The denial. The belief that she was overthinking all of this. Overreacting. She was terrified they’d steal that safety blanket of denial away. A blanket she wasn’t ready to lose. She wasn’t ready face the cold. A cold she hadn’t even realized existed until that very moment as it raced through her body like an Antarctic chill.
She looked over her shoulder and down the stairs of the shack’s wrap around porch, her eyes eventually landing on the pickup truck parked on the side of the road, several feet away from the small shack. The shack was located at the bottom of the hill—the island’s most poverty-stricken area—in a neighborhood that was gentrifying rapidly.
Linc watched her from the driver’s seat of his truck, leaning forward on the center console so he could see her out of the passenger window, which he’d left rolled down. His green eyes were hard and tight. Almost as tight as the hold he had on the steering wheel. She could almost hear his knuckles cracking against the wheel’s leather, clearly still shaken at her mini-breakdown in his kitchen. A breakdown she hadn’t even fully explained to him, still cuddled in the warm blanket of denial, utterly speechless during the entire drive up to that house.
Her reaction to that video had clearly spooked Linc. She’d had to fight tooth and nail just to convince him to stay in the car after they’d pulled up to the house. She knew the look on his face because she’d seen it before. It was the look that indicated he was ready for blood. The blood of whoever had thrown her into a tailspin. Blinded by the need to introduce the fist he had locked around that steering wheel to the face of the next person he saw, even if that person had nothing to do with it.
It was better that he stayed in the car.
Veda gave a quick wave to help calm him down. Unfortunately, it only seemed to irritate him more, the muscle under his jaw rolling. He didn’t wave back.
So she faced the door once more, took a deep breath and knocked, letting her eyes fall softly closed as she heard shuffling on the other side.
“You haven’t been working here long, so you probably don’t know this about me…” Jake swallowed and took a moment. “But this isn’t my only job. Working in the pharmacy is what I do to make money, but my heart… my passion… is with the Terrance Gloss Foundation.”
She took a deep breath as she recalled the first real conversation she’d had with Jake. The day he’d discovered she was The Chopper. The day she’d told him her entire torrid story in the hopes he would take pity on her and neglect to turn her in to the police. The day he’d told her a few of his secrets too.
“I discovered the foundation when my brother went missing, seven years ago…” Jake said. “He was never found.”
Veda froze when the door to the shack swung open, and a middle-aged woman wearing a floral dress appeared. She knew instantly that the woman before her was Jake’s mother. With those soft blue eyes, birdlike features and platinum blonde hair, cut into a blunt bob, she was his spitting image. The woman Veda had always begged Jake to meet—the mother of her best friend—but whom he’d never introduced her to.
Her stomach did a somersault. “Mrs. Jones?”
Yvette Jones shifted, taking hold of the door with one hand while clutching the frame with the other, smiling warmly at her.
Veda smiled back. “I’m… I’m Veda.”
Yvette’s mouth fell open, the smile still present at the corners of her thin lips, and then she tilted her head softly to the side, her brows pinching.
And Veda’s heart was at her feet.
Because this woman had no idea who she was.
Veda wasn’t exactly on the best terms with her parents, but even they would recognize the name “Jake” if he showed up at their door out of the blue. The few times she’d spoken to her parents, her best friend on the island was pretty much all she could talk about.
“I—” Veda took a moment when fresh tears stung her eyes, feeling the warm blanket slipping even further off her body, exposing her more and more to the bitter cold, making her teeth chatter. “I… I work for the Shadow Rock Tribune, and we’re doing a paper on the Terrance Gloss Foundation. Your son, Jake Jones, told us that he started volunteering for the foundation shortly after his little brother went missing. We were hoping you could answer some questions about your missing son?”
If it were possible, Yvette’s bewildered frown deepened even more. “Jake…”
Veda shook her head, already knowing the words that were coming.
“Jake is my only son,” Yvette finished, shaking her head as well. “He doesn’t have a brother.”
