He swung a glancing blow off her arm, causing her to fall and hit her head on the corner of the coffee table. She lay there, not moving as a pool of blood began to surround her head.
The world turned gray, and I couldn’t tell how much time had passed. I heard sirens as I tried to pull myself towards the door; anything to get far away from the monster. The pain in my leg radiated throughout my body and made me dizzy and nauseous. I tried to move, but the offending appendage wouldn’t respond. It just lay there as if it wasn’t connected to the rest of me. Praying that the end would be quick and painless, I waited for him to finish me.
Reality faded in and out as I tried to remain conscious and not vomit. I heard sirens and voices, hoping they weren’t my imagination. The next thing I was aware of was Jax’s voice trying to get me to come to. My eyes finally opened, and I tried to focus on him.
“What…,” I mumbled. My brain might actually be scrambled. I couldn’t battle my way through the pain. I felt his hand grab mine and then I was gone for a while.
My next conscious memory was of an ambulance and I could hear sirens. There was a sensation of speed, but at the same time, it seemed as if I was suspended and in slow motion. I opened my eyes again, and Jax was still holding my hand and looking extremely worried.
“Stay with me, Lainie, please,” he implored. “It was all my fault. I’m so sorry. If I had taken you back to the diner, maybe none of this would have happened.”
Jax
I sat in my car trying to find the courage to walk into the diner to pick up Lainie for our date. My first date hadn’t made me this nervous. I wiped my hands on my jeans—they were all wet and clammy. Just inside the diner door, I stood there frozen and uncertain. My heart sank when I didn’t see her. Had she bailed out on me? As the waitress approached, she said, “You must be Jackson. Elaine is getting ready; I’ll let her know you’re here. Have a seat. She’ll be out in a minute.”
While I waited, I was fiddling with the salt shaker and daydreaming when the owner suddenly appeared next to me. I stood up and put my trembling hands in my pockets.
“Hello, Jackson. Nothing to be afraid of, I don’t bite. I just want to talk to you about your date,” he said. His voice was calm and fatherly, so I guess he was trying to put me at ease. “Now, we think of Elaine as part of the family, so I expect you to treat her with the utmost respect tonight. No rushing her into anything she’s not ready for, you understand?”
I nodded yes, unable to find my voice. As I tried to clear my throat, I answered, “Yes, sir, Mr. Graham. I understand.”
“No need to look quite so serious, Jackson.” He chuckled as he continued. “I remember my first date with my wife. I was so nervous I kept dropping my keys.” He laughed, and I joined in. Then I noticed Lainie standing there in a blue sweater… she took my breath away.
Mr. Graham reminded me of what we discussed, and I shook his hand, assuring him that I understood. I helped Lainie with her coat and led her out to my car. We talked about my car— the ’66 Mustang I was restoring with my dad. I was so nervous I forgot what was said about two seconds after saying it and hoped I didn’t sound like a total dork. We were both kind of nervous on the ride there, so we didn’t have much to say. When we finally got to the theater, I got out and opened her door for her, remembering what Mr. Graham told me. “Act like a gentleman at all times.”
I shouldn’t have been so nervous. It was just a date, but my hands were sweaty and shaking again. “Would you like some popcorn and a drink?” I asked Lainie. She nodded, and we stood in line at the snack counter.
That’s one thing about her that was so different from my other dates; she was quiet in her own way. Some other girls talked nonstop and never let you get the chance to show off your manners. If you tried to talk about something else, they always ended up changing the subject back to them. Lainie wasn’t like that at all. She was so easy to be with and so polite. I bought the jumbo popcorn so we could share, and she protested that I spent too much, but I assured her that it was all right.
We walked into the theater, and I picked out seats in the back row where we could have a little privacy. The previews started just as we sat and got comfortable. Lainie watched me the whole time instead of the previews, but I pretended not to notice. I was so lucky to be here with her instead of at some stupid keg party getting wasted for no good reason.
