by Jayne Blue
“And you think you’re the only one who can keep her safe?” Terry straightened and shook his head. “And you didn’t answer my question.”
“And I’m not planning to. I’m doing my job. That’s all.”
Terry took two steps forward and pointed a finger in my face. “Thin ice, Huck. Very thin. I’m not looking to jack you up, you know that. So return the favor.”
“I’m telling you, keep me on the judge. I’ve put too much time into this. I know her. I know how she thinks, what her habits are. I know where she’s vulnerable. And she trusts me. She’s her own worst enemy and if we bring in somebody else, her personality is going to get in their way.”
Terry laughed. “Shit, Huck. I asked if you were fucking her. Never mind that, are you in love with her?”
I balled my fists and let out a breath. Any answer I gave him could be dangerous. Hell, even trying to form an answer in my own head felt dangerous. Did I love her? Before I could say anything, one of the secretaries poked her head in and tapped on the doorframe.
“Sorry, guys,” she said. “Huck, there’s a phone call for you.”
“Can you take a message?” Terry asked.
The secretary looked sheepish. She was one of the new ones on a college internship. She gave Terry a wide-eyed stare and looked back at me. “They’re calling from Judge Key’s house. Deputy Moore. She said it’s urgent.”
Terry ran a hand over his face and shoved his desk phone toward me. “Transfer it to my second line,” he said. The girl pursed her lips, nodded, and ducked back out into the bullpen.
My heart thumped a wild beat as I picked up the phone. “Hey, Sally. Everything okay over there?”
Sally took a breath. “I think you better get back out here.”
“I just asked you if everything is okay!” Terry’s eyebrows went sky high and he leaned in. I turned my back to him.
“Huck, the judge is … well … she’s not hurt. But there’s been an incident. She’s freaking out.”
“What the hell is going on?” Terry stepped around me and started reaching for the phone. I pulled back.
“Sally, what the hell?”
“Huck, just get out here. She’s asking for you. She’s safe. But something’s wrong with her.”
Sally kept talking but I slammed the receiver down. “Am I on the judge’s detail or not?”
Terry let out a hard breath. “Goddammit, yes. Get your ass over there. Don’t make me regret this. I don’t give a shit who she is or who she’s connected to, if I so much as smell anything off on this, I’m pulling you. I’ve stuck my neck out for you more times than …”
“Save it,” I said, already running toward the elevators.
I don’t even remember the drive. I just knew something was wrong with Jillian and she needed me. Nothing else mattered but getting to her. My tires squealing, I pulled alongside the surveillance van we had set up. I got a wave from one of the marshals inside of it as I slammed my car door and ran up Jillian’s driveway. Sally was waiting there for me with her walkie in hand and a stern look on her face.
“She’s inside,” she said, pointing with the walkie. “She’s been sitting …”
I put a hand up and pushed past Sally. I just needed to get to Jillian. Taking a steeling breath, I slowly opened the front door. As I stepped inside, my heart went down to my shoes.
Jillian’s living room looked like a different kind of bomb had gone off. Dozens of her cardboard moving boxes lay upended or on their sides, the contents strewn all over the floor. Jillian sat in the middle of it all, hugging her knees with tears streaming down her face. I stepped through a sea of clothing, framed pictures, pots and pans, plates, utensils, vases, and shoes. The wood floor beneath wasn’t even visible anymore under all the clutter.
Jillian looked up at me. The tracks of her tears left red marks down her otherwise perfect white skin. I kicked aside a crock pot and knelt in front of her.
“Well,” I said. “I’d say you’re the world’s best housekeeper if there were no such thing as doors, Jillian.”
She let out a choked sound and pressed her forehead into her arm. “Don’t laugh at me.”
I put a hand out and gently touched her shoulder. “I’m not laughing, baby.”
