Fixing Fate: A Pleasant Valley Novel

by Anna Brooks

  “Please call my brother,” I beg.

  The beefy man shakes his head. “Can you tell me what happened tonight, ma’am?”

  “Call my brother. He’s a—”

  “I didn’t ask who your brother was. I asked if you could tell me why you were trying to escape a crime scene.”

  It’s about now that the weight of what happened sinks in. The adrenaline from the past ten minutes wears off, my legs weaken further, and my chest tightens. “Please call Jay.” I desperately want Smith, but I know I’ll have better results with my brother. And I’m worried. So worried that Smith didn’t make it. I’m not ready to hear that he died. Alone and bleeding as he hung from his truck because of me.

  “Who?”

  “My brother. Jay Jamison.”

  His eyes flash with familiarity. “Detective Jamison. You’re his missing sister?”

  “Yes.”

  My head falls back, and I slide down the side of the police car as he begins to frantically talk into his walkie-talkie. I’m only on the ground for a minute before I hear my name. “Get those fuckin’ cuffs off her.”

  Strong hands lift me and I flutter my lashes enough to see Brandon, Mary’s husband and Jay’s ex-partner. When the cold, tight metal slides off my wrists, Brandon lifts me and holds me like a baby. “ETA?”

  “One minute,” says the familiar voice of the officer who cuffed me.

  “Mellie, can you look at me?”

  After rapidly blinking, I stare into his soft blue eyes. “You’re okay now.”

  “I know.”

  “Everything’s going to be okay.”

  He carries me over to the street, just as an ambulance pulls up. Hands lift and set me on the stretcher, and I’m relieved that Brandon follows me into the ambulance and sits on the bench. The door slams shut and I jump, but Brandon gently rubs my upper arm. The top of my hand is poked, and a cool liquid courses through my veins as the paramedics ask questions and palpate my bones. I flinch when they get to my ribs. “I think he broke one,” I whisper.

  Brandon’s hand on my arm flexes.

  They touch the same spot again, eliciting the same response from me.

  “You know she’s hurt, dammit, stop fuckin’ touching her in the same place.”

  I laugh, and that makes the sore bone hurt even worse. “You sound like Jay.”

  “Yeah, well, he and I are a lot alike.”

  My head rolls to the side, and instead of looking at the ceiling, I look at Brandon. “Did you call him?”

  “No. I will as soon as we get to the hospital.”

  “Can you do it now, please?” He’s going to be worried, and I need him to know that I’m okay.

  “Sure.” He takes out his phone at the exact time we pull up to the hospital. “I’ll meet you inside, okay?”

  My throat hurts when I swallow. “Okay.”

  The next hours go by in a blur. They examined me, took x-rays, drew blood, and even asked for a urine sample. I changed into the set of scrubs I was given to wear and cleaned up a little bit. A female doctor approached me alone and asked if I was sexually assaulted. The joy of being able to say that I wasn’t made a fresh round of tears flow.

  Brandon’s been in to check on me. Since he knew me personally, he took himself off the case, but another homicide detective would be in to ask some questions. Brandon told me the new detective was on his way, and then said he had to step outside for a minute.

  I stare at a blank television screen and finally relax a little bit. It’s amazing knowing I’m safe and how much more at ease I feel. I release my hands from the balls they’re in squeezing the sheets. My achy bones sink into the lousy hospital mattress, but it’s sure as hell of a lot more comfortable than sleeping on the floor with an arm cuffed to a bed.

  Sure, my body is sore. But mentally, I’m debilitated. I read something once that said that every morning we wake up open our eyes, it’s a second chance. So when I wake up this time, I definitely plan to live my life to its fullest. I’m done missing the first chances that passed me by. Sleep pulls me under just when there’s a knock on the door. Dammit.

  I don’t answer because I’m hoping they go away, but it opens and a man in a suit with a badge hanging from his neck enters. “Hi, Ms. Jamison. I’m Detective Smith. Is it okay if I ask you a couple of questions?”

