by Cassia Leo
When Jack finished explaining to me the various ways our new security team would be monitoring the property, Wendell, Gustaf, and Rich set off to do a full security sweep of the house, inside and out, searching for potential chinks in the armor. Once they’d finished sweeping the interior, Jack and I closed the bedroom door on them and turned to each other.
He tilted his head inquisitively. “My pixie’s not happy.”
“You said you would get rid of the guns this week. It’s Friday. The security team is here, and so are the guns.”
He flashed me a drop-dead sexy grin. “I know, baby. I’ll do it today.”
“Really?”
He nodded. “Yep.”
My shoulders relaxed as I realized the argument I had been anticipating wasn’t going to happen. “Well, okay. I… guess I’ll call Drea and see if she wants to grab some lunch.”
He cupped my face in his hands. “That’s a great idea. Tell her I said hi.” He kissed me slowly, his tongue sweeping over mine in languid, seductive strokes. “The guns will be gone by the time you get back.”
* * *
“You saucy little minx. Is that your bodyguard?” Drea said, shooting Ace a sideways glance.
I nodded as I watched him sipping an iced green tea at the table next to ours. “Yep. His name is Ace.”
Drea’s mouth dropped open as she leaned forward. “Ace? You’re shitting me?”
I shook my head. “I shit you not.”
“So he is quite literally the Ace up your sleeve?” She raised her eyebrows as she sat up straight. “Well, you are officially my favorite best friend.”
“I’m your only best friend.”
She flashed me a coy smile. “Are you?”
“No one else will put up with your filthy mouth.”
“Barry loves my filthy mouth wrapped around his enormous knob,” she replied coolly, leaning forward to take a sip from her passion iced tea. “Speaking of filthy mouths and enormous knobs… Are you and Jack enjoying playing house again?”
I glanced in Ace’s direction, but he was either very good at pretending he wasn’t listening to our conversation or he really was too busy constantly scanning the café for potential threats to be bothered. “It’s been good. Maybe too good.”
She cocked an eyebrow. “I’m listening.”
I wanted to speak freely, but I couldn’t help but feel like everything I said would eventually get back to Jack. “It’s nothing serious,” I said with a shrug as I reached for my cold brew. “I just have a weird calm-before-the-storm feeling. But it’s probably just the anxiety. That impending sense of doom that never seems to go away, except…”
Drea didn’t blink as she watched me, waiting for me to continue.
I sighed. “Except when I was working in the garden. That was the only time I felt… normal.”
The muscles in her face relaxed, but the tension in her shoulders was still there. “That’s easy. Plant yourself a garden here so you’ll have something to do to feel normal. Though, I personally think ‘normal’ is highly overrated.”
I nodded, but I didn’t bother responding. I didn’t feel like going into the details of why I couldn’t start planting a garden now. That would mean disclosing our plans to sell the house and move into a larger home soon. And I didn’t want Drea to worry that we were leaving Hood River.
The truth was that Jack and I had discussed the possibility of moving somewhere between Hood River and Portland. If I decided I wanted to keep working, it would be easier for me to find a job downtown. It would also be easier for me to check on my mom’s house more often if we were closer to the city.
But the more I thought of it, the more it sounded stupid to move thirty minutes away from my best friend for a job I didn’t really need. At least, not financially.
“You miss Portland, huh?” she said.
I looked up at Drea and the soft smile she wore told me she could see right through me. “A little.”
I downed the rest of my cold brew and stared at the empty glass for a moment, trying not to think about how much I missed the routine Isaac and I had fallen into. We had gotten into the habit of sharing meals after the gardening work was done in the evening. It was something I’d come to look forward to. Making a meal from the fruits of our labor made me feel grounded, more connected to this earth than I’d felt since losing Junior.
“You didn’t shag G.I. Joe. Did you?”
“What? No!” I replied, my mouth falling open in complete shock.
“I’m sorry. I’m a total cunt for asking.”
I opened my mouth, preparing to contradict her shocking implication, but deciding not to. “I should probably get going. I have to go home and bake a cake for my father-in-law’s birthday party. It’s tomorrow and I haven’t baked a cake in… Well, a very long time.”
My stomach balled up as I thought of the floral cake I’d made for my mom’s 50th birthday party. Her last birthday party.
“I’m sorry, Laurel,” Drea continued.
I waved off her apology. “It’s okay. I’m not leaving because of that. I really just have to get going. I’ll call you later.”
As I pulled the SUV out of the parking space, I couldn’t help but smile at the fact that the top of Ace’s enormous blockhead kept bumping the ceiling of my Tesla.
“You should let me drive,” he said in his deep, gravelly voice. “I’m a very good driver. Used to race cars in my younger days.”
I laughed as I pulled out onto the main road. “Your younger days? Exactly how old are you?”
“I’ll be twenty-nine in December.”
I shook my head. “I hate to break it to you, but you’re still living in your younger days.”
He looked both ways as I turned left into our neighborhood, as if he was the one driving. “You’re not much older. Twenty-nine, right?”
“I won’t question how you know that.”
