by Peak, Renna
He raised an eyebrow. “Pieces?”
I motioned with my head toward the piano. “I hadn’t played seriously in a few years. Nothing sounded right when I went in to record my audition pieces. I recorded every piece I knew and I chose the best ones to send in.”
He nodded again, just like the good little psychiatrist he was trying to get me to believe he was. “Send in?”
“I sent audition recordings to four schools. For master’s programs.”
“For the piano.” He motioned with this head toward the baby grand next to us, not really asking, just restating. “How long have you played?”
I shrugged. “For as long as I can remember. Twenty years or so.” I fixed my gaze on the wall behind him, sure if I made eye contact, I would start sobbing again. “Two of the schools asked me to come in to audition in front of their admissions committee. I told Daniel I was going to New York for the day to go shopping when I flew to Cleveland. I told him I was going to visit Melissa for the weekend when I flew to San Francisco.”
He nodded again. “So you were planning to go to music school, and Daniel didn’t know. What were you planning to do if you got in?”
I felt a tear slide down my cheek, then another and another. Before I knew it, I had my knees pulled up to my chest and was sobbing into my lap. This was my fault. I had lied to Daniel and he had found out. I didn’t know why he didn’t feel like he couldn’t talk to me about it—why he felt like he needed to wrap his car around a tree instead—but I knew that what he had done, he had done because of me. Because I was a selfish liar who didn’t deserve to be loved.
I sobbed into my lap for a long time—probably too long. But the doctor just sat there with me, not interrupting and not saying a word, even in condolence. When the waves of grief abated, I looked up. He was still watching me in silence. It was weird and almost a little creepy that he just sat there and watched me cry my heart out without saying anything.
“Which did you choose?”
I sniffled a little. “What?”
“Which school are you going to? Cleveland or San Francisco?”
I could feel the tears welling again and I couldn’t believe that there could actually be any more to cry. I somehow managed to force down the lump that had formed in my throat, willing away the new tears—at least for the moment. “When I went to San Francisco, I felt like I belonged there. It felt like I was meant to be there—that there was something there for me. I’d never felt anything like it. And it wasn’t just the school—it was everything. Melissa was there, but it was more than that. The people, the smell of the salt water in the air. It felt right. It was the first time anything felt right.”
He nodded and stood up, walking over to give my shoulder a pat. “I’m very sorry for your loss, Jenna. I do think you would benefit from talking with someone—probably frequently for the next few weeks—but I think you are processing your grief appropriately. I don’t think you need any medication right now.”
I looked up at him, almost incredulous. “That’s what this was about? My parents thought I needed medication?”
His lips turned up in a small smile. “You’ll get through this, Jenna. It isn’t going to be easy, but you’re a strong woman. You’ll make it through.”
I should have known. My parents wanted me medicated through the funeral—God forbid their daughter should cry at a funeral. There would be press there, for heaven’s sake. They weren’t worried about my mental stability—they never were.
They were worried about their image, as usual.
6
Yesterday
I had made the mistake of wearing heels that night. They weren’t stilettos by any means, but they were a few inches high, and they were definitely slowing me down. If my ankle hadn’t turned, I might have been able to get away from him. I might have actually been able to outrun him.
I fell into the grass next to me, my ankle throbbing almost as bad as my hand was after hitting him. I hit him. I actually hit him. My mouth dropped open as the realization of what was going on finally began to sink in—Brandon killed that woman. Brandon is a murderer. My heart was racing almost as quickly as my thoughts.
He followed me and was at my side not a second later. I knew he would follow me—I hadn’t hit him hard enough to knock him out, just hard enough to split his skin. I looked up at him and saw blood dripping down his cheek onto his stubble-lined jaw. My stomach flipped with concern for a second until I remembered—he killed that woman. And now he was going to kill me. I don’t know how I knew that—I just knew it. This was it. This was going to be the demise of Jenna Davis, and it would come at the hands of a man I thought I loved until about five minutes ago.
