by Peak, Renna
“We thought Brandon was behind this latest blackmailing. We’ve had a few over the years.”
Shit. Brandon. I hadn’t even been thinking about him and the rest of the bullshit I’d seen that night.
“I don’t think he is, Jenna. This one wasn’t his style. It was too quick of a turnaround. He usually lets his victims bleed for a while before he finishes them.”
I closed my eyes and turned away from her, back toward the window. The sick feeling had returned to my stomach, about a million times worse this time.
“Jenna, honey, I know you want to believe in him. I know you want to believe him when he tells you that he’s changed. I’d like to believe it, too. But zebras don’t change their stripes.”
I shook my head and stared out the window.
“He doesn’t do what he does for money. He does it for fun. He gets a special thrill from taking someone down, especially if it hurts me. The Hennessey family is the ultimate prize in his world. I don’t think he was behind this news being leaked, but it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if he had something to do with some part of it.”
I turned back to her. “What does Robin Axelrod have to do with this?”
Her brow furrowed with confusion and she tilted her head. “What are you talking about?”
“He was stealing files from a computer when we were at the gala. And he was kissing Robin Axelrod.”
3
The sound that came from her nose could only be described as a snort. “My brother and an actress? Unlikely.”
I nodded, still staring out the window. My stomach twisted into knots. “Oh, it’s true. They seemed to be quite…” I turned to face her. “Intimate.”
She cocked an eyebrow. “Nothing would surprise me about him, but I don’t see that. The daughter of a senator running for president? Oh, hell yes, but an actress? I don’t know what he could get from her that he’d be able to use later.”
“Maybe he didn’t want anything from her. Maybe he just wanted her.” She had said something as I was bolting away from the two of them. All we need is America’s sweetheart getting involved in this. What the hell had that been about?
She patted my shoulder. “You’ve had the most difficult night anyone has probably ever had. You should probably sleep on whatever that was before you let yourself get too upset about it. It was probably nothing. A one time job of some sort. He does them all the time, sweetie.”
I dropped my head in my hands, wishing I could turn my brain off for just a little while. There was just too much to think about, too much that had happened that night. My head was still spinning with everything. I also didn’t like the patronizing tone she had taken with me. I saw him at the gala; there was no mistaking what I had seen.
The car slowed and turned into a narrow driveway. I looked up to watch Cade roll down the window and punch in the security number on the gate. No one would know there was anything there from the road. The entryway was heavily wooded and the driveway was long, probably close to a mile down to the cabin. It may as well have had a moat around it, it was so far from the road and the driveway was less than a safe drive. The next nearest public entry point was over eight miles away, so it was almost always completely private. My family had owned the property for longer than I had been alive and it was a place we came when my parents were tired of the media storm that constantly followed them around.
Krystal and Cade accompanied me into the house. I walked to the large living room, my favorite place in the cabin. Even though it was dark, I opened the curtains that covered the wall sized window that faced the ocean. I walked around the grand piano in the middle of the room to the window and dropped into one of the cushioned, reclining chairs nearby. I pretended that I could see the water, even though the ocean was a fair distance from the house and it was so dark that I couldn’t really see anything but the blackness of the night.
Krystal sat down in the chair next to mine. “The clothes you left in Iowa should be here in the morning. I had them rerouted to be delivered here.”
I just nodded and stared out the window, numbness enveloping me.
She blew out a long sigh. “Jenna, I know this is hard, but I want you to try not to watch any television this weekend. Don’t even turn the thing on. Stay off the computer. Don’t answer the phone.”
I pressed my lips together and nodded again. The tingling in my stomach was the only sensation I was really aware of.
She continued. “It’s unlikely, but there could be reporters who try to get out here. We haven’t had problems with them here before, but this is a much bigger story than we’ve ever had, so you never know. The beach is public, so we can’t exactly keep them off, but they can’t come past the property line.”
“Yeah.” I stared out into the darkness. My mouth had gone completely dry.
“Jenna, if Brandon should show up…”
My head spun to face her, my eyes widening. “No. You need to get a message to him. I don’t have my phone or I’d do it myself.”
She shook her head. “Jenna…”
“No, listen. You need to tell him to stay the hell away from me. I don’t want to see him. I don’t want to talk to him.” I could feel the hysteria rising in my voice. I pressed my hand to my chest. “You need to make sure he stays away. I can’t… I can’t do it.” The tears that I thought were long dried up were back in full force. “Keep him away. Please.”
She tilted her head; her face softening. She furrowed her brows down slightly, shaking her head. “Jenna, if I had any sway over his actions, I’d do it in a heartbeat. If I’ve learned one thing in the thirty years that man has been in my life, it’s that he doesn’t listen to a word I say. It would probably be more helpful for me to tell him to come here, or tell him you wanted to see him. He seems to do the exact opposite of anything I advise…”
I stared down at my hands. “No. Just keep him away. Far, far away. I can’t.”
She reached over and patted the back of my hand, which was digging its way into the cushion of the chair. “I know. I’ll see what I can do.”