For the second time that day, the wind was knocked out of Veda’s sails. Taking the warm blanket of denial right with it as it blew through town, leaving icicles on any and everything it touched, included Veda’s heart.
“The night he went missing?” Jake said. “He was out with a bunch of rich kids from school. He was a really smart kid, Veda, crazy smart. After middle school, he was awarded a full scholarship to Blackwater Prep. They only give out three of those a year. Only to the smartest kids from the hill. It was a blessing and a curse. He was surrounded by people who would never understand him, never accept him, but because he was so immersed in it, he was desperate for it. Desperate to be in their circle. He couldn’t hear my parents and I when we warned him that they’d never accept a hill kid. That, at best, they’d use him in whatever way they could before tossing him like refuse. Spitting him out like trash.”
Veda didn’t know how she managed to speak past the tsunami in her heart, but she did, cocking her head to the side and squinting at Yvette. “Jake didn’t happen to go to… Blackwater Prep, did he?”
Yvette shifted. “Well… yes. He did. Blessed with a full scholarship in the 8th grade.” When a long silence fell, she shook her head again. “I’m sorry, what is this about? What did you say your name was?” She ventured a guess. “Vera?”
“I—” Veda stumbled, the pain lacing her voice and breaking it clear in half. “It doesn’t…” Her shoulders collapsed, and she sighed heavily. “It doesn’t matter. I’m sorry—I’m sorry to bother you.” Veda turned and hurried away, pounding down the porch stairs as quickly as she could.
“Well, hold on—” Yvette called after Veda in the way only a mother could, a hint of concern in her voice for the tears she’d surely seen in Veda’s eyes, with a soft tone that was hungry to fix her pain, even though she hadn’t caused it.
But Veda didn’t turn back as Yvette called after her, her face curling with tears, harder every second as she approached Linc’s truck and threw the passenger door open, climbing in, slamming it closed and burying her head between her knees before she finally allowed herself to explode into tears.
From the driver’s seat, Linc had finally had enough, his voice rock hard. “Veda, what the fuck is going on?”
22
By the time Linc pulled up to the second house Veda had asked him to take her to that day—and only after she’d explained the situation to him, in depth—her tears had dried. Staring out of the passenger window as Linc put the truck in park beside her, Veda’s cheeks were tight with the remnants of tears long gone, eyes as red and parched as a desert tundra.
The warm blanket of denial had been stolen from her.
And she had no more tears to spill.
No.
Only white hot, debilitating anger.
She slammed her hand down on the door handle and shoved it open, allowing the cool breeze to sneak in as she glared at the house before her. Another small shack on the hill—painted canary yellow, canned in like a sardine with dozens of other shacks that lined the dirty, tattered street.
Veda began to hop out of the truck, heard Linc opening his door on the driver’s side, went rigid, and looked back at him.
“No,” she said, causing Linc to freeze in the midst of climbing out of the truck. “I’m going in alone.”
Linc turned to face her as well, having only gotten one leg out of the truck. “You’re not going in there alone.”
“Yes, I am.”
“Veda, that animal raped you, lied about it, befriended you and led you to believe he was on your team. He’s a sadist, and you’re not going in there alone.”
Veda reached across the console and covered Linc’s bicep with her hand, feeling the muscle roll under her touch the moment she did. “I don’t know how to find the right words to make you understand, Linc. So all I can do is beg you to believe me when I tell you… I have to do this alone.”
He frowned at her, and she saw the lump that moved down his throat and made his Adam’s Apple bob. His bicep pulsed again, and then he rolled his eyes.
“I’ll let you go in,” he said, lifting his t-shirt and undoing the strap to the holster on his hip, ensuring easy access to the Glock awaiting him inside. “But I’m right outside the door.”
“Okay.” Veda breathed deeply, satisfied with their negotiation. “Thanks.”
