When Jackson eventually glanced up, he saw the man had passed out. Within minutes he would be dead.
Chapter Twelve
Serenity didn’t let Elizabeth go to preschool. Too afraid to even open the drapes, she checked every door and window, making sure they were locked, only to check them again ten minutes later, like a person suffering from obsessive compulsive disorder.
Elizabeth’s wide, dark eyes followed Serenity around the room.
“Everything’s okay, honey,” Serenity said, trying to give her daughter the reassurance she longed for herself. “You and I are going to have a girl’s day today, yeah? We’ll watch movies and eat chocolate. I’ll even paint your toe nails that pretty pink color you like?”
Despite her intuition, at only just four years old, Elizabeth was easily bribed. Her face lit up at the idea of having her toe-nails painted like Mommy’s, something Serenity never let her do for fear of making her baby grow up too fast.
“Yay!” Elizabeth exclaimed. Clapping her hands together, her whole face lit up.
She smiled back at her daughter but the expression was forced. Serenity barely slept the previous night. Every sound jolted her wide-awake and nightmares plagued her sleep. Now, as though suffering from a heavy night out on the town—something she never did anyway—exhaustion hung like a cloud around her and she struggled to string a thought together.
Going through the morning’s normal routine, Serenity prepared breakfast for them both; toast, cereal, orange juice. Elizabeth tucked in with her usual gusto, though she didn’t take her eyes off her mother, knowing something wasn’t quite right. Serenity never let either of them take a day off for no reason.
Serenity stirred cereal around her bowl, sugar bleeding out into rapidly warming milk. The wheat had grown soggy and even more unappetizing. Adrenaline zapped her appetite, but she tried to pretend for Elizabeth’s sake. She lifted a spoonful of the cereal to her mouth, but the wheat was just a mushy consistency against her tongue.
She forced herself to swallow.
Sebastian hadn’t returned and there had been no sign of Jackson, much to her relief. Yet his presence pressed down upon her like an impending asteroid; knowing something huge, dark and life destroying hurtled toward her and she was powerless to do anything about it.
With breakfast finished and the dishes cleared away, Serenity set about trying to hide out and forget the terrifying things going on in her world. Tucked up on the small couch in the kitchen, Serenity cuddled Elizabeth under her arm. ‘Finding Nemo’ played on the television. Elizabeth stiffened and gasped as the two fish swam for their lives between the tentacles of hundreds of jellyfish. Serenity paid little attention to the movie. Instead, she remained lost in thought, her lips brushing the top of her daughter’s head.
Serenity took comfort in her daughter’s interaction with the film—the normality, how easily she could be transported into another world. Serenity couldn’t escape her own thoughts so easily. Even the little fish on the screen would do anything to protect its offspring.
Suddenly her shoulders stiffened.
She must have heard something; her muscles tightened, her senses heightened. Her ears strained, trying to hear what had caught her attention, even if only on a subconscious level.
Her heart hammered inside her chest, so loud Elizabeth would surely hear the sound.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” she said, patting Elizabeth on the leg with a trembling hand.
Too engrossed in her movie, Elizabeth didn’t even glance up.
Cautiously, Serenity got to her feet and crossed the small living area to the front hall. She checked the front door. Still locked. At least the house remained secure.
Had a noise outside caught her attention? Was someone out there?
Serenity made her way back into the kitchen. Elizabeth still sat, watching the movie, her blanket clutched close to her face. Serenity pulled the cord for the kitchen blind, raising the wooden slats by a few inches, enough to give her a view out on the street. A car drove past, but otherwise the road was quiet. Now mid-morning, most people were at work.
She frowned. Something had startled her, she was sure.
About to pull down the blind, shutting out the rest of the world again, something glinted off the windowsill, catching a flash of light in the mid-morning sunshine.
A gold ring sat on the windowsill, only inches from her face.
A wave of déjà-vu swept over her, accompanied by a sickness swirling deep in her gut. How could such a simple object hold such menace? She didn’t want to touch the ring, yet she couldn’t bring herself to leave it. She needed to know the ring was real.
Her heart pounded as she cracked open the window and snuck her hand out, grabbing the small band of metal. As though afraid something would reach up and grab her, she snatched back her hand and slammed the window shut, locking it again.
With shaking hands, she dropped the item into her other palm. The metal burned a ring of ice in her skin.
She knew the ring, she would recognize it anywhere, but to be certain she checked inside. Engraved was the date 19-09-97.
The date she married Jackson.
Her hand still trembling, she slipped the band on her ring finger. As she expected, the ring passed over her skin with too much space between her skin and the metal. The ring hung from her finger. It was a man’s ring.
Jackson’s ring.
A faint cry escaped her throat and she dropped the ring into the kitchen sink. The metal hit the porcelain with a ‘clink’. The ring bounced a couple of times before coming to rest near the drain.
The doorbell rang, shrill and loud, and Serenity shrieked, her heart clambered into her throat once again.
“Mommy,” Elizabeth said, her attention removed from the movie, staring at her mother with confusion and concern. “It’s only the doorbell.”
“I know, I know,” she said, her hand at her chest, exhaling long and slow, trying to get a grip of herself. “It made me jump.”