I swiped at my eyes with the back of my other hand. I was being such a god damned baby about all of this. It seemed like I might never be done crying.
“I’m waiting to hear if we can get your parents on one of the Sunday night news shows. The only way we’re going to get through this is to get them out there together.”
I looked up at the ceiling, shaking my head.
“Not you, Jenna. I know it doesn’t seem like it right now, but you have nothing to do with any of this.”
A chuckle escaped my lips. It was all so ridiculous. Unbelievable. I rubbed at my temples, my faculties returning for a moment. “Tell me something, Krystal.”
“I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”
I closed my eyes and rubbed again at my forehead. “How do you spin this one? How does anyone come out of this intact?”
“Well, I never guaranteed anyone was going to come out of this smelling like a rose. You’re the only one that comes out of this with the sympathy of the public.”
I turned to look at her, my eyes wide. “How do I show my face in public ever again? How do my parents?”
She shook her head. “I’m not sure how we spin this quite yet. I need to talk it over with the senator, of course. I have a few ideas.”
I dropped my hands into my lap again, twisting my fingers together. “His career is over.”
She lifted her shoulders in a slight shrug. “Not necessarily. If we can make it seem like this was a surrogacy, I think he comes out fine. We tell them your mother couldn’t have children, which is true, by the way. We say that you were born from a surrogate and since it was before there was very much public support for surrogacy, it had to be kept ultra-private. I think surrogacy is our best shot.”
I shook my head, a small smile pulling at my lips. “But it’s a lie. I wasn’t born because of a surrogate pregnancy.”
She shrugged again. “No one needs to know tha
t.”
I lifted my head to look at her, my stomach twisting into knots. “Until someone finds out. Then the news cycle starts all over again.”
She sighed again, long and loud. She shook her head. “This is how it works, Jenna. We tell them what they want to hear. Twist it and turn it to make it fit our needs.” She shook her head again, looking into my eyes. “It’s the business.”
“The business of lies and deceit. Why not just tell them that he had an affair? That something happened and my mother agreed to raise me as her own? What’s so wrong with that? Why make up more lies?”
“Jenna, it just isn’t how it works. We have to make the facts fit into the story we want. We don’t know for sure that your father didn’t try to conceive you to raise with your mother.” She shrugged again. “We take the facts and make them fit into a plausible story that doesn’t sound as bad as the truth.”
I raked my hand through my hair. “This is such bullshit. I don’t want to talk to anyone about this. And you can relay the message to my parents that I have no intention of supporting any more lies about this. I just want someone to tell the truth for fucking once in my life.”
She stood up, smoothing her slacks and blouse down. “Just keep the TV and computers off until Sunday night. Okay?”
I nodded, dropping my head in my hands again. “Fine.”
I heard the click of her heels stop behind me. “Jenna, I know this sucks. I never wanted you to have to go through this. I know your father didn’t either.”
I shook my head in my hands.
“Don’t punish yourself for this. You had nothing to do with this. You can’t blame yourself.”
I didn’t move or make any indication that I was going to answer her. I didn’t have any answers for her.
“Cora will be here in the morning. Make sure you eat.”
The click of her heels and the door slamming told me that she was gone. I lifted my head and breathed a small sigh of relief. I didn’t want to talk any more that night. I’d be fine with never discussing any of it ever again.
I stood up and moved to the couch that was just on the other side of the chair Krystal had been in. I positioned one of the throw pillows and laid my head on it. I pulled the blanket from the back and pulled it over me, pulling my legs up into a fetal position. I stared out into the darkness, knowing the ocean was just underneath it. I tried to clear my mind of the thoughts that were eating away at me. I just wanted all of the things swirling in my mind to slow down, to stop, even just for a few minutes so that I could find sleep. I didn’t necessarily blame myself, but I wondered how I could have been naive enough to have never seen anything that was going on around me.
It was the same story I’d been struggling with forever. I just wished I had been able to enjoy the momentary bliss that my body must have felt when sleep finally found me several hours later.
4
I slept for most of the next 48 hours. I woke up late on Saturday afternoon, my faculties finally having returned enough to at least get out of bed. I only vaguely remembered having eaten a few peanut butter sandwiches and stumbling into my bathroom before falling back into bed over the past two days. I’d somehow made it to my room on the second floor of the cabin, though I had no recollection at all of how I’d arrived there. I saw two large boxes in the middle of the floor—my clothes from Iowa. I opened them, grabbed a t-shirt and shorts and then went to take a shower. I wasn’t sure how I’d been able to sleep for two days, though I had a vague notion that I hadn’t slept much at all in the week before all of this had happened.
I came downstairs after my shower, unsure of what I’d find. I only hoped that my parents hadn’t decided to join me. I didn’t think I could face them.
The scent of baking chocolate chip cookies warmed the air as I walked into the open kitchen. Cora, who had been our housekeeper in San Diego my entire life, was standing there, wooden spoon in hand, bent over the counter reading a magazine.
My face brightened just seeing her. I sat down at the bar and she turned to face me.
“Well, hello sleepyhead. I was hoping your favorite cookies would wake you up.” Her smile lit up her face.
