by S. M. West
“It’s fits. Whoever assaulted her, drugged her and it would explain why she has no recollection of Jerome. Tell me about the charges.”
If these allegations are remotely similar to what we think happened to Daisy, then we have our man. Jerome is her rapist. He’s…he’s Henry’s father. Fuck.
“Gary, I think it’s him. A new model, practically a nobody, said he had assaulted her, and at first, she was ignored. No one wanted to believe her, especially about someone like Jerome. He was revered and sought after within the industry.”
My gut roils. Daisy told me about Jerome’s reputation when he’d first contacted her upon his arrival in LA. It never sat right with me, how someone with his stature would leave the limelight, of sorts. But this makes sense. He had no choice but to run.
“The girl went home to Russia, gave up modeling. Jerome claimed she was lovesick and wanted a relationship with him and he turned her away. You know, a woman scorned and all that. It was his explanation for why she’d make up such a horrible story.”
“No one investigated?”
“No. Then a few more models, well-known and respected, came forth with similar allegations. Again, at first, some shut their ears and eyes to what was fast becoming a loud outcry. It got to the point that some of the biggest names in the modeling world refused to work with him. I suppose with that kind of support, the young woman from Russia pressed charges. Jerome was shunned by the European fashion industry, a pariah in Paris. He fled the country for LA. And now, mysteriously, the charges went away and the model is quiet.”
“What?” I brake for a red light, fury constricting my chest at the thought of him getting away with his crimes.
“That’s what I learned from the phone call today. The charges have been dropped, and the young woman refuses to speak to anyone. No one knows for sure, but some think that Jerome paid her off. She went into modeling to help her family so money would have gone a long way, and I mean no judgement.”
The melancholy and personal touch to her tone tells me the young woman’s plight hits a little too close to home. Sasha is Russian, too, and like this woman, turned to modeling, using her beauty as Daisy had put it to me, to help her dying mother and brother.
“Sasha, I’m almost at Daisy’s. Let me tell her this in person.” I’m ten minutes out and while Daisy isn’t in danger, she can’t hear this over the phone.
She isn’t the best of friends with Jerome, but this will be a betrayal. A violation, no doubt. And it’s hard to tell if this will cause her to withdraw even more or not.
“What can I do?”
“Stay close by the phone. I’ll need to talk to a lawyer about how we get a DNA test, and I’ll likely have to talk to the police.”
“Let me know if I can help with that. Any of it. I’m here and I can come by too.”
“Great. We might need you to come over. I’ll let you know.” I end the call and park the car outside of Daisy’s house.
Her car isn’t here, and I call her as I get out of the car, making my way to the front door and collecting my thoughts before blowing up her world, yet again.
An automated voice comes on and tells me that this mailbox is full. What the hell?
“Mr. Bennett. Mr. Bennett.” I swing around at the sound of a woman’s voice, and Jocelyn runs toward me, panicked.
“What’s wrong?”
“Daisy and Henry…” She’s out of breath, tears brimming in her eyes. “They left with this man. Jerome.”
“Jerome was here?” Panic slams into my back and my knees wobble. “He took Daisy and Henry?”
She’s nodding, only able to look me in the eyes for a blink or two at a time. “Yes. I’m sorry. She told me to leave, but I knew something was wrong. I didn’t know he had a gun.”
“A gun?” My heart gallops in my chest and I grab at her arm, willing my breath to slow the fuck down. “Okay, start from the beginning. Tell me what happened.”
Jocelyn explains how Jerome showed up looking for Daisy, although he didn’t seem surprised that Daisy wasn’t there. It sounds like the nanny was his chance to get into the house.
Daisy hadn’t seen or spoken to Jerome in weeks. I figured he was pissed, but I hadn’t thought he’d do something like this. But that was before I knew about Paris.
