Travis loved the band The Police. Over and over again, the lyrics of “Every Breath You Take” and “King of Pain” echoed through the house. The notes drummed into Jenna’s mind as she tried to study for her calculus final, the last test of her senior year of high school.
“I promise. I never touched Travis’ record player, Mom.”
But before Judith could answer, Travis was barreling his way into her room. He flicked on the light and yanked her up by her arm. Then he tossed her, face down, back onto the bed.
“Hold her down, Jude. JJ needs to be taught a lesson. For such a smart girl, she’s pretty fucking stupid when it comes to showing some goddamn respect for other people’s property.”
Jenna shifted and tried to put as much distance between herself and Travis as her mother pressed her body into the mattress. But Jenna froze like a beaten dog when she heard a sound, that sound. The sound that had become all too familiar over the years.
The slight jangle of metal on metal, then a quick whoosh.
Jenna had a strange thought, lying there, torso pressed into the mattress, head turned to the side at an awkward angle. She could barely breathe with her mother pushing on her back and her face crushed into the side of a pillow. But at that moment, she realized she’d only ever heard the sound of Travis taking his belt off. She hadn’t a clue what it sounded like when he put it back on.
Travis hauled up her nightgown, holding the fabric near the nape of her neck. The belt cut a sharp hiss through the air as Travis landed the first blow across her back.
“You know you had this coming.” He punctuated his rebuke with a second hit that landed with a sickening slap.
Then the third strike and a fourth.
The coppery taste of blood invaded her mouth as she bit down on her cheek, willing herself to stay quiet. She’d learned long ago that any sound, even a whimper, elicited a more severe beating.
Her mother had left somewhere between the fourth and fifth strike, and Jenna wasn’t sure if she was hallucinating when she heard the first few notes of “Every Breath You Take.” The pause in Travis’ assault was the only indication he’d heard the music as well.
“Baby! It was unplugged. I fixed it!” her mother called, her voice light and jovial over the music.
The lashes on her back throbbed and burned, but Jenna tried not to move. She kept her eyes closed tight and counted her breaths.
Inhale. Exhale. One.
Inhale. Exhale. Two.
Travis stopped hitting her, but his hand still rested between her shoulder blades.
Jenna stopped counting.
Travis’ hand slid down her back, passed over her fresh lashes toward her buttocks.
“Looks like you didn’t break it. Let’s just say these lashes are for being such a jailbait cocktease.” His voice was thick with want as he slid his fingers along the waistband of her panties. “But wait a hot minute, you’re not jailbait anymore, are you, Jenna Jo?”
He was right. She had turned eighteen nearly a month ago. The day had come and gone as it always did, unnoticed by her mother.
Jenna couldn’t move. While Travis was cruel and would beat her, he’d never touched her like this. Just as his hand slipped inside her panties, she heard her mother call up from downstairs.
“Baby, come on down and have your drink. I’m bored all by myself.”
Travis dug his fingernails into Jenna’s buttocks, his grip bruising the tender flesh. “We’re not done here. I’m coming back for this pretty ass, JJ, and then I’ll be teaching you a real lesson.”
22
“He didn’t,” Ben began. “You weren’t…”
Back at the Tudor, Ben and Jenna sat on the front stoop.
“No, I wasn’t. I sat up all night waiting. Travis and my mom passed out around four in the morning, and then I left.”
Worry creased his face. “Where did you go?”
“I figured I’d go to Iowa, to Gwyer. But I knew I couldn’t leave without saying goodbye to one of my teachers. Her name was Mrs. Grady.”
“I don’t understand? Did you stay with her?”
“No, she did something even better for me.”
Ben gave her a quizzical look, but Jenna took his hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “I was in her Honors Lit class my senior year. One day after class, she asked me to stay behind. She’d seen me tutoring children at the public library and asked if I wanted to become a teacher. I told her I did, but I was worried about getting into college because I’d attended so many schools, had to track down so many transcripts. She asked about my parents helping me, and I told her I had to do it all on my own.”
