The night at the lake when she took her pills and then got wasted and blacked out should have been enough to scare her into never doing it again. But it hadn’t. She still couldn’t remember screaming at some guy and calling him names after accusing him of stealing one of their bottles of vodka. Evidently, after that, she’d passed out. Keisha, Maddie, and Riley had apparently helped her into the back of Maddie’s car and locked the doors to make sure no one would try to take advantage of her. Then Riley drove her car home and parked it before helping Maddie get her up the stairs and into bed. Her mother had no idea.
It wasn’t just the disorder that had brought her to this place. It was a compilation of her decisions. At some point she’d set foot on a slippery slope and now she’d slid so far, she didn’t know if she’d find her way up ever again.
Brooke poked her key into the lock and opened the front door, realizing she had about an hour before her mother would get home and they’d have the most difficult conversation of her life. I know, she thought, I’ll write a letter and have her read it. That way, I’ll get to say everything I want to say before she asks any questions. Pleased with her plan, she tossed her purse on a chair and hurried into the kitchen to get a pen and tablet. She foraged through a drawer until she found what she needed and as she turned around she saw something that made her gasp. Jake was seated at the kitchen table, staring at her.
Twenty-One
Unwelcome Proposals
“Oh my god!” Brooke jumped, shocked. Jake had a strange look on his face, like the one he’d had when he waved at Maddie’s. Slowly, purposefully, he stood up and walked toward her without speaking. Brooke backed up, scared.
“How did you get in here?!” she asked when she could finally speak again. He must’ve come in through one of the windows. The kitchen maybe?
“Shhh,” he said without emotion. “I’m everywhere.”
Brooke continued to retreat until she felt her back press against the refrigerator. Jake closed the gap, stepping as close as he could without touching her. Their faces were inches apart. Instead of the sexy, confident expression he’d had the last time they’d been this close, right before he kissed her, he was almost unrecognizable. His eyes were hard and sadistic.
Filled with dread, Brooke looked away. She could feel his hot breath on her face as Jake took her hand in his, lacing their fingers.
“Come with me,” he said, and led Brooke through the kitchen and into the living room, where he pulled her down into a sitting position on the sofa. Brooke wanted to break free and run, but she knew if she did, it would just piss him off. If she wanted him to leave, she needed to talk him into leaving.
“Why are you making this so hard?” he asked softly.
“What do you want from me?” Brooke tried to control her voice but even she could hear the trepidation.
“I just want to see you, spend time with you, love you. Like we were doing before.” Gazing at her, he twisted her little gold earring ever so slightly.
Don’t be scared, she ordered herself. This is what he wants. He wants to control you. Don’t let him. This is your house. He has no right to be here.
“Do you realize how crazy this is?” she asked, her voice taking on an authoritative edge. “You broke into my house!” With every word, the fear diminished, replaced by anger at his audacity.
“I’m not crazy. Don’t ever say that to me,” he said flatly.
Locking eyes, she said, “This isn’t normal.”
“All I want, all I’ve ever wanted—was to find someone that I had that connection with. That person I’d do anything for, and who would do anything for me,” he said, squeezing her hand. “That person is you, Brooke! You don’t know what true love is, that’s why you don’t understand what this is.”
Was he delusional? People who love each other don’t crawl in through a window when the other isn’t home. Maybe she’d never experienced true love, but Brooke was damn sure that this wasn’t it.
“I don’t love you, Jake.” She said it slowly, as if talking to a child, and pulled her hand from his. “It doesn’t matter if you love me or not because I know I don’t love you.”
She peered into Jake’s eyes, trying to gauge whether she was getting through. He looked around the room as if searching for something before turning a steely gaze back to Brooke.
“Brooke. I can make things very complicated for you. Or I can make them easy.” Brooke tried to keep her face passive even as her heart hammered in her chest. What exactly was he threatening?
“We both know you killed Maddie, don’t we?” he said, his voice pitching up ever so slightly.
For a moment, Brooke couldn’t breathe. What did he know? And why was he playing this game with her?