“He said he was a friend, and Henry seemed to know him. I wouldn’t have let him in, but he said Daisy had arranged to meet him, and I figured she didn’t tell me because she thought she’d be back in time. I should have called you, called her before letting him in.”
“Don’t worry about that. Please, go on,” I reassure her, sensing her need to lessen some of her guilt.
“He was fine while he waited.”
“How long was that before Daisy got there?”
“About fifteen minutes. Then Daisy came home. She was sick. She ran straight to the washroom and that’s where I found her. Then she saw Jerome and told me to leave with Henry. He wouldn’t let me take him. Jerome told me to go. I didn’t want to.”
“And the gun?”
“I only saw it after. Once I left, I sat in my car.” She points over her shoulder to several houses away where a small car is parked at the curb. “I wasn’t sure what to do, but then they came out only minutes later, and he had the gun on Daisy and Henry. That’s when I knew I had to do something.”
“Then what happened?”
“I couldn’t see everything but there was some kind of argument. He hit Henry.”
Her words come at me like a savage beast, ripping at me, and in turn, my rage springs to life deep within me.
“It happened so fast. Then they drove away. I was going to follow them but decided to call the police and then I was going to call you.”
“Good. What did the police say?”
Her troubled expression darkens further, if that’s possible. “There’s no telling when they’ll be here. Forty-five minutes, maybe an hour. In terms of importance, no one’s hurt and it isn’t clear that a crime’s been committed. They said someone would come out eventually.”
I curse under my breath, staring down at the phone still in my hand. Daisy’s voicemail is full. Maybe that’s from Sasha and me, but I’ve got that app where I can find her phone. I bring it up while Jocelyn watches.
Finally, a green dot appears on the screen. It’s going east on the I-10. I could wait for the police, but every second counts, and there’s no telling what Jerome will do. And if he doesn’t know about Daisy’s phone and then discovers it, we could lose her location.
“Okay, I’ve got to go.” I scan the front of the house, not looking for anything in particular, and rush toward Jellycat on the ground. It must have fallen from the car or someone’s hand when they got into Daisy’s car.
“What can I do?” Jocelyn asks.
“Can you wait here for the cops?” I go to the front door, ready to unlock it for her but it’s unlocked. “I’m going to call her sister Pansy and friend, Sasha. One or both of them will come and wait with you.”
She nods, going into the house, and I get into my car, bringing up the map with GPS coordinates and the green dot on my phone. The dot is still headed east on Interstate 10.
During the more than two-hour drive, I make calls to Sasha and Pansy, both of whom make their way to Daisy’s house. Sasha needs to be there so she can fill the cops in on Jerome’s time in Paris.
I also get a call from Costa, and as he talks, it becomes clear that Daisy knew about Jerome before going into her home. It explains why she was sick, and it also means she knows why Jerome would take her.
Does he know Henry’s his? And if so, is that a good thing or a bad thing? The bastard always hated having Henry around. He acts like the child is competition.
Rage bubbles up from my gut, wondering what he plans to do with them, especially when the map indicates they are now on another roadway, heading toward Idyllwild, a small town nestled in the San Jacinto Mountains.
The car winds up into the mountains, and I’m too r
estless to admire the sweeping views of the valley below. A call from Silas comes through as I turn onto a dirt road, getting closer to the now stationary dot on the screen. Daisy’s car.
If it takes any longer to set eyes on the car, I might run something over in my agitation. And then there’s…no, I won’t even go there. I dredge up all my fury and determination, and in turn, tamp down the niggling fear that I will find the car, but Daisy and Henry won’t be there.
“What’s up?” I’m clipped, on edge with my greeting.
“Gray, the police want you to stand down and wait. The LAPD are tracking Daisy’s phone too. They’ve called in the local police, and they’re on their way.”
“I’m not stopping.” I clench my jaw, tightening my hands on the steering wheel. “I’m close. Her car isn’t moving. Any minute now and I’ll see it.”