Elizabeth stared at her as though her mother had lost her mind. Serenity glanced down at the band of gold again. The ring instilled more fear and horror than any piece of metal ever should have the power to do. She wondered if her daughter’s thoughts might be true.
The doorbell rang again.
“Mommy!” Elizabeth said again, irritation affecting her voice. The doorbell was interrupting her movie.
“Yes, Elizabeth,” she snapped. “I’m not deaf.”
He wouldn’t ring the doorbell, she told herself. He wouldn’t sneak around the place, leave his wedding ring as a calling card, and then sound the bell. What had Sebastian said: Jackson was no longer human? Whatever he was now, he wouldn’t be hanging out on people’s doorsteps waiting for an invitation to come in.
But he is dead! Her mind screamed, tears filling her eyes. She had killed him herself. Her mind didn’t want to conjure up the horror of what Jackson might have become. In her head she envisioned him dead on the kitchen floor, his throat and chest coated in a slick of his own blood.
Despite her own reassurances, she didn’t want to go to the door. She wondered if she should ignore it, but then the bell blasted again and Elizabeth shot her another glare.
Serenity took a deep breath, trying to quell the rising panic, and went to answer the door.
A small peephole had been put in the front door for security and she stood on tip-toes to look out. James stood on the step, looking impatient and worried, and she bit down on her lower lip, stopping herself bursting into fresh tears of relief.
Serenity cracked open the door.
“Christ, Serenity, what are you playing at?” he said. “You had me worried.”
“How did you know I was home?” she asked, backing up, letting him through the front door.
“You weren’t at work.”
“Why were you—”
“Something’s happened,” he said, cutting her off. “I know you didn’t go into work because I was just there. It’s your
boss, Serenity. Richard Berry was murdered in the parking garage first thing this morning.”
“What?” The walls suddenly closed in around her and she put a hand out, steadying herself against James’s shoulder.
Her head swam with shock.
“You heard me,” he said, his voice harder than she thought it should be considering the news he’d just delivered. “Your boss has been murdered.”
“My God…”
They stood together in the hallway for a moment while Serenity gulped back tears and waited for the color to return to her face and the room to stop spinning.
Taking a few deep breaths to compose herself, she opened the kitchen door. Elizabeth glanced up as they walked in.
“Elizabeth, honey, you need to go to your room for a minute. I need to talk to Uncle James.”
Elizabeth opened her mouth to protest, but Serenity shot her a look.
“Now, please,” she said.
Reluctantly, Elizabeth got off the couch and gave her movie a longing gaze.
James reached out and ruffled her hair as she passed.
“We won’t be long, kiddo.”
Serenity watched as Elizabeth went in her bedroom. She closed the kitchen door, hoping to stop her daughter from hearing anything else.
“Now are you going to tell me what’s going on, Serenity?” James demanded, facing her. “No one at the station has made the connection between you and your boss yet. But as soon as they realize you work for him and own the house the Bainbridges lived in, they’re going to be asking some serious questions.”
Serenity’s eyes filled with tears. Tears for the people who had been killed, but also tears of fear for the people she loved.
“You need to take Amy and Noah and get out of the city,” she said. “It’s not safe.”
He started back, surprised. “What the hell has this got to do with Amy and Noah?” Real anger fired his voice.
“You’re my friend, and so is your family. The person who killed the others could easily come after you guys and there is absolutely nothing I can do.” Except that wasn’t true. She could tell Sebastian she wanted his help. She had to now. If Jackson was killing the people around her, she owed it to James to do everything within her power to protect his family.
“So are you saying you know who did this now?”
She nodded. “I think so. I tried to tell you…”
“Are we back to what you were talking about on the phone last night?” James asked. The level of his voice dropped in horror and disbelief. “Surely the person killing these people isn’t Elizabeth’s father?”
The idea that such a sweet little girl came from someone capable of such horrific acts of violence was unthinkable.
“No! God, no!” she said. “Of course not.”
Serenity had no idea how to even start to explain all of this to him. She barely believed it herself. She didn’t want to tell James about murdering Jackson, never mind that he was now back for revenge. Whatever James thought of her, whatever he had seen and experienced himself, she would still sound like she should be locked up in a mental hospital.
“I think your detective was right. I think Jackson is committing the murders,” she said, deciding to leave out the ‘and he’s dead’ part. “He was here earlier. He left his wedding ring as a calling card.”
“Jesus Christ, Serenity!” James’s blue eyes widened. “Did you see him? Did he try to talk to you?”
She shook her head. “No, I found the ring on the kitchen sill.”
He switched from friend to police mode. “At least we have something else to go on now. We can put out a full description. We’ll pull up and circulate a photo from his driver’s license. We’re bound to pin him down in no time.”
She stared at him, desperately wanting to believe him. But the lie was dangerous and thinking even for a moment that a police force could take Jackson down would get them all killed. They couldn’t expect to put a pair of handcuffs on Jackson and haul him off to jail.
“Arresting Jackson won’t be that easy, James. You’re missing the point.”