“You didn’t tell her about Travis?”
“No. Looking back now, I’m sure she knew there was something off about my home life, but she didn’t pry. Plus, I would have lied about it even if she’d asked. Instead, Mrs. Grady helped me pull everything together for my college applications and suggested I apply to Gwyer.”
“That’s how you found Gwyer?”
“Yes, but you see, I wasn’t expecting to have to leave so abruptly. I told myself I’d get to Gwyer and find a job. I had some money saved up. I was hoping I could rent a room somewhere. But I was ready to sleep in my car if I had to.”
Ben’s hand flinched, but she went on. “I knew I had to see Mrs. Grady before I left, just to say thank you. I waited until it was a halfway decent hour and knocked on her door. It was a small town, and everyone knew Mrs. Grady lived across the street from the high school.”
“Was she able to help?”
“Yes, and here’s where everything changed for me. The best part. The part I thank my lucky stars for every day. Mrs. Grady’s sister-in-law was a researcher in the education department at Gwyer. Mrs. Grady called her, right there on the spot as I sat at her kitchen table drinking cocoa. Until that moment, I wasn’t sure why she’d suggested I apply to Gwyer. It would have made more sense to go somewhere in-state. She never confirmed this, but I think she used her connection to Gwyer to help me get in and to help me get a scholarship.”
“Why did she call her sister-in-law? I don’t understand that part. You were already accepted to Gwyer by then, right?”
“To help me get a job. Her sister-in-law agreed to hire me for the summer. It was just doing data entry, organizing files, grunt-level stuff, but I would have washed floors, scrubbed toilets, whatever it took. That summer job allowed me to live on campus rent-free.”
Ben squeezed her hand.
Jenna smiled as she remembered Mrs. Grady’s snug little kitchen with the smell of cinnamon buns and the hum of NPR playing in the background.
“Everything changed for me that morning, Ben. I told her I didn’t know how to thank her. Do you know what she said to me next?”
He shook his head.
“She said, ‘Your life is ahead of you now. You get to choose your path. You decide which road will lead you home.’”
They sat quietly for a beat.
Jenna blinked back tears. “And she was right. That was the summer I met the researchers I work for today.”
“And your mom? She never contacted you? She didn’t try to find you?”
“No, she didn’t. She didn’t know anything about Gwyer College and probably had no idea where I’d gone. But by then I was eighteen, an adult. I didn’t try to contact her either. It wasn’t until I turned twenty-one and the trust attorney found me that I started asking him to forward my contact information to her. My mother moved around a lot, but she always made sure the attorneys knew where to send the check. So, through him, I made sure if she ever wanted to contact me, she could.”
“The same attorney oversees both your trusts?”
“Yes, well, his office. They’re out of Mobile.”
Jenna looked away, and then a thought crossed her mind. “Ben, what do you think about the attorney in the office next to yours, M. MacCarron, right?”
“Michael MacCarron?”
“Do you know him well?”
; “I do.”
“I’d like to have an attorney of my choosing look over the trust. Would you recommend him?”
“I would. Michael and Zoe have been friends since they were kids. He’s a good guy. He helped with the will after Sara’s mom passed, and then he took care of all the legalities when Sara died. You can come by my office, and I’ll introduce you to him.”
“I’m surprised we’ve never seen him at Park Tavern or around town.”
“He used to be a pretty outgoing guy when he was younger, back when I remember him palling around with Zoe in high school. But not so much anymore. He does quite a bit of volunteering in the community. Other than that, he mostly keeps to himself.”
Jenna nodded. She knew plenty about keeping to one’s self.
Ben pulled her closer, wrapping her in his arms. “What do you think your mother wants from you now?”
She’d been asking herself the same question. “I’d like to think she realized Travis was a bad person. She’d been staying in a women’s shelter. Maybe he was violent with her. We haven’t gotten to talk much about why she went to the shelter in the first place.”
“Travis wasn’t abusive toward her?”