“I have no clue what you’re talking about,” she lied. She could hear the quiver in her voice and was sure he did too.
“Yes you do. That’s why you hid your shirt and the knife and the pillowcase by that dumpster.” Jake leaned in, lowering his voice even though they were alone. “They’re not there anymore.”
Brooke felt another chill go up her spine. Oh my god. He must’ve been following me the entire day. Stalking me. How deranged could he be?
“Where are they?”
“In a safe place,” Jake said lightly. “As long as you trust me to keep them safe for you, I will.”
What was he talking about? Keep them safe? She wanted them far away in some landfill.
“Are you . . . blackmailing me into being with you?”
“No. Not at all,” Jake assured her, gently taking her hand in his and unfurling it. She didn’t even realize she’d been digging her fingernails into her palm until Jake rubbed his thumb over the marks shaped like little half-moons. “I just want you to realize I’m important in your life. You and I are connected forever. I’ll keep your secret until the day one of us dies.”
“I didn’t kill her,” Brooke retorted, even more horrified now that it seemed more likely maybe she had. Had Jake witnessed it?
“Brooke, come on. You wouldn’t have ditched the murder weapon if you were innocent. You even texted me photos of her body.”
Oh my god. Did I?
“No I didn’t.” Brooke tried to sound convincing, but doubt was creeping in.
“I have an app on my phone that encrypts all the texts that I send and receive. No one will ever know,” he said.
Brooke’s heart sank. She’d wanted so badly to believe she couldn’t have done this, but everything Jake was telling her only made sense if she were the killer.
“This is insane,” Brooke murmured.
“I know it feels like a nightmare, but it doesn’t have to,” Jake whispered as he squeezed her icy cold hands. “I’m the only one who knows what you did, and as long as we’re together, you’ll be just fine. I got you something.”
Jake beamed as he extracted a small black box from his pocket and opened the top, revealing a stunning engagement ring. The entire room seemed to melt away. All she could focus on was the ring as panic rose into her throat. He was going to make her marry him? Was this really happening?
“I’m not asking you to say yes right now, but I couldn’t help myself when I saw it.” Jake slipped the ring from its velvet lining. She instinctively tried to pull away, but he jerked her trembling hand toward him with such force, it hurt her shoulder. Her senses heightened, she could hear his nasally breathing as he carefully twisted the expensive ring onto her finger.
“I wasn’t sure of your ring size so I guessed. It’s a little small but we can have it sized,” he said, admiring how it looked on her.
“Stop!” Brooke yanked her hand away, disgusted, and threw the ring on the coffee table, where it bounced once and rolled onto the floor.
Suddenly angry, Jake reached down and scooped up the ring, then grabbed her hand and shoved the ring onto her finger again, skinning her knuckle in the process.
“Ow! Stop it!”
“Don’t do that!” he yelled, shaking her. “Just be
happy! I’m going to do everything in my power to make you happy! Don’t you get it?!” As soon as Jake let go, Brooke stepped back.
Fighting tears, she looked down at the ring and the pink skin that stuck up from her knuckle. She wanted him to leave so badly. This isn’t working, she thought. I need to try something different. I need to give him what he wants, to play along with his demented charade. Act like you love him. Convince him he’s as important to you as you are to him.
“It’s beautiful, Jake,” she managed to say, keeping her gaze fixed on the diamond. Pushing her fear aside, she looked up into his taut face. The warmth flowed back into his eyes.
“I was going to get you a halo but then I saw this solitaire. It’s four carats. Princess cut. It looks so perfect on your dainty hand.”
She nodded. Under different circumstances, she’d be awestruck by a diamond that size, but everything about this ring was wrong. Her knuckle had started to bleed a little. Jake noticed and wiped the blood off with his thumb.
“I can’t wait to show my mom.” Brooke forced a smile. “She’s going to be so happy.”
Brooke must’ve sounded convincing because Jake said, “Let’s tell her together. Tonight. We can take her out to dinner. Alex too.”