He stared at her blankly, and then realization dawned. “Please don’t tell me Jackson is some sort of…” He couldn’t bring himself to say the word. “Other creature, as well.”
“I don’t know exactly what he is, but I don’t think he’s human anymore.”
James sank onto the small couch behind him and put his head in his hands. “I can’t deal with this shit, Serenity. I don’t believe in ghosts or fairies. I don’t think I even believed in Santa Claus when I was a kid. Please don’t ask me to start believing in this stuff.”
She crouched in front of him and slipped her fingers through his, pulling his hand away from his face, forcing him to look up.
“I don’t want to believe either and if I hadn’t been exposed to this other world, I’m sure I wouldn’t. But you know these things exist. You experienced it yourself, four years ago that night on the pier.”
He stared at her. “You know I am doing everything in my power to convince myself you’re crazy right now?”
“I honestly don’t blame you. I’ve questioned my own sanity enough times, but I’m not crazy and I’m not lying. Jackson has become something else and he’s killing people—people connected to me.”
“And you think he might come after Amy and Noah?”
For the first time, fear replaced James’s disbelief.
“I’m so sorry, James. The last thing I want is for you and your family to get involved.”
“It’s a bit late for empty wishes.” His fear for his family sharpened his words. “You got me involved four years ago.”
Her face colored with shame. What he said was true. Though some might argue his job had been to protect her, her telephone call was what brought him to the pier that night. If she’d never made the call, he wouldn’t have been exposed to Madeline and everything she represented.
“I’m so sorry.”
“You know I can’t just leave?” he said. “Catching murderers is what my job is all about.”
“Please, James. You’ll never be able to catch him. You have to go home, get your family and get as far away from me as possible.”
James stared at her. “What about you and Elizabeth? Amy’s mother lives in Sacramento. If you really think all of our lives are in danger, I can send you all there.”
Serenity hesitated for a moment. She couldn’t go. Leaving would only give Jackson an excuse to follow them, but maybe she should send Elizabeth? Her heart clenched at the thought of being separated from her daughter. They’d never been apart before—not even for one night in the whole of Elizabeth’s four years—and the idea of them not being together was heartbreaking.
She hated that she wouldn’t know if Elizabeth was safe or not, but what choice did she have? Could she rely on Sebastian to protect them? Hell, Sebastian wasn’t even aware of Elizabeth’s existence.
“I couldn’t go,” she said. “I would only put them in danger again. But Elizabeth should.”
James frowned. “Let’s not jump ahead of ourselves. Amy’s not going to take kindly to being sent off like a child refugee. She’s going to want to be told what’s going on and I have no idea what to tell her.”
“Tell her about Jackson, but leave out what he’s become. Tell her he’s my sadistic husband out for revenge and wants to hurt anyone close to me. That should be enough.”
“What about you?” he asked. “How are you going to stay safe?”
Her thoughts immediately turned to Sebastian. “Elizabeth’s father will take care of me. And James, you need to let him be the one who goes after Jackson. If you or any of the other officers try, Jackson will kill them.”
“So Elizabeth’s father is back? Does she know?”
Serenity shook her head. “She’s never asked about him so I never brought it up.” Serenity wasn’t sure if she wanted to tell James any more than she already had, but everything was coming to a head now. At some point in the next f
ew hours, everyone would need to discover the truth.
“He doesn’t know about her either,” she admitted. Her chin wobbled as the sadness of it all swept over her. They’d already missed out on so much of each other’s lives. Elizabeth deserved to have a father, however strange he might be, and Sebastian deserved the chance to get to know his daughter.
“Hang on a minute,” James lowered his voice even further. “Are you telling me Elizabeth is not one hundred percent… human?”
Like Serenity, he was unable to bring himself to use the words: vampire, supernatural, immortal.
“I’ve never had any reason to think she’s anything other than human. I was terrified at first, at what she might become, but she’s as normal as you or I.”
“Jesus Christ, Serenity.” He was looking at her with different eyes; a mixture of fear and awe. The things he’d thought he knew about the world were shifting. Things he’d taken for granted about people he loved were wrong.
James retreated back to the one thing he could rely on—his work.
“Detective Gingham is going to make the connection between you, your boss and Jackson,” he said. “He already thinks you might be protecting Jackson. Now your boss is dead, it’s only going to reinforce his suspicions. You need to prepare yourself for him hauling you back down to the station. He may even get a search warrant to discover if you’re concealing Jackson.”
Serenity raised her hands, gesturing around her. “He can search all he likes.”
A noise outside of the door silenced them both. The door handle wiggled a little and Serenity stepped forward and opened it. Elizabeth stood outside, a sheepish smile on her face.
“I want to watch Nemo,” Elizabeth said.
Serenity and James shared a look.
“Sure honey. Your Uncle James is going to call me later.”
“Sooner rather than later,” he promised. “And lock your door after I leave.”
“Of course,” she said, but deep down she wondered if a locked door was any protection against something unnatural.
Chapter Thirteen
With James gone, Serenity found it impossible to settle. She paced her small apartment, periodically peeping out of the windows. Her ears strained for any sound that might signal Jackson’s return. The thought of him so close made her sick with fear.
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