The Jack & Jill Series

by Ann, Jewel E

  “Then you’re just going to have to kill me.” He bent down to pick her up.

  A stabbing pain stopped his motion. Wrath-filled eyes narrowed at him. Jackson grabbed her wrist—her bloodied hand still gripping the long dagger of glass lodged into his shoulder.

  “When did cutting become your thing again?” Jackson seethed, squeezing her arm until she winced, releasing the glass. He wadded the front of his shirt to grab it, then pulled it from his shoulder with a grunt.

  “Did you kill him?”

  He was wrong. The pain that bled from her eyes held as much desperation as AJ’s had possessed. The blood oozing from her hand that stabbed the glass into his shoulder signified her lack of readiness to hear the truth.

  “I took away the pain.”

  “You murdered him. You’re a fucking murderer!” The napkin from her non-bloodied hand fell on the floor, absorbing the water from the vase. The black words disappeared into blotchy stains. “No! No! No!” Jillian snatched it up, holding her breath as the ink-stained water dripped from the edge.

  Jackson watched her fade … watched her die right along with AJ’s last words to her. She’d risen from the grave so many times, but even she had her limits. Would she ever come back from this?

  “I hate who I’ve become.” Jackson applied more pressure to his stab wound.

  Jillian hugged the napkin to her chest. Silent sobs racked her body.

  “I hate our past. I hate not feeling human. And the list of regrets in my life grows more every day. But I will never regret taking AJ’s life.”

  “Oh God …” Jillian cried.

  He picked her up, wincing as more blood seeped from his shoulder.

  “You killed him … why … why … why?”

  “To save you,” he whispered in her ear, carrying her to the door. There was nothing he wouldn’t do for his sister. If it meant taking all her anger, all her tears, and all her pain, that’s what he would do. Death was AJ’s fate—a painful, undignified, miserable death. His sister couldn’t see past her blinding love. Jackson couldn’t save AJ, no one could, but he could save his sister.

  “I hate this world. I hate it so fucking much.” Her voice broke, shattering with each word.

  “I know, Jess.”

  Jillian looked up at him through puffy eyes. He kissed her forehead. “Don’t look at me like that. You’ll always be Jessica to me.”

  “Fin de journée,” she whispered.

  End of Day.

  He didn’t respond. Day—maybe it wasn’t the end.

  *

  Love and loss became the unbreakable pattern of Jessica and Jillian’s life. She hated her brother for taking something that wasn’t his to take. Maybe she hated herself too. Did her pain overshadow AJ’s? If he would have asked her to take his life, would she have been able to do it? The questions haunted her, but so did the answers.

  “Eventually you’re going to have to talk to me again.”

  Jillian shoved clothes into a bag.

  Jackson sighed, plopping down on her bed. “I should be going with you.”

  She stopped, leveling him a death glare for a few seconds before resuming her packing.

  “How’s your hand?” His hand pressed to his own shoulder still bandaged from the stitches.

  Jillian received fifteen stitches of her own from grasping the glass dagger to stab Jackson two nights earlier.

  “Mrs. Baker left me a message that she no longer will be taking lessons from me. Maybe I did overreact.”

  Jillian paused again to give him the ya-think? look. Hating Jackson wasn’t easy, but it’s all she had. The anger served as motivation to keep moving, and she needed every ounce of life-propelling effort she could muster to make it to Portland for AJ’s funeral.

  What would she tell his family? They believed she’d been with him when he died. The self-imposed silent treatment prevented her from asking Jackson about AJ’s last words. The last words AJ gave her were nothing more than blotchy ink on a blood-stained napkin. How fitting that her entire past be tainted with blood.

  She just wanted one decision to be her own. When G.A.I.L. chose to have their fake deaths be suicides, she didn’t have any say in the matter. Leaving Luke behind meant leaving him with the belief that she didn’t love him enough to live for him. He spent almost a year believing she gave up on herself … gave up on them. If only he could have known that he was everything.

  Jillian zipped her suitcase and hauled it toward the front door. Feeling a rush of anger, she turned.

  “I’m not coming back after the funeral. I need some time alone to figure out if I can forgive you, because right now what you did feels unforgivable. Don’t call me because I won’t answer.” She tossed her phone on the table.

  Jackson stared at it, overwhelmed with defeat. They’d been through the unimaginable and survived the un-survivable, but what he did broke a bond that should have been unbreakable.

  “The texts?”

  She shook her head. “They can come for me and we’ll see who meets their maker first.”

  *

  The plane headed to Portland, but Africa was her first choice—Africa, the middle of China, Antarctica, or anywhere that qualified as the farthest possible distance from AJ’s dead body, Jackson’s messed-up intentions, and the painful memories of Luke.