They climbed out of the car together, slamming their doors closed at the same time. Veda began up the short walkway that led to the shack—occasionally peeking over her shoulder to make sure Linc wasn’t following too closely behind her. He wasn’t, instead, leaning on the passenger’s side door with his arms crossed, glaring at the house. It was better that he didn’t come in, she decided, because he was ready to kill the man on the other side of that door. Almost as much as she was. Considering he was the only one of them with a gun, everyone was safer this way.
She didn’t even knock when she made it to the unlocked front door, throwing it violently open, the anger in her heart at debilitating levels. She stomped into the house. A house she’d been in many times before. A house she’d once visited with excited anticipation and warmth in her heart. With an ease to her soul that could only arise when one was visiting a friend.
When one was visiting her best friend.
The tears that had dried on her cheeks during the drive returned with a vengeance as Veda made her way down the long hallway that led toward the living area of the house. Each step she took caused another shot of anxiety to prickle across her body, making her knees shake and her breathing to go uneven. As she turned the corner out of the hallway and entered the living room, however, the sight that awaited her stole the uneven breath from her lungs, leaving them neglected and burning with need.
Sitting on the living room floor, nestled in the corner of the far wall, Jake lifted his shining blue eyes to Veda’s from across the room. His legs were bent in front of him—feet spread far apart from where they were planted on the carpet. His elbows were cradled on his bent knees. His blue orbs were just as red and swollen as hers. His limbs just as wobbly. His breathing just as sparse.
But that wasn’t what stopped Veda in her tracks.
No.
It was the revolver he held in his trembling hand, his pointer finger primed on the trigger.
Her gaze locked onto that revolver for several moments, instantly regretting the choice to ask Linc to wait outside. She should’ve guessed that—after the bizarre exchange at her doorstep—Jake’s mother would’ve called him, alerting him to the strange visit she’d just gotten from someone named “Vera”. Alerting him to all the invasive questions “Vera” had asked, and how distraught she’d been.
It wouldn’t have taken a genius to put the pieces together.
After a moment of staring at that gun, Veda finally found her breath, gasping softly as she lifted her gaze back up to him. A long silence fell in, neither breaking the heated gaze they held across the room.
Jake’s face grew beet red as a fat tear tumbled over his eyes and down his cheek. “I always felt invisible.”
Her stomach rolled as his voice filled the room and spread all over her body, its broken tone infiltrating every corner of her being and waging war.
“That scholarship was supposed to be the best thing that ever happened to me.” He tightened his grip on the gun, chuckling softly. “You know, I used to eat lunch in the bathroom stall, alone, every day. Every. Single. Day. So pathetic, so invisible, and so forgettable… that to this very day, no one who went to Blackwater Prep even remembers my name or recognizes my face. Still invisible. Invisible, even to the three hundred pound rich kid who handed me a pair of sixteen thousand dollar sneakers at a party one night, for free. Invisible, forgettable… even to the three hundred pound rich kid who eventually became my boss, still having no clue that we’d gone to high school together. Invisible, even to the three hundred pound rich kid who’d been just as invisible as me…”
Veda heaved harder, faster, with each word he spoke.
“Invisible…” He motioned to her with the gun.
Her chest rose at the sight of the barrel pointed at her.
But his gun-clad hand went limp once more, pointing the barrel in a different direction. “Until you came blazing into town, Veda,” Jake’s lips trembled and then curled at the corners. “And even though you only saw me because… because you needed me… because you needed me to keep your secret…” He shrugged, another tear popping out. “You still saw me. The only real friend I’ve ever had. My best friend.”
She gasped in a breath, her throat closing up rapidly, though she managed to whisper. “Why?”
“I wanted someone to see me,” Jake whispered. “I needed someone to see me. Even if only for one night… for one hour… at one party…”
“You sick, selfish bastard.” Her face curled into a cringe as his words sank in. “You knew…” She began shaking her head softly as the truth hit her like a bulldozer, over and over. “From the moment I walked into that pharmacy and told you my story. You knew… this entire time. How?” She cried. “How could you? How could you?”