“Yeah, we know. The cops say there are cabins in the area and Jerome most probably has them in one.”
I nod, glancing to the fading light through the car windows. It’s a little after six in the evening, and the sun is sinking fast toward the horizon. A motley crew of brownish orange, burnished pink and bruised purple, like careless splatters of paint, color the sky canvas.
“Gray, ah…you have to let the cops do their job.” His tone is careful and measured, and I wonder if a police officer stands over him.
“Of course. I want them to come and help, but I can’t wait. He’s already had them too long.” My foot taps the brakes even though the car is already crawling. “Listen, I think I see the car. I gotta go.”
“Gray, wait. Don’t do anything.” I end the call, and the car is nearly stopped.
Daisy’s vehicle, or what looks like it could be hers, is parked a little way up the road in front of an A-frame wood cabin. I don’t want to reveal my presence until the right moment, so I park my car off the road, making sure it’s out of sight.
Quietly, despite still being many feet away from the building, I get out of the car and shut the door.
A shiver skitters down my spine like a colony of ants. It could be the chill in the air or the anticipation of finally seeing Daisy and Henry.
The twilight atmosphere is cooler, almost cold, and easily dropping thirty degrees or more from Los Angeles. My exhalation leaves a wispy white mist, and the air is scented with fresh pine and sweet cedar.
Carefully, I trek up the road toward the cabin, sticking to the trees and brush, taking every precaution not to be spotted. Beyond the parked car, there’s a thigh-high picket fence skirting a small wooden patio across the front of the home.
A bright turquoise front door is in the center at the base of the triangle, and there are two windows, one on either side of the door. Toward the apex of the triangular home is a second-floor window and a balcony running across the top.
I approach the house from the side and send Silas a text with coordinates of the cabin’s exact location, as well as a picture of the house. The police most probably have all of this, but I want to make sure they don’t waste any more time trying to find the place.
Once more, I double check my phone is on silent and begin scouting the area surrounding the cabin. Both sides of the A-frame have no windows, so I can move about freely.
One side has a hot tub and backs onto a forest. The other side is narrower with a small storage area for firewood, and only a few feet from the house is the edge of a cliff. The back of the house has another patio, a few windows, and the forest beyond.
Running back to the front of the house, I crouch so as not to be spotted near the fence where I brace my hands on the railing and leap over onto the patio. Then I sink down to a crouch and crawl several feet to the nearest window.
None of the windows are covered, and I have an unobstructed view inside. It’s small, the walls, floors, and ceiling are cedar, and it’s sparsely furnished.
Jerome’s back is to me, and both Daisy and Henry are tied up on a small sofa. Henry is screaming. Even from this distance, I can see his face is as red as a tomato and his lungs are getting a workout.
The gun is in Jerome’s hand, and he’s waving it around. My heart splinters at the sight, and the dull pain stabbing at my lungs doubles in size, so crushing that I’m no longer able to ignore it. I want to kill Jerome.
30
Daisy
The slip of a finger
My heart bashes around inside my chest, and it’s hard to hear anything else, even Henry’s crying. He’s inconsolable.
We lost Jellycat somewhere along the way, and we’re tied up, hungry, and cold. The only good thing is that Henry is next to me, not in Jerome’s hands.
“Shut him up,” Jerome yells for what feels like the hundredth time, hands going to his ears.
The gun is still firmly in his grasp, and I’m no closer to figuring out what he wants. The drive here was excruciating, but I didn’t have any time to freak out or lose my shit.
Given I was behind the wheel and my son was hysterical for more than half the journey, I was preoccupied.
Eventually, Henry passed out for nearly the last hour. He tuckered himself out with all the crying, and Jerome finally relaxed a bit, lowering the gun to his lap instead of wedged in my ribs.
I tried to get him to talk, and at first he did, confessing to texting the picture and article from my first date with Gray. If only I’d looked into it some more. At the time, I’d thought it was some Trojan fan.