She started to shake and my guts twisted in two. Whatever it was, whatever happened, Jillian was hanging on by a thread. I shifted my weight and sat beside her. She stiffened when I touched her again but I ignored it. Positioning myself slightly behind her, I pulled her back so she was leaning against my chest then started to rub her earlobes between my thumb and forefingers. Over and over again, I caressed her there and behind her ears with rhythmic strokes. Her back was rigid, coiled as if she might leap to her feet at any second. But as I kept my hands on her head and behind her ears, she started to sink into me. She let out a sigh then finally turned to face me. I gathered her into my arms and kissed the top of her head.
“Baby, tell me what happened?”
She hiccupped and her shoulders shook with another great sob, but she let me hold her for a few more minutes. Then she finally straightened her back and looked up at me.
“I tried, Huck. It’s all just a big mess no matter what I do. I always end up back here.”
“Back where? You mean all this stuff? Honey, we’ll fix it. You might not know it by looking at me but I can set up a killer kitchen.” I held up a metal whisk and waved it in the air in front of her.
She gave me a weak smile that tore at my heart. “I’m bad at it.”
I laughed. “I can see that.”
“I started with just the one box. I thought if I could do that much, it would help. Then it was all over the place. I think I scared the deputies. They burst in here. I thought they were going to break down the door.”
I nodded. “You had them freaked. That’s for sure. They were just doing their job though. Nobody’s judging you.”
Jillian hiccup-sobbed again and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “They will. Everyone will. I can’t stop it now.”
“What are you talking about?”
Fresh tears spilled out of her eyes. She pushed away from me and started to crawl through the debris. With shaking fingers, she pulled out a wrinkled manila envelope and clutched it to her chest.
“I tried, Huck. God. I was stupid enough to think if I worked hard enough I could outrun it all. I could control it. But he was right.”
“Who was?”
“My son of a bitch, Daddy. He told my mother she wouldn’t be able to make it without him. He was right about that in a way. She was trying to leave him. Did I tell you that? She’d found an apartment for us. She was going to meet with the landlord when she had her accident. Karma. That’s what my father said after the funeral and he found out what she was up to. He told me the same thing. He said, see what happens when you don’t do what I tell you?”
“God, Jillian. Baby, I’m sorry. He’s gone though. Your father can’t control you anymore.”
“He said I was too big for my britches. That I owed everything I am to him. He had a path all laid out for me. Ross was part of it. He was the one Daddy was trying to prop up to run for office. I was just supposed to be his trophy wife. I wasn’t supposed to think for myself. Now Daddy’s gone but he’s still trying to drag me down. I know it sounds crazy, but I can’t help but feel like this is him somehow, reaching through the grave to mess it all up. I tried to put it all back in the box but it’s a mess.”
“Jillian.” I reached forward and took the envelope from her. “What the hell is going on? How is your father trying to drag you down?”
She buried her face in her hands. I opened the envelope and looked inside. It was stuffed with about a dozen photographs. Reaching in I pulled one out. My vision clouded with blood rage when my brain made sense of what I saw.
They were of Jillian. All of them. She was a few years younger, thinner. Still so beautiful but with a sort of waifish quality. Her luminous blue eyes stared left of center of the c
amera as if she wasn’t aware it was there. My heart turned to stone as I realized she absolutely hadn’t been aware. These were intimate photographs. Jillian asleep, stretched naked on her back, her left leg bent at an angle. In another, she was up on all fours; her lover’s shadowy figure could be seen behind her as he entered her from behind. In another, Jillian rode him. In yet another she was on her back, her legs spread wide as she arched her back. In that one, her eyes had taken on a green glow as a flash must have gone off in the dark. I crumpled the photograph in my shaking fist then stuffed it back into the envelope.
“Was there a note?” I said, my voice sounding strained and distant to my own ears.
“Yes,” she said. She produced it by uncurling her fist.
I went to reach for it, but stopped myself. It would have to be dusted for prints. All of it would. God, how could I be so careless?
“I know I should have just called Deputy Moore in here,” she said, sniffling. “Fingerprints. I thought of that. But, Huck, I just couldn’t. I needed … I needed you.”