  Exiting the secured area of the airport, she homed in on a large sign with her name on it held by a middle-aged woman wearing a black pantsuit and dark red hair pulled tightly into a bun. Jillian paused a few seconds as the anxious people behind her brushed past with a few shoulder bumps and bags jolting the one slung over her shoulder. The woman’s eyes surveyed the oncoming storm of people, not stopping on Jillian with any sort of recognition.

  The uncertainty of how AJ’s family would welcome the woman who stole their son’s last days felt like a brick resting on her heart until that point. One of them had arranged to have her picked up at the airport and just like that … her heavy heart lightened a bit.

  “I’m Jillian Knight.” She forced a small smile for the lady. The smile felt foreign to her lips. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d truly smiled.

  “A pleasure, Miss Knight. Do you have any checked bags?”

  Jillian shook her head.

  “Very well. If you’d like to follow me, I have a car waiting for us.”

  Jillian followed her to the exit like a zombie, having not slept more than a few hours each night since she and AJ arrived back in Omaha. It had begun to take its toll on her body and mind.

  “I’ll put your bag in the back.”

  Jillian forced another smile as the woman held open the door to a white SUV with tinted windows. After relinquishing the bag, she climbed into the back seat and sighed, feeling her whole body deflate. In twenty-four hours she would be on a plane to someplace far away from the men who all claimed a piece of her heart, a shred of her humanity, and had a hand in her feeling of utter ruin.

  The driver opened the back hatch. Jillian’s bag landed with a thunk. “Traffic is not too bad today. We should be at our destination before too long, Miss Knight.”

  Jillian barely registered the voice behind her until it was an icy whisper in her ear. “Or do you prefer Miss Day?”

  A needle plunged into Jillian’s neck two seconds before everything went black.

  Chapter Three

  Frigid shock sent Jillian’s body into jerking convulsions. Her eyes flew open. Sharp pain cut through the skin along her wrists and ankles bound with rope and zip ties. She winced from the pain and piercing light, the kind that felt like staring into the sun until everything burned white and then faded to black again. Every inch of her body shivered with pin-pricking goose bumps because every inch of her skin was exposed.

  “Funny how you’re the crazy one, yet I got sent to the psych ward for five. Long. Years.”

  Jillian squinted one eye open, twisting her head side to side, searching for the slightest reprieve from the light and a glimpse of her abduc
tor. No such luck.

  “But you know what happened in those five years?”

  “You lost every one of your fucking marbles?”

  Another wave of icy water crashed into Jillian’s face, wedging her restraints deeper into her skin as she jumped in response. The stitches in her hand ripped away from her wound each time she tugged against the zip ties.

  “Try again, whore. I’ll help you out a little. I’ve been texting you hints for months now.”

  The infamous biblical texts.

  “You memorized verses in the Bible for five years?”

  “I found God.”

  Jillian chuckled. Giving up on trying to see anything, she closed her eyes, dropping her chin to her chest. “God was in the psych ward?”

  “I met a man in there who was a preacher. His wife committed suicide then something inside of him snapped. Love can do that to you. He read the Bible to me every day. It was so cathartic to purge my sins. God has forgiven me.”

  “Forgiven you for what?”

  “We’ll get to that.”

  Jillian gasped as cold water doused her naked body again. “Dammit!”

  “Consider this a sort of baptism—a washing away of your sins.”

  “W-what sins?” she shivered, teeth chattering.

  “Sex with a married man.”

  “N-no …”

  “Yes! You fucked my husband and so did your mother.”

  Her captor’s insanity knew no boundaries. Jillian squeezed her eyes tight, continuing to shake her head.

  “What are you … talking about?”

  “I-I apologize,” the woman said, in a tight, labored voice. The hollow breath of an exhale followed a long puffing. “I won’t lose my temper again. I need you to trust me so you will repent and I can absolve you of your sins before I put an end to your life.”

  Jillian had no qualms with death, but repenting and trusting the baptizing psycho for some twisted sort of absolution of her sins wasn’t ever going to happen. She grew up going to church, and in spite of the times in her life that felt like the opposite of a blessing, she believed there had to be something—someone—greater than the whole of humanity. The voice before her did not represent anything greater than the grimy floor beneath Jillian’s bare ass.

  “I have a funeral to get to. Sorry my mother and I had an imaginary threesome with your husband. Sorry I cheated on a history test in the seventh grade. Sorry I dodged a speeding ticket when I was sixteen by claiming to have just started my period. Does that do it for you?”

  “Yeah, about that … Sergeant Monaghan’s funeral was yesterday. You’ve been out of it for a little while. I may have overdone it a bit on the tranquilizer, but with your history I couldn’t take any chances.”

  Aric James …

  Jillian clenched her teeth like an animal ready to tear apart its prey. Cage, AJ’s parents, Dodge and Lilith, they paid their final respects to him without her. Some things could never be undone. AJ—she’d never see him again. The coward hiding behind the glare of lights would die. Two men were ripped from her life. Her actions no longer mattered. Jessica and Jude—Jillian and Jackson—would always be killers. New identities in a city surrounded by miles of manure changed nothing.