We watched the movie, laughing at the same places. When the couple on screen had their first kiss, I decided it was time for me to make my move. I leaned towards her, the most important question in the world in my eyes. She leaned in, so I took that as a yes and brought my lips in contact with hers and gave her a light kiss. My heart thumped as I leaned back, putting my arm around her and drawing her in so her head was on my shoulder. She sighed, and my heart was hers forever.
When the movie was over, we let everyone else leave before us. Lainie didn’t seem to mind spending a few more minutes in my arms. As we headed back through the lobby, she pulled me towards the restrooms, telling me she needed to wash the popcorn butter off her hands. Just then, I saw a couple of my teammates over by the snack bar, so I told her I’d meet her over there when she was finished.
My friends teased me about being at the theater instead of at the party. I laughed because they weren’t at the party either. Actually, they’d been there, but decided to go see some action flick that was just starting. They wanted to know who this great girl was who kept me from hanging out with them at the keg party. I wasn’t ready to share my Lainie with the world yet, so I told them it wasn’t anybody they’d know. They finally got the hint and left the lobby area to enter the theater.
I could see something had upset Lainie as she walked towards me, her steps slow and hesitant. When she told me to take her home and wouldn’t explain why, I wondered what had happened and wanted to ask, but the jock persona I had so carefully created and practiced kept me silent. No way would my emotions determine my actions. I was Jax McKenna, I didn’t chase girls – they chased me.
Driving toward her home on the outskirts of town, I argued with myself. Jax the Jock was trying to keep Jackson from blurting out the truth: I was scared to death I would never see her again. When I stopped in her driveway, and she stormed out of the car, she finally yelled back at me what happened; how she had overheard me talking to my friends. I couldn’t force the words past the lump of dread that seemed to have lodged in my throat. The slam of the front door sounded so final.
My heart broke as I stood there, unable to get back in the car. I should have gone home, but I was numb and trying to make sense of what happened. Next thing I knew, I heard screaming and terrible sounds coming from inside Lainie’s house. When I got to the front window, I saw a guy take a baseball bat away from her. He was swinging it and hitting her after she tripped and fell to the floor. I ran to the nearest house, praying that someone was home. It seemed like I pounded on the door for hours until there was an answer.
“He’s killing her, call the police. She needs help now.” I could hear the screaming from his front porch. When the neighbor heard the racket, he left me standing there by the open front door and grabbed a phone, calling 911. It only took a couple of minutes until I started hearing sirens. I wasn’t even back at Lainie’s house when the first police car pulled up and the officers stormed into the house, yelling for the guy to drop the bat. They hauled him outside in handcuffs just as the paramedics arrived. My heart was in my throat as I heard them call for a second ambulance.
A police officer stopped me when I tried to enter the house, but I explained that I was Lainie’s boyfriend and had gone next door to ask a neighbor to call the cops. They wouldn’t let me inside to see her, and an officer pulled me aside in the front yard, asking me what I saw. I told them what I knew and then pleaded with them to let me see Lainie. The EMTs had just put her on a backboard and were lifting her onto a gurney when I finally got to her.
“C’mon, Lainie, open your eyes. Please.” She fluttered her beauti
ful blues, and I could tell she recognized me. She tried to smile, but it turned into a grimace before she lost the battle and passed out.
We were in the ambulance and headed to the hospital the next time she became conscious. “It was all my fault, Lainie. I’m so sorry. If I’d taken you back to the diner, maybe none of this would have happened.”
Chapter 6
Present Day
Lainie
Shit. He’s out, and he’s coming after me. My phone sat on the table in the conversation area. Sheila was hovering, looking lost like she was not sure what to do. She was the only person who knew who I really was besides Matt, and now Jax. Oh, and whoever sent me the copy of the newspaper article. It could have been Keith. If so, he was letting me know he’d be coming for me.
“Sheila, can you hand me my phone, please?” I still didn’t want Jax to see me walk even though he knew what had happened, just not how it affected my life.
“Who are you calling, Lainie?” Jax asked as he paced around the office.
