by Cora Davies
There had been no additional sets of fingerprints.
"Scott never found your fingerprints on the letters." Hailey's heart was beating against her ribcage as though it wanted to leave her body and flee to safety. She wanted to glue her mouth shut, but the words came out on their own. "They found my fingerprints and my mom's, but he never said anything about yours."
"Must've just been a slip of his mind," Jason said, his voice ever even. But he was studying Hailey in a way she had never seen him look at her before. As if she was in the way.
"No, he's really thorough."
"You know, now that I think of it, I don't think he asked me for my fingerprints." Jason was in between Hailey and the doorway. His tone had started to slip as something dark edged its way in.
Hailey stepped toward the door. If she did not betray anything on her face, maybe she could slip by him and walk calmly down the stairs. He stepped in her path, and she steeled her face against her fear. "I forgot something downstairs."
He nodded and stepped to the side, but when Hailey's foot hit the top stair-everything went black.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Hailey's eyes were heavy and her head was sore. Why was it so dark? Am I sleeping?
"Are we coming around?" Jason's soothing voice said. Hailey forced her eyes open and tried to make sense of what she saw. She was in her living room lying on the couch. It was dark outside, and Jason was sitting across from her on one of the recliners. He looked at her with quiet concern.
"What happened?" Hailey lifted her head off the armrest and pulled herself into a sitting position. She grunted as she felt the soreness in her body.
"You took a tumble down the stairs," Jason said. His eyes were very alert and he seemed to study her every move.
"I did?" Hailey had lived in this house for years now and had not fallen down the stairs once. She tried to remember-had she been drinking? She flushed a little when she realized that was probably the answer. But, she did not feel like she had been drinking. She rested her head in her hands and the second she closed her eyes, the evening flooded back to her. The call from Eric, the manuscript, the letter, and Jason's fingerprints. It was all disorientating, like a bad dream, but it was real. She swallowed hard and lifted her head to face Jason. "You pushed me."
"I guess you do remember," Jason said with regret in his voice. She imagined it was regret that she remembered, not regret about pushing her. She pressed her hands on her legs to stand, and Jason lifted a shotgun from behind the chair. He laid it across his lap.
"Christian Davis, I presume." Hailey watched Jason for a hint of recognition at the name. "I will take no answer as a confession."
"Hailey, I don't want to hurt you. Just tell me where the account numbers are."
"I don't know, I swear," Hailey said, hearing the tears in her voice before she felt them roll down her face. He pretended since the day she met him. "I've looked everywhere."
"Not everywhere if you haven't found them."
"I can get you money. How much is it? How much is waiting on you in that account?"
"Should be almost twenty million, now that no one else is around for their cut. You don't have that much. You could sell everything you own, and you still would not have that much."
"No, but I can get the money. I... I can ask Eric. You know he has it, he'd give it to you." Hailey wished Eric had caught that flight now. She wanted him here with her.
Jason sighed. "I'd rather just have what's mine. It's the principle of it all, you understand? Not about the money specifically."
"No, I don't understand. Twenty million is twenty million."
"I'd rather just not get your boyfriend involved." Jason scratched his chin. "However, if we have to, I suppose I could figure that out."
"Why didn't you just say something in the first place? Instead of playing like you were our friend."
Jason stood up, shotgun in one hand, and walked towards Hailey. She flinched, and then looked away as the man squatted in front of her. He touched the side of her face, and it would have felt loving if he did not have a gun in his other hand. "But I am your friend, Hailey."
She fought the urge to jerk away as he kissed her on the forehead. "You're not. A friend wouldn't lie for years. He wouldn't pretend to be someone he's not. Pretend like he was here to help us, when he was really here to-"
"You're wrong." He took her hand, and Hailey had to force herself to not move. "I love your mother. And I love you and Risa like you were my own children. When I first found you, sure, I wanted my money. I thought you were hiding the account information somewhere here in the house, but then I saw you were struggling. You were barely holding it together. You still seem to barely hold it together."
Jason sat next to Hailey on the couch. She kept the shotgun in the corner of her eye. She decided the second he let go of it, she would take it. Or she would try to take it. Jason would not kill her, would he?
"I saw something in you I saw in myself at my darkest times. The emotions fighting inside me, taking control of my decisions. I helped you lock those away. Don't forget that. I am your friend."
"Then why did you send the letters?" Hailey did not know how Jason planned on ending this conversation, but with a gun in his hand-it could not be good. She wanted to keep him talking as long as possible.
"I did not send those letters," Jason said, and his calm exterior broke for an exasperated one. Hailey turned to face him in time to see his eye twitch. It was something she had never seen Jason do before. He was so good at hiding his emotions. "The letters were from those damn boys. Their father was a friend of mine, a friend of Paul's. Hailey, we were all brothers and would do anything for each other. It was a shame what happened to him, he was the best one of us all."
Jason shook his head as his voice slowed and disguised his feelings again. "Those damn boys, their father and I were supposed to work together to get the accounts from you, but he died in an accident. He wrote the whole dog-gone fiasco down in a journal." Jason snorted. "A glorified diary. I kept those boys at bay for a while, then they started sending you letters, thinking it would give you the extra motivation. At that point, I knew you didn't have the information. Or at least, you still hadn't found it."