“No, he never hurt her, just me, and usually with her help.”
“Jenna, I’m so sorry you had to go through that.”
She tried to give him a reassuring smile. “It wasn’t always like that. The times after she’d leave him and we’d move away, there would be at least a few days, sometimes a few weeks, where it was just the two of us. She was pretty depressed during those times, sleeping a lot. But when she was up for it, we’d play cards and watch movies. She even took me to a carnival, once.”
He cupped her face in his hands. “I’m not going to let anyone hurt you ever again.”
She knew he meant it, and, for the first time in a very long time, she felt safe and cherished. Ben pressed a kiss to her lips, and the world seemed to fade away, filled with only kisses and caresses until the sound of a car door closing floated through the air. But that concern melted away as Ben kissed a line across her jawline and down her neck.
“I’m sorry to disturb you,” a voice said, followed by a nervous cough.
Officer Stevens stood only a few feet away, a blush creeping up his neck.
“Oh my gosh,” Jenna said, trying to stand and nearly toppling over if not for Ben’s steadying hand at her elbow.
“Again, I’m sorry to bother you this early, but I have some news about Aidan Hadley.”
“Would you like to talk inside?” Ben gestured toward the house.
“That won’t be necessary. This won’t take long,” Stevens replied, the blush on his neck receding. “I spoke with one of Hadley’s friends yesterday who recently got back into town. He was camping in Colorado last week and said he’d run into Aidan at a bar in Denver this past Wednesday. Unfortunately, he wasn’t sure how long Aidan had been in Colorado.”
Jenna exchanged a look with Ben. “There were six days between when my tires were slashed and when I saw someone looking in my window.”
Ben nodded. “It’s only about a ten-hour drive to get from Langley Park to Denver. Theoretically, he could have left after he slashed your tires and then made it back to Langley Park before the storm.”
“That’s what I was thinking,” Officer Stevens added. “Until we know more about his whereabouts, it’s hard to knock out a timeline. I’ve let the Denver Police Department know he’s a person of interest to us. If he shows up on their radar, they’ll contact me.”
“Thanks for keeping us in the loop,” Ben said.
“Yes, thank you. Just knowing you’re on top of this brings me so much peace of mind. And, I’m sorry you had to find us…” Jenna trailed off.
A sheepish grin crossed the stoic officer’s face. “You don’t have to apologize, Ms. Lewis. I just proposed to my girlfriend in the middle of the town square in front of about twenty strangers. I never thought I’d be that guy. I guess when you’ve found the person you want to start forever with, you want forever to start as soon as possible.”
“Congratulations!” Jenna said as Ben shook the officer’s hand.
He nodded respectfully. “You folks, enjoy the rest of your day.”
“So, we just wait?” Jenna asked, watching the cruiser pull away.
“We stay vigilant,” Ben countered. He took Jenna’s hand into his. “I wish you’d stay in the house with Kate and me.”
The look she gave him let him know that wasn’t going to happen.
“I know, I know,” he said, reaching into his pocket as his cell phone buzzed. “I had to ask.”
Ben looked at his phone and frowned. “I nearly forgot about my meeting in Lawrence.”
“Your meeting! Of course, you should go. I hope I haven’t made you late.”
He gathered Jenna into his arms. “You haven’t. And it wouldn’t have mattered if you did. You’re so important to me, Jenna. I…” Ben rested his forehead on hers. Her breath was soft against his cheek, and he inhaled the sweet lavender scent of her hair. He wanted to tell her how he felt, but he didn’t want to scare her off with talk of love. He pulled back and met her gaze. “Thank you, Jenna. Thank you for telling me about your past, for trusting me with it.”
She was wringing her hands.
“Jenna, it’s okay. There’s nothing that could ever change the way I feel about you.”
“I think you’re beginning to learn all my tells, Mr. Fisher,” she said with a nervous laugh.
“Nope, I’ve known this one since you were fifteen. That night, hiding in the creek, you were wringing your hands. That was the first time I held them.”