He reached his arms out to me, to help me up maybe. “Jen.” He winced, almost pained, but not from the bloody cheek. “Christ, Jen, just let me explain.” He raised his hand to his forehead. “Please, Jen…”
I crab walked backwards onto the lawn. Something was definitely wrong with my ankle, but I forced myself backward, away from him. I had to get as far away from him as possible. My heart raced even more quickly when I saw him come after me. I turned myself onto all fours and tried to crawl away, but I knew I wasn’t going to be fast enough. I felt his arms around my waist, lifting me to my feet a moment later.
Tears streamed down my cheeks and I furiously shook my head. My heart was still racing like I’d just won an Olympic sprint. “Let me go, Brandon. I’ll scream—I swear to God, I’ll scream. Let me go…”
He spoke into my ear, and the hot breath that had once melted me into a puddle now sent a river of ice down my spine. “Give me five minutes. Just five. You owe me that much.”
I raised my arm in front of me and swung my elbow into him as hard as I could, right into his belly—the place I hoped was his scar that I knew still hurt him. His hands dropped from my waist and I kicked off the damned heels, racing for the sidewalk. I saw him doubled over in pain from the corner of my eye, making my stomach flip again. I knew I’d hurt him—struck him exactly where I thought I had. But I knew damn well that I wasn’t going to stop and make sure he was okay. I had to get back to that house—had to find Cade, call the police and get the hell out of there. Brandon had been right about that part—I did need to get the hell out of there.
“Jenna Davis?”
My legs instantly froze beneath me when I heard that voice, almost sending me flying forward from the sudden stop. I turned to the voice, feeling the heat of my anger rising in me. I saw her perfect blonde hair and my muscles tensed. Of course he had come to the party with Robin. Why else would she be here?
“Oh, Jenna, I’ve been wanting to talk to you for weeks. I owe you such a huge apology…” Her green eyes appeared to be sincere. And I didn’t hear a hint of sarcasm in her voice. “If I had known you were with him…”
“Shut the fuck up, Robin.” Brandon had apparently recovered from his injury rather quickly. I reminded myself to take some sort of self-defense classes when this bullshit died down.
I could almost feel myself twitching with anger. “You don’t owe me anything, Robin. Brandon and I aren’t together and haven’t been in quite a while.”
Her eyes darted between the two of us, almost certainly sensing that something wasn’t right. She finally fixed her eyes on me. “Jenna, I still want you to know I’m sorry. You’ve been through enough in your life, and if I caused you any amount of grief, I want you to know…”
“Shut up, Robin. I told you to shut the fuck up.” Brandon’s teeth were clenched and his jaw was so tight, it caused his cheek to start bleeding again.
Seeing him squirm like this would have almost been amusing if so much else hadn’t been going on. I knew he still intended to do something with me, but now he’d have to take us both down. It was true that there was safety in numbers. I forced my phony smile and leaned toward her slightly, my voice lowering. “You can have him.”
He grabbed my wrist. “Come with me.”
I wrestled my arm away fro
m his grasp, refusing to move. “No. I need to find Cade. I have a date with a bottle of sleeping pills tonight and I need to get home.”
That statement made Robin smile and Brandon scowl. He turned his head to face Robin, taking my wrist with his hand again, refusing to let go this time. “Did you find a notary?”
She shook her head. “Melissa said she wasn’t one. I didn’t know anyone else there.”
His lip curled into almost a sneer. “Robin, there are at least a thousand fucking people in that house. At least one of them has to be a notary. At least one. Go find him.”
My mind was racing to quickly and I spoke before I even had time to think about the words coming from my mouth. I just blurted them out without another thought. “I’m a notary. Are you two signing the pre-nup tonight?” My words must have stunned him and his grip loosened, allowing me to twist my arm away again.
Brandon’s jaw dropped and he stood there motionless.
I saw Robin grin from the corner of my eye. “Seriously? You’re a notary?”