He was missing ten years of details and couldn’t understand what that newspaper clipping meant to me. I just wanted to jump into his arms, tell him the whole story and let him take care of everything—but that wasn’t possible. My feelings for him were all mixed up with everything that had happened back then, and I wasn’t sure they could be separated. His hair was hanging in his eyes the way it used to when we were in high school, and right now, I wanted to reach over and brush it back. My heart stuttered in my chest, and I tried to push the memories back into their box for another time.
Sheila handed me the phone, and I dialed a number from memory. I couldn’t keep these digits anywhere else. As I waited for Matt to pick up, I looked at Jax and willed my heart not to fall for him again. Again? What was I thinking? I never got over him the first time. While I waited for Matt to pick up, I started to imagine what my life would have been like if that night had never happened. He answered, “Johnson.” So much for reminiscing.
“Matt, it’s Elaine. He’s out, and he may know where I am.” My voice wavered.
“What? How the hell could he know? Are you okay, Elaine?”
“I’m fine. But I received a copy of a newspaper article from last week’s paper stating that he is out due to a procedural error. Why didn’t you tell me?”
The ramifications of the article started to sink in...I was going to have to disappear again. Damn.
“Matt, there’s also another complication. Jackson McKenna recognized me.”
I winced as Matt tried, without success, to contain his emotions. “When did that happen? Did he tell anyone? Is he there? Put me on speaker.”
“Jax, Matt is the FBI agent who helped me disappear ten years ago. He can give me a hand again.” I put the phone on speaker and laid it on the desk. “Matt, Jax is here now. He’s a cop. Maybe he can help us.”
“How the hell did this happen? We were so careful; you’re not even in Witness Protection.” I heard Matt’s frustration in his voice. “Let’s figure out how to make you disappear for good this time. Your Mom is going to be devastated.
“Matt? Detective Jackson McKenna here. Tell me what I can do to help.” He walked over to the table looking as if he wanted to take on the world. “Can I talk to you privately?” Jax picked up the phone and turned off the speaker, talking to Matt in a soft voice so I couldn’t hear as he walked to the other side of the office.
All of a sudden I had no breath; the walls were closing in on me. I found my cane and limped out of the office while Jax’s back was turned. I managed to get out of the building and down the block to the park before everything hit me. My temporary safe haven was an isolated bench on the other side of the park near the pond. No one else went there—well, I’d never seen anyone anyway. The tears began to fall. Tears for the life I never had. Tears for the love my Mom had found with Matt. At least, that’s one good thing that came out of this whole screwed up mess.
Jax
On such a cloudy, gray day, my heart wanted to soar. I had found my Lainie. Fate was something I never questioned, but it never occurred to me that I’d see her again. Then the situation became just as volatile as it was ten years ago. The relief I sensed knowing that Lainie was alive was cut short by the thought of that asshole getting to her again. Matt and I discussed what we should do to make her disappear, but it didn’t look good. Somehow Keith found out about her name change. Matt thought he had that covered by deleting all the official reports of it after it was done, but somehow he found her anyway.
I looked at my watch and realized I’d been on the phone with Matt for thirty minutes. When I turned around, Lainie was gone. My heart pounded from anxiety until Sheila told me she had followed Lainie to the park. There was this private location where she went when something was bothering her—this definitely qualified. Sheila let me know how to get there. As I walked then jogged in that direction through the park, all I knew was that Matt and I had to find a way to make Lainie safe for good. I couldn’t even grasp the reality of what had happened today. Against all odds, she was back in my life… maybe. Now I might lose her again. I’d gladly give her up if it meant keeping her safe, but I wanted her secure, and I wanted her in my arms again. Matt wasn’t sure that was such a good idea.
The clouds had finally let go, and the rain was coming down in sheets by the time I reached her. She had taken out those awful brown contact lenses, and I saw the beautiful blue eyes that first attracted me to her all those years ago.
“God, Lainie, your lips are blue! Do you have any dry clothes at the office?”