"They aren't here. I have no idea-I've torn everything apart-"
"Ted was getting a little fresh. He did that bullshit with the sheep. The picture of you and Eric." Jason's lip curled when he said Eric's name. "Started writing little... notes. I decided the boys needed to leave. I took Ted out to talk to him, and one thing led to another... that was the same night Bill attacked you."
Hailey's body suddenly went from trembling in fear to frozen solid. Jason, the man who her mother had fallen in love with, was a killer. Jason seemed to notice Hailey's body posture change, and placed a hand on her back. He began to rub her shoulders absently in a nurturing way. Hailey wanted to throw up. "You killed him."
"I've killed many people. Don't forget Paul did, too."
Hailey flung her head to face Jason as she backed to the other end of the couch. "What Paul did, that was different. That was war; he was doing his job."
"We're all killers, Hailey. Somewhere deep inside, there is a little killer in all of us." Jason watched Hailey but had not made a move toward her when she backed away from him. Maybe she could get out of here after all.
"I'm not."
"Bill..."
"That was an accident!" Hailey cried. She had not killed Bill; he had done that to himself.
Jason cocked his head as Hailey stood. She was going to test the waters. She was going to walk out the front door and see if Jason stopped her. She was halfway across the living room and starting to feel confident when Jason spoke again. "Do you want to know the truth about the diamond? How it came into Paul's possession?"
He was goading her, she knew it the moment the words left his mouth. But if she left right now, she may never see him again. She may never know the truth. She stopped at the recliner and stood behind it. She
told herself it was a shield as she gripped the back of the seat. "Tell me."
"Our team was sent in to arrest a man; a war criminal. A man guilty of such things..." Jason squinted at Hailey as if deciding how much to tell her. Her phone vibrated in her pocket, and for the first time, she realized she had it in her possession. If only she could figure out how to use it without alerting Jason. "I will not tell you the details. He was a bad man, Hailey; we'll leave it at that. When we stormed his compound, there were armed guards everywhere. Five of us made it through. We captured him, and he offered us a deal. In exchange for allowing him to escape, he would give us whatever precious jewels were left in his safe. Almost everything had been taken by his brother, but in his safe was a single diamond. It was the size of a large egg."
Jason smiled at her as if he thought she would appreciate the story, and she pacified him by forcing her eyes to go large. As if she had thought a twenty-million-dollar diamond could be any smaller. He continued as she slid her hand into her pocket and grasped her cell phone, her actions protected by the backrest of the recliner.
A shield after all.
"Jones, great kid, do you remember him?" Jason smiled, and looked as though he was deep in memory lane.
"Paul's friend, he was stationed with Paul in Virginia. That Jones?"
"That Jones. We all knew why Paul was there, sick kid at home. That diamond came out, and it was like an answer to Paul's prayers. We'd all done stuff at this point, seen so much. We knew there's not much good left in this world. Nothing outside of a dad and his love for his daughter. Well, Jones, like I said, great kid, but a kid. He still thought the world was a good place, military men something like justice fighters. He said we wouldn't take the deal. We tried talking to him, telling him that diamond would get your daughter the treatment she needed, but he argued and said he would blow the whistle if we took it."
Jason stopped again and glared at Hailey. She had been glancing down at her hands every couple seconds as she attempted to unlock her phone and dial 911. "What's in your hands, Hailey?"
Her heart stopped, just for a split second, but she felt it. "Nothing."
Jason climbed off the couch, raised the gun at Hailey, and motioned her around the chair. She did not know if he would kill her, but in his recounts of war, she had realized he had probably killed dozens of people without regret. She dropped the phone to the floor; grateful it landed on her foot quietly, and nudged it under the chair for safe keeping. She walked around the chair, and stood with her open palms at her sides.
"There was no talking sense into Jones. We all knew that, but it was Paul's choice. Paul grabbed a gun off an enemy soldier and shot Jones in the head."
"No!" Hailey yelled as she squeezed her hands into fists at her side. "Paul would never kill anyone in cold blood like that."
"It wasn't in cold blood Hailey. It was in your blood, and Risa's blood." Jason was quiet, back to his regular self. She knew he liked to be in control. He liked to be the puppet master lording over other people's emotions. She shook her head violently and took a step toward him.
"He would not do something like that."
"He did, and then he shot the man we had come to arrest." Hailey sank to her knees. She could see Jones, she remembered him. He had been so young-younger than they had been. Paul killed two men, two men that were not even attacking him. "Hailey, Paul was a loving father. Lines are blurred during war, sometimes to the point where everything that surrounds us is darkness."
Jason sat back down on the couch as Hailey began to sob. "He would never."
"He would never illegally smuggle a diamond across the world either, would he?"
"Why didn't you tell me right away?"