“It’s my job to know that,” he replied with a cheesy grin. “Besides, you and your husband are very well known around these parts, in case you couldn’t tell.”
Something about his words made me uneasy. Probably because I couldn’t tell if he was referring to Jack’s wealth and internet fame or our notoriety as the parents of a murder victim.
“Fame isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,” I said as I drove past the black SUV parked at our curb, where Gustaf was keeping watch. I pulled my car into the garage and hit the remote on my visor to close the garage door behind me. “Are you supposed to come inside? I don’t know how this works. This is all really weird for me.”
He shrugged. “Your husband’s home, so I can stay outside, if you want me to.”
I nodded as I hit the button on the remote again and glanced in my rearview mirror to verify that the door was rolling up again. “I’d prefer that. Thank you.”
He flashed me that same cheesy grin. “Yes, ma’am. I’ll be right outside if you need me. You can call me, too.”
I would have to thank Jack for not assigning me a creepy bodyguard.
With great relief, I closed the garage door once Ace was outside. As I passed through the laundry room and stepped into the hallway, the silence I encountered in the house felt different than normal silence. It permeated my skin, making me think of something my mom used to say: Beauty is skin deep, but ugly goes all the way to the bone.
Something ugly was going on in here.
The door across the hallway, which led to the spare bedroom we used as a storage space, was closed as it usually was. Nothing out of the ordinary there. Against my better judgment, I moved softly toward the other spare bedroom, the one Jack used as a home office.
The door was closed. Images flashed through my haunted mind: the bathroom door with the gaping hole where the doorknob had once been; Jack’s eyes widening as he entered the bathroom; the horror I saw before Jack could shove me out.
I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to force the horror reel in my mind to stop. After taking a few deep breaths, I opened my eyes to
find my hand on the bronze door handle. I didn’t remember grabbing it. Before I could talk myself out of it, I turned the handle and pushed the door open.
Jack practically leaped out of his chair and quickly made his way toward me. “Hey! I didn’t think you’d be back so soon.” He placed his hand on the small of my back and led me away from the office, toward the bedroom. “How’s Drea?”
I spun away from him to get his hand off my back. “Why are you acting like I just caught you jerking off to midget porn?”
He laughed. “I can always tell when you’ve been spending time with Drea. Your jokes get sharper.”
I cocked an eyebrow. “You didn’t answer my question.”
His smile vanished. “You don’t want to know about the case. I’ll tell you when and if someone is arrested, but I won’t burden you with any of this bullshit before then.”
Why did I feel like he was lying to me?
He stepped forward, invading my space as he looked down at me. “How was your lunch?”
My brain was still jelly from the flashbacks I’d had in the hallway, so I stepped around him and took a seat on the bed. “It was really good. You know Drea. No one is better than her when it comes to inappropriate humor.”
He stared down at me for a while, but his mind was clearly focused elsewhere. “Should we talk about when you’re going to stop taking your pills?”
It was the first time he’d brought up my birth control since the conversation we sort of had at my mother’s house. And it was the first time that the thought of having another baby made me uneasy.
“I thought we agreed that we should wait.”
He knelt before me and placed a hand on my knee. “We said we should wait until we’re living together again. We’ve been living together for almost a week. We’ve been married more than five years. What are we waiting for?”
I searched every inch of his face for any trace of apprehension or deceit, but he seemed as sincere as he did when he asked me to stop taking the pill before I got pregnant with Junior. Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off. There was something behind those crystal-blue eyes I was missing.
Was it really possible that one month apart had dulled my ability to distinguish between genuine paranoia and justified suspicion? I could always sneak into his office while he was at work and test out my computer networking skills to see if I could snoop around, but that would be beyond despicable. Besides, I didn’t want to risk coming face to face with one of the crime scene photos.
I shook my head as I realized I was probably being paranoid. “I can stop taking my pills tomorrow,” I said, smiling at the huge grin that spread across his face.
He stood up again and took my purse from me, setting it down on the nightstand. I scooted back a little so he could climb on top of me. As his hand slid under my blouse, his eyes widened. Cupping my breast in his large hand, his body froze as he squeezed a few times.
I laughed. “What are you doing?”
He gently pressed his palm against my nipple and massaged the heel of his hand against the soft flesh in a circular motion.
“Your tits are swollen. They’re bigger and firmer than they were yesterday,” he remarked, eyeing my breasts with a sense of wonder. “Are you pregnant?”
I slid my hand down his abs and he smiled as I grabbed the bulge in his crotch. “You’re bigger and firmer than usual. Are you pregnant?”
“I’m being serious, pixie. Did you already stop taking your pills?”
I glared into his bright-blue eyes, noting how large his pupils had suddenly become. “No, I haven’t,” I replied, shoving him off me. “And thanks for the vote of confidence.”
He followed after me as I headed for the kitchen. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked that. I should have asked if you’d remembered to take your pills.”
“Haven’t missed a single one,” I said, yanking open the refrigerator door and grabbing a bottle of white wine off the shelf.
He snatched the bottle out of my hand. “Shouldn’t you stop drinking if you’re going to try to get pregnant?”
“According to you, I already tricked you into getting me pregnant.”