She lay the purple square of paper on the ground in front of me. I blinked hard to try and push my rage aside.
There is more than one way to get to you.
I slid one of the pictures under it, lifted it, and dropped both back into the envelope.
I was two men. The law enforcement officer side of me understood the significance of what she had shown me. The timing of the envelope on the heels of the bomb explosion might just be a coincidence. Every instinct inside of me told me it wasn’t. She hadn’t died yesterday. Whoever set off that bomb knew it. The note was a veiled reference to that.
But the other man inside of me raged with protective jealousy. I wanted to hurt whoever did this. I wanted to scour my brain of the image of any other man touching her past or future. Jillian was mine. Mine. I’d keep her safe with my life if it came to that, whether I wore a marshal’s badge or not.
I went to her. I don’t know if that’s what she needed but it didn’t matter. She was hurting. Scared. In one fell swoop, all of her armor had been stripped away so I gave her mine.
“Jillian,” I whispered as she let me hold her. “This is going to end. I’ll keep you safe no matter what.”
“How can you keep me safe from those pictures, Huck? Look at them. I mean, don’t look at them. Someone taped me.”
My heart froze. In my shock at seeing the images, I’d let the investigator side of me fall away for a moment. But she was right. The pictures had the grainy quality of having been made from stills from a video camera. God. So there was a sex tape out there somewhere of Jillian. My Jillian. I bit back the rage bubbling to the surface. I was angry, livid, but not at her. I didn’t want her to misunderstand and think I was.
“Baby,” I said, pulling her back so I could see her face. “I need to ask you some questions. And we’re going to have to hand all of it over to the FBI. I know that’s not ideal, but we have no choice.”
“God, Huck. I know that. They’re awful. And it’s embarrassing. But I know I didn’t do anything wrong. I’m not so fragile that my pride would keep me from wanting to do everything in my power to get this asshole.”
I couldn’t help it, she made me laugh. Jillian had the wind knocked out of her but she was still unbelievably strong. A little of the Ice Queen settled back into her eyes. That’s my girl, I thought.
“Okay. So do you … I mean … fuck. Where did those come from? Is it your tape?”
She shook her head and wiped under her eyes with the back of her hand. “No. God. No. I wouldn’t ever consent to something like that. But it was a long time ago. I didn’t recognize the room at first. I’d only ever been in it once. We usually stayed at my place. I had an apartment in Petoskey. That’s not it. That looks like Ross’s bedroom.”
Ross Dennison. My blood turned to ice. That sad sack of shit. You couldn’t recognize him in any of the pictures I saw. He’d made sure of it. And now she was telling me this fucker had taped her without her knowledge. If I got my hands on him I couldn’t be sure I wouldn’t just wring the life out of him.
“He called me today,” she said, leaning back on her heels. “Left a message on my voice mail. I don’t know how he got the number. I never gave it to him. You can listen to it if you want. It’s just him saying he wants to see me and that he was worried about what he saw on the news.”
She reached back and handed me her cell phone. I played the message, surprised my molars didn’t turn to powder after clenching my jaw through it. I clicked off the phone and held it. “Okay. I’ll give that information to the investigators too. It could be a coincidence but I find that unlikely. It’s like he’s checking in to see if you got this little package. Don’t call him back. Not yet. It could be he’s just setting the stage to try and blackmail you.”
“I thought that too. God. I’m sorry. I was awful to Sally and the other deputies. I ordered them out of here. They heard the commotion when I started throwing boxes around.”
“I get that.”
“I don’t know. It just … happens to me sometimes.”
“I get that too. You’re wound pretty tight, Jillian. So when you spin out, you spin out hard.”
She let out the tiniest laugh and it made my heart warm. She looked better. Stronger. Ready to do battle. “I guess I don’t really have a medium button. That’s what Rhonda always says.”
“She’s a smart lady. I’ll help you put Humpty Dumpty back together here. It’s just things, Jillian. We’ll clean it up.”