I shrugged, still looking into Brandon’s eyes. “Yes. Before I was fired from my last real job for some inexplicable reason, Brandon, they had me take the class. Their notary had just quit, and they still weren’t sure what they were going to do with me…”
His eyes narrowed and he grabbed my wrist again. “You have the stamp thing with you? I’m not going back to fucking San Francisco with her…” He motioned with his head toward Robin.
“Fuck you, Brandon. I have a call to make…” I twisted my arm again, almost desperate to get away from him. I just wanted to go call the police and get away.
His whole demeanor changed in an instant. His eyes pleaded with me, almost begging. “Jen, please. This is important. This is for us … for you and me. Please…”
He had always been so hard to read—impossible, really. But I didn’t see even a hint of a lie this time. Not even a drop of anything shady. He was desperate—he killed that woman—but there had to be something else. And I didn’t know what it was, but I trusted him for some unknown reason in that brief moment.
I think if he could have dropped to his knees to beg, he would have. “Jen, please. Do you have it with you? The stamp thing? Please…”
I sucked in a deep breath, nodding. “In my car.”
His eyes softened—almost thanking me—and he dropped my arm. He knew he had me. He glared back over at Robin, gritting his teeth before turning to face me again, his demeanor changing once again. Robin did something to him—something that made him into a person I didn’t know or like. “I’ll walk with you.” He reached down to take my hand again.
I snatched it away, crossing my arms over my chest. “Fine.”
He slammed the car door closed and glared again at Robin. We began to walk down the sidewalk to my car, which was still at least six blocks away. He tried to grab my elbow as we walked, but I turned away from him, out of his reach.
“Jen, just listen to me. I’m not going to hurt you.”
I shook my head and glanced over my shoulder. Robin was waiting at Brandon’s car, watching us walk down the street. My car was still a fair distance away, but she would be able to see if he tried to grab me or do anything else. I didn’t feel safe, exactly, but I didn’t feel like I was in immediate danger anymore, either. I just wished that Cade would show up so I could go home. My “date” tonight was with my new sleeping pills, and I was damned well going to need one now if I hoped to get a minute of sleep before I had to leave for D.C.—before my date with my former fiancé for his public resurrection.
I glanced over at him. His cheek was still bloodied and was beginning to swell. I motioned at his face with my hand. “You need to put some ice on that.”
He reached up and touched the side of his face, smearing the blood across his skin. “It’s fine.”
“You expect me to keep your little secret?” I knew I was venturing into dangerous territory, bringing up what I had seen in Mason’s bathroom. But he had to know that I wasn’t about to just turn my back on it. It didn’t matter that I had never liked Amanda—she didn’t deserve to die. No one deserved that.
“I don’t have any secrets, Jen.” I could feel his gaze boring into me, but I didn’t look over to meet it.
I shook my head. “Bullshit. That woman is dead. What in the hell did she do to you to make you want to…?” I stopped. I knew exactly why she was dead and it didn’t have anything to do with what she did to Brandon. I felt my heart sink in my chest—my father had put him up to this. This was the job.
“I didn’t do it, Jen. You have to believe that…”
“The job. She was the job.” I felt tears stinging at my eyes again, but I wasn’t going to lose it. Not this time. “What did she do to him?” I didn’t have to think about it long—I remembered what he had said the previous evening. “She blackmailed him.”
“Jen…”
I stopped on the sidewalk. My bare feet were almost freezing from the cold concrete of the sidewalk and I could feel my ankle beginning to swell from my earlier tumble. But all I could really feel in that moment was disgust. “You told me you never… You said if you had to do something like that you’d find someone because you could never do something like that yourself. You said…”
He dipped his head and crushed his lips against mine. I could tell he was trying to answer my questions, quell my fears with his kiss. But the thoughts racing through my head kept me from feeling anything. I lifted my hands and pushed his shoulders away, turning my head to break the kiss.