After that, he went on about his disappointment in me for falling into bed with Gray before switching gears to how it was my fault he kidnapped us. If only I’d done the photo shoot, since I wasn’t busy with other ones.
That’s when the last-minute photo shoot cancellations made sense. Jerome had been behind all of that in an attempt to free up my schedule. He figured if I wasn’t busy, I’d have jumped at the chance to do his shoot.
When I set him straight of that crazy notion, he shut up, only speaking to give me directions. When we got here, he shared that this cabin is a rental and that he booked it under a fake name. No one knows how to find him.
My only hope is in my car. My phone. While driving, with the foot that wasn’t on the gas, I tried to locate my phone. I didn’t want Jerome to find it. It fell from my hands when I was talking to Costa before I went into the house.
And to further confirm this, the buzzing could be heard, albeit faintly, when someone tried to reach me once or twice while I drove to this place.
Both times, I rambled, raising my voice and shifting in my seat. I tried anything without looking like a lunatic or drawing suspicion so as to mask the vibrations of the phone.
It’s still somewhere in the car, my guess is under one of the front seats, and I can only hope Gray or someone else has tapped into the app to locate us.
Once we got here, Jerome tied us up, and through all that, I berated myself for not probing more about why Jerome left Europe when he had shown up at my door nearly a year ago.
The sad truth was, I didn’t care enough. Maybe a part of me was glad to see someone else from that world, to think the great Jerome had also been relegated to another career path like me.
His presence was confirmation there was life after the glitz and glam of runway modeling. And now, what did it matter anymore? Even if I’d gotten him to tell me some of it, I doubt it would have changed the shock Costa brought with his news.
And would I have put two and two together and landed at Jerome as my rapist? It’s hard to say. There’s so much I just didn’t see, and I can’t tell if it’s because I was too trusting or foolish enough to ignore the cues.
The blatant truth that festers inside of me, even now as I’m bound and helpless, is that Jerome is a madman and we’re going to die here if I don’t figure a way out of here.
Scowling, Jerome seizes Henry and tears him from my side. Both my son and I howl, Henry harder than before, as he puts the gun to my son’s head.
“If he doesn’t stop crying, I’ll take care of it myself.” He fires a killing look my way a
nd I shiver, and it has nothing to do with how cold it is inside this little cabin.
“He’s scared. Just bring him to me. If you untie me”—I hold up my hands, secured at my wrists—“I can hold him, and if you had some food. Water. He’s most probably hungry too.”
“No. Not a chance. I’ll feed him.” He storms over to the small kitchen, holding Henry like a football under his arm.
He places the gun on the counter, and as if someone has turned up the volume, my heartbeat and breathing are deafening. If only I could get the gun.
Henry whimpers at his side, and Jerome mutters to himself as he rummages through a bag that was already here when we arrived. He pulls out a bottle of water, unscrews the cap, and brings it to Henry’s mouth.
My son sputters and coughs, choking on the water.
“Hey, you can’t do that.” I straighten, coming to my knees on the couch and glaring at him. “You’re pouring too fast. He’ll choke!”
Henry’s cries intensify. Jerome slams the bottle onto the counter, spilling almost half the water everywhere. Then he picks up the gun, and once more, the muzzle is pressed against my son’s head.
“God, no!” I plea, voice breaking, and quickly scour the past for any sign that Jerome may know Henry is his son. I doubt it. He never could tolerate my son or any child.
“Make him stop.” Hand shaking, he glowers at the crying boy.
All it would take is the slip of a finger and Henry would be dead. “Stop! Put the gun away! Please.” Tears come in torrents, and I hardly recognize my voice.
I have to stop him from killing my son. I have to do something to make him care, rethink this madness.
Without true thought, acting purely on instinct and an innate desire to survive and to save Henry, I blurt out, “He’s your son!”
Jerome lowers the gun, eyes widening as he glares at me. “What did you say?”