“No,” Brooke said, her mind racing for an excuse he’d find acceptable. “I want to tell her myself. Next weekend. She and I are having a spa day together and I’ll give her the good news over brunch.” The last thing Brooke was willing to do is put her mother and Alex in close proximity with this psycho. Jake frowned. He clearly didn’t like the idea. She needed to convince him.
“This can be one of our secrets. Just for a week,” she said.
“But then you can’t wear the ring.”
“Around her. I’ll wear it when I’m with you,” she promised. “It’s only a week. I want my mom to support our decision to get married.” Our decision? Right. “And if we spring this on her too soon, she’s going to say I’m too young. Let me warm her up to the idea, okay?”
Jake hesitated. She could tell she hadn’t sold him yet.
“She loves you,” Brooke added. “I don’t want anything to change that.” She’d seen how important it was for him to have a family and hoped the idea of having her mom’s approval would get him to agree.
Jake finally nodded. Thank god.
Brooke kissed him gently on the lips. “She’ll be home soon, so you better go. I’ll call you later, though.” She kissed him again, hoping she’d convinced him she meant everything she said.
“I’m so in love you, Brooke Emerson,” Jake whispered before kissing her back. Brooke gave him a dreamy smile, but wouldn’t tell him the same.
“I’ll call you,” she said. Jake stood and walked toward the door. That’s when she remembered. . . . “Jake?” He turned around to look at her. “How did you get in here?” She asked it as if he’d just pulled off the best magic trick she’d ever seen.
“That one’s my little secret,” he said with a grin and walked out.
As soon as he was gone, Brooke hurried to the door and flipped the dead bolt. Then she yanked the ring off her finger. Shoving it into her pocket, she went from room to room, checking to see if the doors and windows were locked. She reached her room last, and yes, the window was secure. Brooke glanced over at her clock, hoping her mother would hurry and get home. Fifteen more minutes. Then she could tell her mother everything.
Wait, Brooke thought as the number on her alarm clock changed. He was in my room. He’s done it before. He came in when no one was home and went through my stuff. That’s how the alarm clock got moved. The realization made Brooke sick to her stomach. How many times? Was it every day? Had he come in while Mom and I were asleep? Brooke lowered herself onto the bed, horrified. Please, Mom, just hurry and get home. I need you so badly right now.
“You really believe you could’ve murdered your best friend?” Alex asked, incredulous. Brooke looked over at her mother, who sat at the table, silent. Brooke had just finished telling them both the entire saga, how she woke up with the bloody knife next to her and saw Maddie’s body on the floor, about the missing texts and photos she deleted and how she ditched the evidence in the dumpster behind the shoe store. She told them that Dr. Fenson had encouraged her to go to the police.
“I don’t know, I don’t know,” Brooke bemoaned. Dr. Fenson’s talk of defensive wounds had given her hope that she hadn’t done it, but any relief she’d felt had been buried by Jake’s creepy accusations.
“That’s not the end of it,” Brooke said, eager to get the rest of it out.
“My god, Brooke, what more?” Her mother finally spoke. This was the reason she’d scrapped the letter idea. Her hands had been shaking so badly after Jake left, she couldn’t even press the right letters on her keyboard. Besides, this was something that she needed to explain in person. To be honest, all of it was.
“Jake,” Brooke said. “When I got back from Dr. Fenson’s office today, he was inside our house.”
“What?” Alex asked. “How?”
“I think he must’ve made a key or something. I don’t know. But he told me that he took the stuff I hid in the dumpster and, if I don’t marry him, he’s going to turn it over to the cops.” Brooke stuffed her hand into her pocket and retrieved the engagement ring. She slapped it down on the table. Her mom picked it up, shocked, then held it out to Alex.
“He’s obviously very serious,” Alex said, studying the ring.
“He’s basically been stalking me since our first date. He showed up at school, he came here uninvited that night that he brought the flowers . . . he even admitted that I broke up with him at Riley’s party.”
“So after you dump him, he shows up with an engagement ring,” Alex said.
Brooke nodded. “I don’t know what to do. I just keep thinking about Maddie—”
“You didn’t do anything to Maddie! You’re not a killer!” Her mother gasped, her voice cracking. Alex put a hand on her shoulder.
