hands cradled my head, and I winced as the sharp pain felt like razor blades were pinballing along every cell that made up my brain.
I gasped from a sharp, clear memory flashing through me.
It was fucking cold and my shirt was ripped open, sticky with my own blood. The sharp pain on my ankle where I tripped on a root was slowing me down but I needed to push through the pain. If I didn’t escape now, if they managed to catch me, I was dead. I wasn’t going to die without putting up a god damn fight.
I needed to hide the flash drive. It felt like it was burning inside my pocket; clear, hard evidence. The woods were dense and crowded and there were so many roots. I kept tripping over them, aggravating the pain from my already sprained ankle. I wasn’t sure how many times I needed to fall to finally break the bone altogether.
I had no choice. Either I would bury it here where I was right now or I would die with it in my pocket and have them steal the only evidence I had.
On my knees, I began digging with my hands. I needed to do this fast. I didn’t know if they’d noticed I’d escaped yet or if they were already on my trail. I didn’t have any weapon with me to defend myself. All I needed to do was have this fucking piece of metal buried.
I was panting heavily as the throbbing headache began to dull. Sweat dripped from my forehead and trailed down to my cheek as I tried to sit up. My brain felt hazy from the sudden memory that had flashed through me.
There was a flash drive.
There was a fucking flash drive all along and all I would need to do was find it. I was not even sure what my intention had been with burying it. If only I did, if my mind went far enough to grasp more memories, I might find that I did have something to do with Damien’s disappearance. I would gladly turn myself in if it would help to find Damien.
But my memory wasn’t going that far.
All I remember was a fucking flash drive.
I got off the bed and paced around the room, wondering if I should wait for Jasmine to get back. I didn’t want to alarm her or disappoint her if I would try to find it and then fail. The shady memory might even be from something that had occurred far back in my life. It possibly had nothing at all to do with Damien or what had happened to me recently.
And I didn’t want her to find out that I truly was a monster if that was what I had been.
The flash of pain started in my head again and I grabbed hold of the small table, gripping the edge as another memory swept through me.
The ground wasn’t that hard to dig with my bare hands but the dirt caked around my fingers. I think I must’ve gotten to about two feet deep when I took the flash drive, wrapped in bubble wrap, and put it into the hole. I started to throw back the dirt to cover it.
I needed something to use as a marker in case I did manage to escape this whole ordeal. Something that no wind could blow away, no rain could wash off, and no snow could bury. Something that stuck but something that no one would notice.
A sharp rock glimmered at my right. I grabbed it and engraved a reminder for myself on the tree: FD.
For the second time, I gasped as if I had been dunked underwater and was finally given the chance to resurface. I stared at my hands and could almost see the dirt that had caked around my nails. I could almost feel it.
I had no choice. I had to go back to where they had found me. If anything, it would be the same place that I buried that drive. If I would wait for Jasmine, I might not get to the place before nightfall. And I needed that flash drive. Now.
I grabbed the money I had left. It was for me to pay for my lunch if Jasmine wasn’t back by then. I hope it was enough to get me back here after searching for what I was looking for.
I didn’t have to wait long at the bus stop, luckily. I was fuc
king nervous. Dying my hair wasn’t a full-proof plan that could completely disguise me. Obviously, since they had still found me and at the worst place; Jasmine’s house. Although, I didn’t need to go into the center of Norwynne. All I had to do was stop a couple of blocks near the woods. I remembered that there was a bus stop there because the public school was nearby.
It was lunch time when the bus reached the school stop. I got off and walked a couple of miles to the woods, not really knowing where I was heading. I knew this was the area that the nurse had found me in. I had never even gotten to meet that nurse but if I survived all of this, and cleared my name, I would have Jasmine help me to meet him so I could thank him.
I trekked into the woods, just following gut-feelings. I looked around the trees but it was impossible to check each one. There were just too many. It would take me forever. I looked around for a ravine by the river because that was where they told me they had found me.
The pain came in a sudden flash, taking me by surprise. It winded me, forcing me on my knees.
I heard the sound of a river as I looked for a place to hide the drive. I kept looking back, worried that they were already after me. But if they would see me scurrying around here, zigzagging around trees, they could pull a gun on me. An easy way for them to capture me.
I came to a sudden halt when I saw the ravine. “Shit.” I needed to be careful. I would either die in their hands or by my own. I looked around and got on my knees near a tree and started digging.
So, seemed like my gut feeling was saying that I had buried the drive near where I was found. I closed my eyes and listen, taking in the soft sound of leaves being rustled by the wind, the sound of insects surrounding me in these woods, a scurry of a forest animal…and the river, flowing just a couple of miles from where I was.
I took off in the direction of that sound.
I was not sure where these senses were coming from. Maybe I was a hunter. Or maybe I was good at tracking. A part of me told me I was trained to track. But what training that was, I had no clue.