“I tried to be a good friend,” he said, his voice going vacant, stoic. “I told myself, ‘if I’m a good enough friend to her, maybe, even if only the tiniest little bit, I can make amends for the terrible thing I did.’ I wanted to make it right, Veda. I could’ve just turned you in. Turned you over to the police to save my own ass. But I didn’t because I wanted so badly to make it right. That has to count for something, doesn’t it?”
Her eyebrows shot up. She almost laughed, but the pain ripping her to shreds won out. “You weren’t trying to make it right for me.” She shook her head. “You were trying to make it right for you. You didn’t turn me in because you enjoyed using me to hurt them. So desperate to punish them for ignoring you in high school that you were happy to watch me do the dirty work of maiming them for you. All because you had to eat alone in the bathroom?”
“I didn’t turn you in,” he started, his lips curled down, the gun trembling in his hand, “because I couldn’t bear the thought of hurting you any further. Any more than I already had. I truly loved you for being a friend—my only friend—and I regret that night… every day. Every minute. Every second, I’ve regretted it, Veda. I love you."
A disgusted heave rolled across her body.
“I love you,” Jake breathed, his own face crumbling, wet cheeks fire red. “And I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry. Please… Please forgive me.” Those two words, forgive me, seemed to break something deep within him, making his every word more strained than the last as the tears falling from his eyes stole his breath and closed his throat. “Please forgive me. Please forgive me. Please… forgive me…” His voice trailed away with each plea, each second Veda stood before him, refusing to heed his desperate request. “Please forgive me, Veda.”
Her teeth chattered, but she managed to speak through them, hearing her voice prattling along with them. “Linc is waiting outside…” She drew in a breath through flared nostrils, her chest expanding, barely managing to speak through her shredded heart. “I’m gonna bring him in… and he’s gonna do with you what he pleases…. Just like you did what you pleased with me.”
“Tell me you forgive me,” Jake begged, clearly unmoved at whatever painful fate awaited him whenever Lincoln Hill decided to walk through that door.
Veda licked her lips while letting her eyes fall closed, the heat cooking
under her skin nearly debilitating. When the words on the tip of her tongue grew so venomous she worried she was on the verge of poisoning herself, she took another moment, clenching her fists as her eyes opened and took him in.
Lips trembling, she finally managed to arrange the profane words singeing her mind into a comprehensible sentence. “From the moment I laid eyes on you, you’ve been the monster who kept me up at night, for ten long years. From the moment I laid eyes on you, you’ve been lying to me. Deceiving me. Using me to escape the guilt, the culpability, the self-condemnation for the disgusting thing you did.” She took another moment when her voice rose, waiting until her heartbeat slowed down to continue. Her voice calm even as she fell apart inside. “You gave me the lead on those jigsaw puzzle sneakers… knowing I would blame Gage. You let me believe he was guilty of the repulsive thing you did. You let me destroy my engagement. You’re the reason he wasn’t there to protect me the night I lost my baby. You’re the reason I lost my baby.”
Jake buried his tear-filled face in his hands, jabbing the crown of his head with the butt of the gun as his chest rolled with sobs, the tears spilling from his eyes like a waterfall, between his legs, and falling to the carpet.
Veda spoke to the top of his head. “You were gonna let me do to Gage what I did to all the others. To exact a justice upon him that was meant for you. That’s the real reason you befriended me. The real reason you helped me. The real reason you begged me to stop after Liam O’Dair, to let go of the anger, to stop seeking revenge. Because you knew that you couldn’t use Gage as a catalyst anymore. Once I found out he wasn’t ten, you knew it was only a matter of time before I found out you were.”
“No.” Jake met her eyes once more, shaking his head. “I begged you to stop because I could see the way it was tearing you apart, Veda. God, after everything… after everything that happened to you, you still managed to finish med school. Nail down a residency. Claw your way to the top. You still managed to win. To make a real life for yourself. But, even with the world at your fingertips, you were still hell bent on throwing it all away. Thinking you were punishing us when you were really punishing yourself. Trying to heal the pain in your heart in the worst possible way.”
Rouse (Revenge Book 7) Page 16