My stomach definitely did something—I hated that I couldn’t tell if it was from my disgust or if this was somehow—God forbid—arousing me. “Don’t touch me, Brandon. Don’t ever touch me again.”
“I didn’t do it, Jen. I swear on my parents’ graves, I didn’t do it.”
I shook my head and started walking again. We were almost to my car when he grabbed me by the shoulder, spinning me to face him.
“You have to believe me. I said I didn’t do it.”
I searched his eyes. I thought I would be able to tell—be able to see if he was lying, but I couldn’t tell what it was that was there. I knew he wanted me to believe he wasn’t responsible, but I had been there when my father told him to finish his “job.” Somewhere inside of me, I had always known he was capable of this. I had always known that there was more to him than just his “information” business. I knew he did things for people—things they couldn’t or wouldn’t do for themselves. And if my father’s game was “elimination,” I knew that Brandon must be the one carrying out the sentences. It didn’t matter if I couldn’t see the lie behind his gaze—I knew that he was responsible. That even if he wasn’t the one who pushed the chair out from under her to hang her, he was somehow responsible for that woman’s—Mason’s mother’s—death.
I opened the trunk of my car where the small box of stuff from my desk at Baxter and Bishop had been all these months. I had never had the need to have any of it in my apartment, so it had just stayed in my trunk all this time. I grabbed the box that had my notary seal in it and began walking back down the sidewalk toward Robin.
“Jen, say something. Tell me how I didn’t know you were a notary…”
“You don’t know anything about me, Brandon. Not a damned thing.” I pressed my lips together when I felt the tears starting to well in my eyes again, willing them to just stay there. I couldn’t let him see me fall apart because it was true—he didn’t know me. And I obviously didn’t know him.
He stepped in front of me, forcing me to stop walking. He put his hands on my shoulders, sliding them down to the tops of my arms. I felt something wet on my cheek and looked up at him to see if he was crying. I felt another drop and another, and knew it was starting to rain.
He squeezed my upper arms and looked into my eyes. “I know I love you. I knew it the second I saw you on that stage in San Francisco, wearing that ball gown that was the same color as your eyes. I knew it the second I heard you play that M
ozart piece when I was sitting with my grandmother in that concert hall. I know nothing makes you as happy as when you’re sitting behind a grand piano. I know that your favorite color is yellow, but that you don’t like it unless there’s pink, too. And I know you hate the color pink if there’s no yellow. I love that you’re the only woman I’ve ever met who hates the color pink.”
It started to rain a little harder and I could feel the drops mixing in with the tears that had begun to slide down my cheeks.
“I know you’re scared right now and I know that I can’t explain anything away. I know I fucked everything up. I know it was my fault that this happened. I know that I want to make it right. And, Jen…” He raised his voice only slightly. “I know you want me to, too. I know that I want to watch you fall asleep every night and I know that I want to watch you wake up every morning. I know I don’t want you to find comfort in any arms but mine. I know…”
I couldn’t take it anymore. He always knew the right words to say—always knew how to make it feel better for a moment. But I knew that none of it meant shit—he murdered that woman, and the rainbows and unicorns that he liked to talk about weren’t going to make it better. Not this time.
“Brandon, I know you killed her. Even if you didn’t tie whatever it was around her neck—I know you did. I know you’re responsible. And I know that she was a bitch, but she didn’t deserve to die. And now, I know that you don’t value life the way I do. And I know all the promises you’ve made me are bullshit. And I know everything you’ve ever said to me was a lie. And I know that I would rather spend the rest of my life doing my parents’ bidding—even if it means marrying Daniel—if I never have to see you again.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“I do mean that. Daniel never killed anyone, Brandon. You, on the other hand…”
“Daniel has killed more people than I can count, Jen. I have not killed anyone. Even if Amanda was the project your father gave me, I’m telling you … and you need to listen to me. I did not do it. I did not come here tonight to kill anyone, and that’s a fact.”