She nodded and rose to her feet. “Tell me the truth. What are the chances that tape or those pictures don’t end up on the news?”
I rose with her and shrugged. It was in me to sugarcoat it. But I saw the steel in her eyes and knew she wasn’t that fragile, no matter how fucked up her living room was at the moment.
“Well, when this kind of thing happens, you have to be prepared for the worst. I’m going to do everything I can to try and get this asshole before it comes to that. But this won’t touch you. I waved the envelope in the air. This isn’t about you. You’re right. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
She smoothed back her hair and straightened her skirt. “Thanks for that. And for being straight with me. But, Huck, how did you know to do that?”
“Do what?”
“That thing with my ears. I felt like I was losing my grip there for a minute. That … helped. Somehow.”
I bit my lip and shook my head. “Well, I don’t know. It just came to me. I used to have a cocker spaniel and she freaked during thunderstorms. That’s the only thing that used to calm her down.”
Jillian took a step back. She narrowed her brows and that little crease formed between her eyes. Then she broke into a sheepish smile and laughed. I laughed with her and pulled her close to me.
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s call Sally in here. She’ll be an asset. I promise.”
She went up on her tiptoes and kissed me. I took her in my arms and kissed her back. Her touch was light, more of friendship than passion. I took it as she gave it. In some ways, it seemed almost more intimate a gesture than anything we’d shared last night. She gave something of herself away to me and I knew enough to cherish it. Then she broke away, straightened her skirt again, and squared her shoulders as she turned toward the front door.
I still held her phone in my hand and it vibrated. Lifting it, my breath caught as her caller ID came up. A fresh wave of hot jealousy flared through me.
“Is it Ross?” she said, her face a bloodless scowl. “Let me have it.”
I shook my head. “It’s not Ross.”
I held up the screen and turned it toward her. She set her mouth into a hard line as she read what I’d seen. It read, “POTUS.” I tapped the screen to answer it and held it up to my ear.
“Please hold for the President of the United States.”
Chapter Sixteen
Jillian
“Of course, Mr. President. Thank you. Thank you so much. I look forwa
rd to seeing you again soon too.”
Huck’s eyes stayed with mine, tracking me like a laser beam. In some ways, I felt more uncomfortable having him witness this phone conversation than I did seeing those pictures of Ross and me. This felt just as exposed.
I clicked off the phone and set it on the kitchen counter. When I turned to face him, Huck remained taciturn, leaning against the wall near the front door. Only a tiny flicker of his left eyebrow belied whatever turmoil he had going on inside that brain of his.
My life was a mess. Most of it of my own making. My spine prickled as I caught a glimpse of the wreckage I’d made of the living room. Huck was right. They were just things. That particular genie could be put back in the bottle. The pictures and videos of me having sex with Ross would be harder.
God. I felt the icy fingers of panic start to crawl up my neck. But one look into Huck’s steady gaze and it started to subside. Shit. He was good for me. He might also be the worst thing in the world for me. As it was, I’d just spent five minutes lying to the President of the United States.
I’d only met President Vance a handful of times. He was from Grand City, Michigan. During his campaign I was President of the State Bar. We’d attended a luncheon together and he was nice to me. He had a roving eye, that was the rumor. He was young, virile, blond, blue-eyed, and handsome. He had Viking ancestry written all over his chiseled Nordic features and I knew how rumors got started. But I didn’t fuck my way to the federal bench and I wouldn’t stand for Huck’s jealousy even if a part of it turned me on.
“He’s a friend,” I said, crossing my arms in front of me. “Actually barely more than an acquaintance. He was worried about me. I’m sure he called all of the other judges as well. That’s the kind of guy he is.”
Huck raised an infuriating brow. “I didn’t say a word.”
“You didn’t have to. I know what people say.”
“I’m not people, Jillian. And if I have a question for you about anything, you can be damn sure I’m just going to come straight out and ask it.”