  Smith. The thought that my Smith has a last name for a first name never registered before. I always thought it was such a cool and sexy name, but hearing it as a surname kind of makes it funny. I snicker, and it makes me jostle my ribs, so I reach down to hold them. Only one is broken, but four are bruised, and they hurt really, really bad.

  “Yeah, come in.”

  “Thank you.” He closes the door behind him and takes out a pad of paper. “Can you tell me what happened from the beginning?”

  I begin from the time Norman pulled us over and the moment I recognized him. “When Smith stepped outside the vehicle, I didn’t even realize it was Norman yet, but as soon as he tricked Smith and put a handcuff on him, Norman took off his sunglasses. I knew it was him then, but I... I couldn’t do anything.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because I was scared. I freaked out, and by the time I was able to get the gun out—”

  “Whose gun?”

  “Smith’s. It was in the glove box. He threatened to shoot him, and I didn’t—”

  “Who is he? Please be more specific with the names, Ms. Jamison.”

  I bristle at his tone but continue anyway. I hope my brother doesn’t talk to victims like this. “Norman threatened to shoot Smith.” The moments after that are somewhat blurry, but I tell him what I remember. From the first night, how Norman locked me in the room and left me for days, to when he let me out and fed me dinner. “And then he grabbed me by the shoulder and pulled me down, so my head was resting in his lap.”

  “And you didn’t think to run away then?”

  “Of course, I did, but I was weak and had just eaten my first meal in like three days.”

  “Even with you having free rein in the apartment, you didn’t fight to get away?”

  He has no clue, and it’s pissing me off that he’s accusing me of, of... I don’t even know what. “I tried to get away and got locked in a soundproof room for three days where I had to piss in a fucking corner, you asshole. I was waiting for the right time. Don’t question me on why I didn’t choose that exact moment to try to escape.”

  “I’m not questioning you, Ms. Jamison, and I’d appreciate it if you’d refrain from the name-calling.”

  “And I’d appreciate it if you shut your fucking mouth before I do it for you.”

  I’m reduced to a blubbery mess when I hear my Smith’s voice. He and Jay are standing in the doorway, and Jay has his hand on Smith’s shoulder, pulling him back. “Relax,” he tells him.

  “I know I didn’t just walk into you blaming a victim, my sister, did I, Detective Smith?” Jay squares his shoulders at the detective, and Smith breaks free of his hold.

  My Smith makes a beeline toward me and purposely bumps into Detective Smith on the way. When he reaches the bed, he sits on the edge and grabs my hand without an IV in it.

  “I’m not finished interviewing her, so if you two could just leave, I’ll be done shortly.”

  “You’ll leave now, and I will let you know when you can finish, got me?” I love my brother.

  “Are you honestly telling me you’re interfering in a homicide investigation?”

  Jay cracks his neck and steps toe to toe with him. “Watch yourself, Riley.”

  “Fuck you, Jay.” He glances at me, and Smith’s hand tightens on mine. He stands, but I pull him back down.

  “Both of you. Out. Now!” Brandon walks in and steps between the two, pulling a furious Jay back. “Jesus, Detective Smith, what in the hell is wrong with you?”

  He just shakes his head and walks out of the room as Brandon and Jay talk so quietly even I can’t hear them. Brandon clasps Jay on the shoulder then
nods at me. “You doing okay?”

  “Yeah. Great. I didn’t even have to turn the TV on for entertainment.”

  All three men, whose testosterone is choking me, laugh. “Jesus, Mel. Scared the shit out of me.” Jay comes over and leans down between Smith and me. Without letting go of Smith’s hand, I wrap the other around my brother awkwardly and try not to wince at the pain in my side.

  “Can you move so I can hug my sister?”

  “No.”

  Brandon laughs again. “I haven’t formally met you. Brandon Parker.”

  “Smith Porter.”

  Jay kisses the top of my head before he stands. “Got a minute?” he asks Brandon.

  “Yeah, buddy.” Brandon waves at me. “Take care, Mellie. Nice to meet ya, man.” He and Smith do that chin lift thing guys do.