Ben kissed the knuckles of first her right and then her left hand.
“Ben, I think that I’m, I mean I know that I…” she broke off.
A grin lit his face. “I know. Me, too.”
The moment hung there, sweet and perfect, as if they were teenagers again, wrapped up in their shared past, pressed against the bank of the creek until his cell phone buzzed again.
He glanced at his phone. “It’s Zoe. She’s probably just calling to confirm lunch.”
“Take the call. I’m tutoring Kate today, so I’ll see you tonight.”
Ben’s phone continued to buzz, but he slid it back into his pocket. He reached for Jenna, sliding his hand into her hair then pressed his lips to her ear. “Until tonight.”
Jenna sat in her car staring at the entrance to the Midwest Psychiatric Center while glancing down at the digital clock on the console every few seconds. It was five minutes to one. Time to go inside. Time to see her mother. She had spent so much of her life trying to avoid Judith. It felt foreign to be seeking her out.
During their last meeting, her mother had told her she’d left Travis and even seemed pleased to see her. Jenna tried to shake off the nagging feeling that something about this was off, that her mother’s selfish ways hadn’t just disappeared. But her mother had been staying in a women’s shelter. Knowing her mother, and her love of pampered days at the spa, expensive clothes, and fancy cars, a shelter had to have been a last resort.
The glimmer of hope in her heart grew.
She had found Ben and Kate. She had found a life and love in a place she never expected to return to again. Could her mother be a part of this happiness? Could their fresh, Travis-free start be possible? Her thoughts raced as she entered the psychiatric center.
“Don’t you look lovely with that smile on your face.”
“Sally, right?” Jenna asked, remembering the friendly nurse who had come to her mother’s room during their first visit.
“That’s right, honey. You have an excellent memory. Are you coming to see your mother?”
“We have family therapy, but I don’t see Elaine or Dan.”
“There’s a good reason for that. Eric’s daughter had her baby this morning, and he’s not coming in today.”
“Oh,” Jenna said, wondering if she’d missed an email or voice message. Sh
e didn’t even know Eric had a daughter.
“Nobody called you?”
“No, I don’t think so.” Jenna looked at her phone. No new calls, but there was a new text message.
From Nick.
Are you still in Kansas City?
Just six words. A simple question. But when Jenna looked back at Sally, she was momentarily stunned, caught between the past and the present.
“Are you all right, honey?”
Shaking her head, Jenna placed her phone back in her bag. “Yes, of course, I’m fine.”
“Lucky for you, I know your mother doesn’t see her therapist until later.” Sally turned to her computer screen and tapped a few keys. “She’s free until two, so you two can have some girl time this lovely afternoon. Let me call back and let them know you’re coming.”
Girl time?
Then it clicked. She was going to be alone with her mother.
After making the call, Sally walked Jenna back and had her put her purse into a locker. This was different from when she’d seen her mother for group therapy. Today, nobody would be monitoring them. This time, she’d be alone.
“You know, I’d hate to disrupt my mother’s schedule. Maybe I should go and come back when Eric’s available.”
“I’m sure it’s no trouble, honey,” Sally replied, her kind words doing little to quell Jenna’s growing apprehension.
The nurse gestured down the hall. “And look, here’s Judith now.”
23
And there she was.
Casually walking down the hall, wearing gold sandals, a pair of fitted white capris, and a sleeveless flowing top, Judith was still the beautiful, careless woman Jenna remembered floating through life, blind to responsibility, looking for the next good time. How strange that even in rehab her mother seemed somehow above it. Almost as if everyone’s sole purpose in this facility was to cater to Judith Lewis’ whims.
“Let me look at you, little girl,” Judith said as her gaze flicked to Sally.
“Judith, I think your little girl’s all grown up. There’s nothing little about her anymore. Now you ladies have a nice visit. Nurse Lori is going to come and get you when it’s time to see the doc.”
The Complete Langley Park Series (Books 1-5) Page 19