“You don’t know that, Mom. What if I did?”
Her mother responded firmly, “You didn’t.”
“What if I got so mad at her that I lost control? If I can kick and smash a chair until it’s a pile of wood, I can do this too.” She stared into her mother’s glistening eyes, both wondering if she’d just spoken some universal truth.
“It sounds to me like maybe Jake was involved,” Alex said steadily, breaking the silence.
“You mean Tryg,” her mom corrected.
“No. I mean Jake. He was there. At the party.”
“He left,” Brooke said, thinking Alex was confused.
“He could’ve come back.”
“Why would he do that?” her mother asked. “Especially if he’s so in love with Brooke?”
“She’s right. The only two people who were upset with Maddie were me and Tryg,” Brooke added. “Jake had no reason to kill her.”
“He had plenty of reasons. Jealousy. You told him to take a hike so you could spend time with Maddie. Revenge. To punish you for breaking up with him. Or maybe even so he could have something to lord over you. If he can’t have you, no one can. Your choice is to be with him or go to prison.”
Brooke locked eyes with Alex. He was dead serious. At first it seemed inconceivable that Jake would intentionally take Maddie’s life over petty envy or some sick need for retribution. But maybe Alex was right. Still, Brooke had trouble believing it.
“Jake’s aggressive, but I don’t know if he’s capable of murder.”
“And you are?!” her mom blurted out.
A heavy silence hung in the air as everyone tried to think it through. Brooke rooted through her brain trying to find the memory of fighting with Jake at the party. Nothing. There seemed to be an endless number of ways that the night could have unfolded. Maybe she fought with Jake, yelling at him that they were breaking up for good before going upstairs and passing out on the bed. Perhaps Jake came in. Did he try to talk to her? Maybe. Maybe they continued to argue or m
aybe she was already passed out and he lay down next to her. Then Maddie could have come in, still drunk and mad at Tryg. Did she say something about Brooke and Jake stood up to defend her?
Brooke pictured them arguing about her. Maddie screaming what a bitch she is and Jake assuring her that Brooke has no interest in Tryg—it’s the other way around. Maddie pushes Jake. He pushes her back. She continues to rant and Jake gets so mad that he grabs a knife off the night table. Why is there a kitchen knife on the nightstand in the guest room? She’d have to work that out later. Jake stabs Maddie. Maddie falls back behind the bed somehow. Jake freaks out. He tries to wake Brooke up, but she’s too far gone to come back yet. He grabs her phone and takes some photos. Why? Not sure. To show her later what he did? He runs to the bathroom with her phone and washes his hands, leaving her phone there. Then he runs out of the house.
Even though it somewhat made sense, there were still so many unanswered questions. Even if she hadn’t killed Maddie herself, she’d brought Jake into Maddie’s world and now Maddie was dead because of it. Her stomach shrank from the guilt. Thoughts were still flowing in and out of her head when she finally heard her mother speak.
“We need to go to the police and tell them this.”
It was exactly what Brooke hoped her mother wouldn’t say. She didn’t want to tell the police any of this until she could make sense of it. Without an explanation, they were sure to believe she was guilty.
“They’re going to think I did it. I lied to them about what time I left and told ’em I saw Maddie alive. . . . I lied to them about everything.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Alex stated, taking control. “We’ll get a lawyer’s opinion first. The police want to solve this case. If Jake could be a suspect, they need to know that.”
Lawyer or no lawyer, they’re going to arrest me for lying, she thought. Brooke sat back, picturing herself locked in a prison cell while everyone else was at Maddie’s funeral. She imagined Linda giving a statement to the news, saying how evil Brooke is and how she never would’ve predicted her daughter’s best friend could have done something so heinous. Then Coach would be on next, telling everyone what a loss it was to the world that Maddie was gone so soon. And finally one of her former friends would step up to talk about how they had all stopped speaking to Brooke after she flew into one too many rages, and how they wished that Maddie had cut ties with her sooner.
Murdered at 17 Page 16