  “I’ll be right back, okay?” Jay says to us.

  “Okay.”

  He leaves, and when the door closes, Smith takes my face in his hands and brings his forehead to mine. The strong, determined man, whose love and commitment has never wavered, apologizes over and over as a single tear rolls down his face.

  Chapter 23

  Smith

  The last time I cried was at their funeral. When their bodies were lowered into the ground and the final shovel of dirt thrown on their caskets was the last time I allowed a single tear to fall from my eyes.

  So it’s no surprise that seeing my girl brings me to tears. Mellie pulls me closer, and I long to wrap my arms around her, but I know she’s hurting. She mimics me and grabs the sides of my face. “It is not your fault.”

  “I watched him take you.” She knows what I’m thinking without me even saying it.

  “He shot you, Smith. God, he shot you. Put a hole in your body that could have killed you.”

  “I don’t care about me. He fucking took you from me and... I didn’t know if I’d ever get to see you again. If the last memory I’d have of you would be seeing you looking at me from the back seat in that fucking car.”

  She holds me still and gingerly crawls into my lap. We’ve been through enough to test an established couple, so anything from this point on will seem so damn minuscule. With each moment that passes, that has passed between us, I feel nothing but our relationship getting even stronger, and I know without a doubt she is it for me. I just pray that whatever happened to her doesn’t scar her any more. Especially since she was healing so well. When she hits the wound in my thigh, I cringe.

  “Shit, sorry.”

  She tries to pull back, but I don’t let her. “No, stay here. Stay close. God, I need you to be close.”

  “But your leg—”

  “I don’t give a fuck about my leg.”

  She adjusts herself so she’s still close but not directly on my injured thigh. I squeeze her, and she winces.

  “Shit, sorry.”

  “It’s okay.” She sighs. “I have a broken rib and a few bruised ones. We’re quite the pair, huh?”

  My body convulses thinking about how it happened. “What else?”

  “That’s pretty much it.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “No. Not right now. I just want you to hold me.”

  “I can do that, baby. I can do that.”

  She lies down, and luckily, our injuries are on the same side, so we’re not putting pressure on them. I wrap an arm around her and rest it gently after intertwining our fingers. My thumb rubs over the pulse point on her wrist, and as the beat steadies, mine does, too.

  “I was worried that I was going to die there without telling you that I love you.”

  “I love you, too. So, so much.”

  “See, I knew that. You’ve told me. But I never said the words to you.” Her finger traces over the bandages on my wrist where the flesh is raw from tugging at the handcuff. I had to get a few stitches to sew the skin back together. “I figured out why, though.”

  “Why what?”

  “Why I couldn’t say the words to you.” She shifts to her back and tries to toss the IV line out of the way. “When I was there, it’d been probably almost two days at that point, but when I was sitting there half-starved and beginning to hallucinate from dehydration, I realized that was my destiny. I was going to die in that room. I had held out on telling you how I truly felt; I didn’t even want to admit it to myself, because I just knew he was going to cut my life short. But if I said it out loud, if I told you that I love you, then when it was taken away from me... it would be that much harder to lose.”

  “He can’t hurt you anymore.” My fingers run up and down her arm, but it’s just not close enough, so I lace them between hers.

  “The funny thing is it didn’t make it harder, because I already knew. I know that I’m so deeply in love with you. I just wish I would have said it sooner so you knew.”

  “I knew.” I smile and kiss her lips. “I knew.”

  “Good.” Her yawn is the perfect distraction, because I don’t need to cry in front of her again. And if she keeps being all sweet and telling me how much she loves me... even though it’s such an amazing feeling to hear those words again, I’ll lose my shit.

  “Get some sleep, okay?” I push myself off her bed, but she grabs me.

  “No. Stay, please.”

  “Okay.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You don’t ever have to thank me, Mellie. Any time I get to be near you or touch you is a gift to me. If anything, I should be thanking you.”

  Her eyes are closed, but the corners of her lips tilt up. “Such a charmer.”