The same smile found its way to my face. A warm, comfortable feeling washed over me. Home. It was something I hadn’t felt in a long time. “How have you been? How are Sarah and David?”
“Oh, you know my grand babies. Growing like weeds.” She pulled out her phone from her pocket and scrolled through her photos to show me one. “Sarah will be going to middle school next year. Can you believe it?”
I shook my head, smiling as I looked at the photos of her grandchildren. “It seems like they were just babies yesterday.”
She nodded. “That’s the thing about kids. They grow up. Look at you.” She motioned at me with her wooden spoon. “You were just toddling around this place yesterday. And look at you now.”
My smile fell, and I knew she’d be able to see it. “Yeah, look at me now.”
She tilted her head at me. “That’s not what I meant, Jenna. You know me better than that.”
I forced a weak smile to my face. “How long until the cookies come out?”
Her grin widened. “Now that’s the Jenna I know and love. Well, there would’ve been a bunch already, but someone took them all into the den to watch some dumb basketball game.”
My heart sped up a bit. “Someone?” My breath suddenly felt heavy in my chest. I hadn’t been aware of how afraid I was feeling until that moment.
“Cade, sweetie. Just Cade. That man is as big as a house and eats more than enough for one.” She turned back to check the oven. “So about five more minutes until this batch is done. Then maybe ten minutes to cool. I can make you something if you’re hungry…”
“No.” I cut her off. “I’m fine.” I breathed a small sigh of relief and shifted on the stool. “So has…” My breath hitched in my chest again. “Has anyone come? Anyone wandered up the beach?”
She shook her head. “Not that I’m aware of. Cade has this place on lock down. No one will be coming within a mile of you, you can be sure of that.”
I nodded. “And no calls?”
She turned to look at me over her shoulder. “Your friend Melissa called yesterday. She said she might come up next weekend if you’re still here.”
I nodded again. “And that’s it?”
She let out a long sigh. “Your father called to check on you several times. Is that what you’re wondering about?”
I lifted my shoulders into a tiny shrug. I wasn’t sure who I was wondering about. Brandon. I just couldn’t let myself think about him. Not now.
“Well, your father was deeply concerned that you were still sleeping. So I’m under strict orders, so don’t get offended, okay?”
My brow furrowed. “Orders for what?”
She came to stand across from me and leaned her elbows onto the bar. “Are you feeling like you want to hurt yourself?”
I rolled my eyes. At least he was thinking about me. “No. Not at all.”
She nodded. “Do you have any plans to hurt yourself?”
I let out a sigh. “Nope. Not suicidal in the least.” I drummed my fingers on the counter in front of me. “Let him know next time he calls, would you?”
She nodded. “Just after everything, you know, and after last time…”
“Yes, I know. I’m not seeing things; I’m not hearing voices. I’m not planning to do anything and I am having no suicidal thoughts. Okay?”
She nodded again. “Yep. I’ll let him know.” She looked across the bar at me. “It would be okay if you were. You know, normal to be feeling depressed right now…”
I pressed my lips into a line. “I’m aware. I’m not feeling depressed. Sad, yes. Scared, yes. Like my thoughts won’t shut up? Yes.”
“Hmph.” She arched an eyebrow at me.
“What?” I crossed my arms in front of me.
She shook her head. “Nothing. I know what always made you lose yourself when you we
re younger. Something that always made you quiet down. Somewhere where there wasn’t too much to think about.”
“I can’t. I don’t have any music, anyway.” I glanced over to the great room where I had fallen asleep the other night and saw the grand piano sitting in the middle of the room. Someone had opened the top, something my mother had never let me do. Quit that noise, Jenna. You’re giving me a headache. Music is a pointless activity, Jenna. Do something that has a point. I wondered if she would have found it as annoying if I was really hers. If she could have ever accepted me as her own.
“You might be surprised at what you find out there. Check in the bench. Your music fairy might have come while you were asleep.” She raised her eyebrows, hopeful.
“You didn’t.” I slid off the stool and padded barefoot across the wood floor to the piano bench. I lifted it to find some music, not anything I’d played recently, but most of what I’d left in the house in San Diego the last time I had been there. It was something. I turned back to face her. “Thanks for doing this.”
The timer on the oven beeped and she pulled a steaming sheet of cookies from the oven.
Cade came around the corner not a moment later, probably drawn out by the sound of the timer. His face lit up when he saw me. “You’re up, kiddo. We were starting to get worried.”
I shrugged, trying to return his smile. “I was a little tired.”
He nodded, thoughtful. “I can’t imagine how tired I’d be, come to think of it.” He looked over at Cora. “Mind if I take a few of those?” He reached toward the cookie sheet.
She rapped the back of his hand with the wooden spoon that was still in hers. “These are for Jenna. Hands off.”
My smile widened. “I’m sure he can have a few. No way I could eat that many.”
She turned her head toward me, eyes narrowed. “You aren’t helping. He’s already eaten two dozen by himself.”
“Oh, it hasn’t been that many.” His chuckle was almost jolly, matching his outlook. “I’ll just steal a few.”