"Like I said earlier, I wanted the money, but I did not necessarily want to scare you. Did not want you to call the police the moment I showed up. Instead, I just slipped myself into your lives and waited. I did not expect to fall in love with your mother. I did not expect to become part of your family. After spending years searching your home bit by bit, I finally decided I might just stay here. Forget about the money. I belonged here. I watched the three of you put your lives back together. I helped you learn to control your emotions, and taught you how to keep them from controlling you. You seemed to be settling down into life, we were all settling down into this life together. Then Eric came along and you seemed to forget what you were hiding from. You seemed to forget you were a parent protecting the girl that so many died for. Eric brought that woman in the limo, then the security system, the break in, and the threats of having the paparazzi here. Bill never would have broken into your house that night if they had not become frustrated with Eric's appearance. They would have waited longer. Eric pulled the world, the world you worked so hard to construct, apart."
"That was not all Eric's fault." If she could not defend Paul, then she had to defend someone who was on her side.
"No, most of the fault was yours. You knew better, and you still let him stay around here. You let him into your bed like a whore." Jason's words were like a slap to Hailey's face. "I'm sorry Hailey, I didn't mean that."
"I think you did, though, didn't you?" Hailey asked, Jason's vulgar word making her feel brave. "What happened to keeping your feeling suppressed, Jason?"
"I just want to protect you. You and your family." Jason's voice was pleading. "I started protecting you all in the desert, can't you see that?"
"That is an awful name to call someone you care about." Hailey wrung her fingers together.
"Stop being so dramatic, Hailey." Jason's voice was even again. "You've been a loose cannon your whole life, your mother and sister know it. Your daughter probably knows it. When you lost your husband, you became even worse. I've heard all the stories of your breakdown, your nights out with men. You might have thought you found something here with Eric, but he'll just screw you over after he's done screwing you. Just like the others."
"Stop! Stop it!" she screamed. "What do you want me to do right now? If you're going to kill me..." Hailey wanted to be brave enough to finish the sentence. She wanted him to believe that she did not care, but she could not bring herself to say the words.
"What do you think Paul would say if he saw the kind of woman you had become? The kind of girl you were letting your daughter grow up to be."
Before Hailey knew she was going to do anything, her open palm slapped Jason across the face. They both stood, stunned for a moment before Jason reeled back and punched her in the stomach. Hailey doubled over, a sound coming from the depths of her belly. Jason pulled her up to a straight standing position and grabbed either side of her face to force her to meet his gaze. She realized he had dropped his gun on the floor. "Now think Hailey, where have we not looked for the account numbers?"
She tried to shake him off, but he was too strong. She lifted her knee to kick him in the crotch, but he blocked her knee with rapid reflexes. She flung herself to the gun, but he tossed her against the wall. She sagged to the ground as he picked his gun up again. He grabbed a pet rock Risa had made in the first grade off the counter and chucked it at the wall. It almost seemed to disintegrate on contact. He grabbed an angel figurine Hailey's mother had bought her last year and threw it above the window, knocking the cheap curtain rod off the wall. Early morning sunlight spilled into the room.
"Stop trying to fight me!" He grabbed another item, then another, all memories smashed against the wall. His own emotional barrier that he had carefully constructed over the years was burning down in front of Hailey's eyes as dust filled the air. "I am only trying to take care of you!"
Jason's hand landed on a small cheap picture frame that kept a picture of Paul, Hailey, and Risa. They had bought it in Switzerland in the hospital gift shop. Jason looked at it and yelled. "Paul! Where the hell did you hide the numbers?" He threw it at the wall, and both of them watched as it cracked into several pieces, the glass digging into the family photograph and pieces of paper fluttered to the ground.
"What the..." Jason walk
ed over to the papers, picking them up. He still held the gun in one hand, but Hailey wondered if she could make a run for it before he noticed. Before she could move he walked back to her, papers in hand, waving them wildly in the air. "Its the accounts! We found them."
He looked so pleased with himself, so happy. Hailey could not believe it was the same man who had just destroyed her living room. He smiled at her with the largest grin she had ever seen on his face. "Now I can get out of the country, and I don't even have to kill you!"
Hailey opened her mouth to say something, but only sarcastic comments popped into her head. She decided this was a moment best served silent. Instead, she stared at Jason as he studied the papers in his hands. He looked as happy as a kid at Christmas. He looked back at her, a confused look for just a moment and her stomach clenched. Now what?
Hailey watched, stunned, as a large shovel hit the back of Jason's head. He crumpled to the ground, and she followed the end of the shovel, up a pair of muscular arms, and finally rested on Eric's face. He stepped toward Jason, and turned him over with his boot. Eric kicked the shotgun across the room and laughed.
"You've been Rambofied."
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
"You took my line," Hailey said as she glanced between Eric and Jason's body on the floor.
"What?" Eric still held the large shovel in both hands as he nudged Jason with his boot tip. The man twitched, but did not wake up. Hailey remembered her cell phone under the recliner and slid her hand underneath the chair.
"Rambofied; that was mine." She found her phone under a broken piece of picture frame glass.
"I'm sorry, were you going to knock him out?" Eric asked, but did not take his eyes off Jason. "Because that's how you get to use a line."
Hailey turned away from Eric and called 911. The operator wanted her to stay on the phone until the first responders arrived, but she hung up after she briefly explained the situation. Very briefly.