  More than before, the desire to be close to her strangles me, so I lean down and kiss her again. She snuggles into me, and within twenty seconds, her lips part and she falls asleep.

  Jay walks in and quietly closes the door. “She asleep?”

  “Yeah,” I whisper back.

  “Now’s going to be the best time to tell you this since you can’t hit anything.”

  “Jesus, fuck.” I take a couple of deep breaths. He’s about to tell me the details. We didn’t know them on the way down here, and I’m afraid to hear them. “What?”

  “Richard White. Age thirty-seven. Diagnosed schizophrenic. But you knew that already. We also know that the woman he was living with is an ex-druggie who he saved from the streets. In his mind, he was like her father one day then her husband the next.”

  These things were all discussed, and details brought to light over the past three days. Richard was ruled out as a suspect because he had an alibi, one that I saw to by using Dirt for my eyes. With Norman missing for over a month prior to the kidnapping, we had no clue where he would go with her. Their old apartment was rented out years ago to whom Jay thought was an elderly couple. But it turns out it was Norman the whole time. He had a plan and was just waiting for the right moment to execute it.

  “Go on.”

  “The photos that were emailed to her?”

  My head dips to encourage him to go on.

  “Richard.”

  “The flowers?” I ask.

  “Richard. But he says he didn’t try to kidnap her off the porch, which means it was Norman like we originally thought.”

  “Fuckin’ A.”

  “Apparently, Richard saw her at the hardware store and followed her back to the house. From that moment, he became obsessed with her.”

  “I should have—”

  “Nothing more you could have done. He was slick and not easy to grab. Smart. When he ‘rescued’ Polly from the streets, he did the same to her. Followed her around to the houses she whored out at, took pictures, same shit.”

  “Still doesn’t explain how he found Mellie.”

  “Tracking device on her phone.”

  “We tracked her phone. We got nothing.”

  “Yeah, because Norman shut it off. But the one Richard had put on her phone was external. Richard really was out of town on business, and when he came home and was interviewed, he tracked her on his own. Thought he was a hero or somethin
g.”

  “Dammit. How the hell did he…? Fuck!” I bite the inside of my cheek since my outburst made Mellie stir.

  “He picked the locks and snuck up on Norman in the kitchen. Stabbed him so many times the coroner is having trouble getting a final number, because the lacerations all kind of bleed into each other. No pun intended. Neighbor heard screaming, since Richard didn’t close the door all the way, and called it in.”

  “So one psychopath saved her from another?”

  He sighs and shakes his head. “Yeah. I’m not even going to get into how insane the entire situation is. I bet she’s never even edited anything this fucked up before.”

  “Actually, there was this one book, Insignificant,” Mellie speaks, and both Jay and I tense up. “A little girl was tormented by the man who killed her mother. She spent practically her entire life running. The things he forced her to do, the fear she lived in. There were so many twists and turns that I had to read through it before I went back and edited.”

  “How much did you hear, Mel?” Jay steps closer.

  “All of it.” She sits up, and I try to help her as I do the same. “I heard it, and I didn’t process it. But I heard it.”

  “Sorry, baby. I thought you were asleep.”

  She wraps her arms around herself. “I needed to know. And if you would have known I was awake, you wouldn’t have been as detailed. Right now, I feel okay. I actually feel free. And as sick as it sounds, I’m glad Norman is dead.”

  “That’s not sick. I would have broken his neck without a second thought.” Jay grunts and then tucks his hands in his pockets. “There are things I should say to you. To both of you. I need to apologize. I’ve been so absent, and I tried to be everywhere, but... I just couldn’t be.”

  “Can we get one thing straight right now, please?” Mellie asks. “Can we all just not put the blame on ourselves? It wasn’t anyone’s fault but Norman’s. He’s taken enough of my life and time and freedom, and I don’t want to waste another second on him. If I need to give statements or sign papers or whatever, I’ll do it. But I just want to move on. Can we do that?”

  Both Jay and I agree, but deep down, I know I’ll never just move on. Jay never will either. We’ll both carry the guilt around. But that’s our cross to bear.