He threw the bottle at the wall and it exploded. My body trembled as I stared at the droplets of wine shimmering on my arm. I could hear each one of Jack’s noisy inhalations, but I didn’t want to look at him. I didn’t want to see the anger contorting his face.
“I’m sorry,” he grumbled. “I’m just… I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”
The trembling stopped as I realized I didn’t need to fear Jack. Jack was a good man. He was an even better father. I didn’t fear him. I only feared what I’d made of him.
I couldn’t watch him cleaning the mess he’d made, so I took a shower instead. I needed to be alone with my thoughts, to figure out where we would go from here. But as I thought of everything we’d already done — the distance, the counseling, getting rid of the guns, agreeing to start a family — I wondered if there was anything left for me to do. I wondered if there was anything left to save.
25
Laurel
Jack and I pulled off his dad’s birthday party without a hitch. No one suspected we were having anything more than the usual grieving couple problems. Jessica was happy to put the whole uncomfortable mess behind us, and very pleased to hear that Jack and I were trying for another baby.
Three weeks of tiptoeing around each other and engaging in one explosive fuck session after another, my period arrived right on schedule, and it was less disappointing than I had expected it to be.
I finished my shower and put on a fresh pantyliner. The first day of my period was always very light flow. As I pulled the protective film off the adhesive and stuck the liner onto my panties, I thought of the day of Jack’s dad’s party, when he had asked for my birth control pills. I watched him throw away the purple packet in the waste bin under the kitchen sink.
Maybe I should have kept them, just in case we changed our minds.
I didn’t think it would take this long to get knocked up. I got pregnant with Junior within a couple of weeks of stopping the pill. Maybe my eggs were too old and shriveled. My thirtieth birthday was in just a few weeks.
I pulled up my underwear and gray leggings, and slipped on a green hoodie and pair of Uggs. Then, I called Edna to let her know I would be visiting my mother’s house today. I wanted to know if there was anything she needed so I could pick it up for her on my way there. When I got off the phone with Edna, I texted Jack.
It was ten a.m. on a Wednesday, and he was at work. I wanted to let him know I’d be working at my mom’s house until about six p.m., then I was going to stop at the Halloween store to get some decorations for the house and maybe a costume for the upcoming Halo Halloween party.
Jack:
Get one of those French maid outfits. Not for the party. Just for me.
Me:
I didn’t know you were into cross-dressing, but okay.
Jack:
Ha. Ha. Didn’t see that coming at all.
Me:
I’m not rolling my eyes at all. :) BTW, got my period today. :(
Jack:
Guess we’ll just have to keep trying.
I was going to leave the conversation at that, but as I slid into the driver’s seat of my Tesla, I decided I needed to call him.
“What’s up, baby?” he answered.
“I just wanted to tell you that, when I called Edna to tell her I would be dropping by to say hi to her today, she told me that one of the neighbor’s cars was broken into last week. I don’t think it’s a big deal, but I wanted to let you know.”
A long pause followed before he responded. “Why don’t you just wait for me and I’ll head out with you and Ace in a little bit? We can spend a few days at your mom’s while you catch up on the gardening. I’ll work remotely from there.”
“Are you sure? I don’t want you to miss out on anything important at work.”
&nb
sp; He chuckled. “It’s fine. There’s nothing important going on over here, unless you count the mindless gossip about what everyone’s dressing up as for the party.”
I smiled as I realized he really didn’t want to take any chances with my safety anymore. “Okay, I’ll see you when you get here.”
When Jack pulled my SUV into my mom’s driveway, conflict raged inside me. On one hand, I was glad Isaac wasn’t outside working on his front garden. On the other hand, I wanted to be able to say hi to Isaac, and to introduce him to Jack, so Jack knew he had nothing to worry about. But somehow, both of these scenarios felt inappropriate.
A knock on the passenger side window startled me. It was Ace, smiling at me through the glass with one enormous hand on his gun holster.
I clutched my chest as I lowered the window. “Jesus Christ. You scared the hell out of me.”
His expression softened. “Sorry, ma’am. I didn’t mean to scare you. Can you two stay in the vehicle for just a moment, while we sweep the property?”
Jack and I nodded. “Will do, Ace,” Jack replied.
As Ace and Matt began their sweep of the interior and exterior of the house, Jack and I waited in the car.
“Are we getting threats again?” I asked, staring straight ahead.
Jack let out a deep sigh. “It’s nothing serious. Just the usual crazies.”
“This isn’t anything like the kind of security we had before. Is that why I have a bodyguard?” I asked, turning in my seat to face him. “When were you going to tell me?”
“I did tell you. I told you there’s been a new break in the case.”
“A break in the case and death threats are two very different things.”
He shook his head. “There’ve been no death threats.”
I shot him a fierce glare. “Don’t treat me like a child, Jack. I deserve to know.”
He hung his head. “It’s just drama in the Facebook group. I’ll show you when we’re in the house.”
When we were cleared to go inside, Jack and I headed straight to the downstairs office. Jack slipped his laptop out of his case and sat down at the knotty pine writing desk, where my mother used to surf Facebook and gardening forums.