She shivered all the way back down town, but I suspected it wasn’t just from being cold and wet. When we reached the receptionist’s area, she pointed to the door behind Sheila’s desk. I found dry sweats and a t-shirt along with socks and tennis shoes. I brought them to her, and she started to unbutton her blouse. Then she blushed and asked me to turn around. I broke a smile. “I’ll use your office to call my sister if you don’t mind. We get together every week for dinner, and I’m going to be late.”
Matt was still on the phone, this time with Sheila, who was working at Lainie’s computer. I imagined they were making arrangements for her to disappear again. My heart sank when I realized I wouldn’t be able to look for her this time. Knowing why she’d gone away convinced me that I couldn’t have contact with her again, and it broke my heart.
After persuading Jordan that I was fine and making plans to meet her for dinner tomorrow night, I returned to the reception area and saw that Lainie had gone again. Dammit. She shouldn’t be out wandering around all by herself when there may be someone trying to kill her. At first, I was afraid that someone had come and taken her until I spotted the note sitting on the chair. The handwriting squeezed my heart, reminding me of our tutoring sessions. Get a grip, McKenna. The note was for me. “Jax, I’ve gone home. Call you tomorrow.” Nope, not acceptable.
I interrupted Sheila’s conversation and told her that Lainie had gone home, and I was going after her. She laughed as she stood in the doorway. “How are you going to do that, Sir Galahad? You don’t even know where she lives.”
She must have seen me as a cartoon character. I probably looked like one. As she wrote the address on a notepad for me, she said, “Elaine told me how she felt about you. Go talk to her and convince her to accept your help. She needs you in her corner.”
“I’ve always been in her corner. She grabbed hold of my heart all those years ago and never let go.”
The sheepish look that followed on my face wasn’t one befitting a decorated police officer, and I realized that I’d never said that to anyone else, not even Jordan. Honestly, I’d never fully admitted it to myself.
With Lainie’s address in my hand and ignoring the rain, I sloshed through the parking lot towards my car, watching every automobile that drove by wondering if they worked for him. It was freezing, even in the car, and I was soaked from the short walk. Lainie’s address was only about five blocks from my apartment. How could sh
e have been so close all this time? Under different circumstances, we might have met out on the street.
At a stoplight fifteen minutes into my drive, I saw a black Escalade pulled over behind a Toyota sedan. Two men were towering over a smaller figure. As I cleared the intersection, I saw the smaller one swinging something, trying to keep the others away. One of the men noticed me watching and grabbed the smaller one by the arm and tried to force them towards the SUV. Damn, I don’t have time for this. As a police officer, I shouldn’t have intervened unless there was an imminent danger or a cry for help. I got closer and saw that the smaller man was a woman, and it was Lainie. Shit!
I threw my car into park and jumped out, running towards them, hoping I could get there in time. Atta’ girl, Lainie. I was on medical leave and didn’t have my radio, so there was no way of calling for backup. She was putting up quite a fight, swinging the stick and trying to get away. I drew my gun and ran towards them, yelling, “Freeze, police!” The one holding Lainie pulled her around in front of him as a shield, and I saw her leg give out, sending her falling to the pavement. I was closing in fast but didn’t have a clear shot, and they made a run for it back to the Escalade. Before I could get there, they drove away, tires screeching.
Every step seemed as if I were running through mud; I couldn’t reach her fast enough. I slid to a stop and dropped down on one knee when I got to her, praying they hadn’t hurt her.
“Lainie, are you okay?”
She looked up at me, and the physical pain in her eyes answered my question.
“It’s my knee; I can feel it swelling already.”
She was trying to get up with the aid of the stick that I now saw was a cane—her cane. The anger rose again, and I hoped that the bastard would come after me so I could pound him into dust for what he had done to her. I reached down and scooped her up, grimacing at the pain it caused in my right arm. Once I saw the look on her face, it was easy to ignore my own pain and carry her to my car. “Is this the same car? Seems like you and your dad got the body work done.”
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