  “I’m going to kill you.”

  The woman returned a cynical laugh. “That’s quite the declaration coming from someone naked and hog-tied.”

  “Fuck!” Jillian seethed. Pain radiated down her arm from the razor-tipped arrow that had just sunk into her shoulder.

  “I can’t break your neck. Hell, it took me thirty minutes to get your body dragged down here. But I can land these in any part of your body with laser precision. So keep that in mind as you plan my death.”

  “What do you want?” Jillian grunted, holding still to prevent the arrow tip from moving.

  “I want to prove that I’m not a fool. All of you will see that I’m smarter than the rest of you combined.”

  “All? Who’s all of you?”

  “G.A.I.L.”

  Releasing a slow breath, Jillian let the pain in her shoulder go and concentrated on the reality of her situation. The woman knew G.A.I.L., therefore she knew everything.

  “Good girl. You were trained to not say anything. That’s fine. I’ll do the talking. Guardian Angels for Innocent Lives. It’s quite poetic and beautiful. Wouldn’t you agree? Named after Gail Brighton, wife to founder, Edgar Brighton, mother to Peter Brighton and me.”

  “They only had one child.”

  “Speaking already, are you? Not as good at following the rules as I thought. You are correct. They had one child together, although we both know Peter was never actually born. He died in the womb the day she was murdered. Gail had two children. I was her first. My father left when I was seven. My mother married Edgar five years later because she was pregnant with his child, Peter. Edgar never liked me. He thought of me as the poster child for childhood obesity, and I looked nothing like my mom so all he saw in me was my father. He shipped me off to boarding school. I returned home three weeks shy of winter break to attend the funeral of my mother and brother—half-brother.”

  Jillian did the math. Her captor had to be about forty-two.

  “I didn’t know your mother. I’ve seen Edgar maybe a handful of times, but I’ve only talked to him once, when my father first introduced us.”

  “I concur. You see, I know more about you and your family than you do. No worries. Before you die—because you and everyone else will have to die of course—I will enlighten you. The look on your face will be priceless. It always is when someone has their dreams shattered.”

  Jillian didn’t have dreams or anything left to shatter. The mentally-unstable woman would be sorely disappointed.

  “Who’s your accomplice?”

  “What makes you think I have an accomplice?”

  “Your intention to make everyone pay. Surely you have help.”

  “Once again, there’s a ridiculous amount of irony in your words. I have the great Jessica Day at my mercy, and I did it all by myself. I know how you’ve been trained. But let me tell you a little secret: the most dangerous weapon is revenge with the brains to execute it.”

  “I don’t even know you. Never knew you existed.”

  “Would you have let my husband fuck you if you would have known about me?”

  The impossible comprehension sent pain sledgehammering through Jillian’s head, obliterating all coherent thoughts. Aching muscles screamed for a reprieve from the restraints. A cold tingling sensation settling in her fingers as blood oozed from her shoulder.

  “Who’s your husband?”

  “Does it matter? The correct answer is ‘No. I would never commit adultery.’”

  “I’m not a home-wrecker.”

  “Bullshit! Both you and your mother lusted after my husband.”

  Again, the hollow breath of an exhale followed a long puffing noise. It sounded familiar, but Jillian couldn’t place it. Her mother was not a home-wrecker either. Sunny Day loved her husband and her children. She lived a good life. Jessica would have known if her mother cheated on her father. Furthermore, the idea of Jessica and her mother sharing a lover was beyond preposterous.

  Jessica and Jude both had many lovers—one-night stands—over the years. The difference was Jessica wanted a relationship. Jude did not. The women Jude fucked threw their phone numbers at him. The men Jessica fucked threw her out the door with a string of expletives that included “psycho” and “sick bitch.”

  Not Luke. He loved her. Completely. Unconditionally. Eternally.

  *

  Jones

  Jessica was alive.

  Time didn’t exist for Luke, neither did his job. After waking in his bed with a slight concussion and Jessica’s forlorn expression branded into his memory, he drank six Heineken and passed out again. He woke eight hours later scrambling to the bathroom. Heineken wasn’t his friend that day.

  Reality ripped his world apart, holding him hostage in his home. Those
people watched him, followed him, and knew his every move. Luke shot out texts to his family, Charlie, close friends, and his secretary, informing them of his bout with the flu and requesting they stay away for a few days. Then he polluted his body with an insane amount of alcohol over the next several days.

  Jessica was alive.

  He needed to save her. He needed to tell someone. He needed to know why she would leave him if no one was holding her against her will.

  If he went to the cops, his family would be in danger. The only person who could help him was Jessica. Luke believed with every cell in his heart that she did not commit suicide. That’s how he knew she’d been murdered and the suicide was just a cover-up. But in the past year … not once did he imagine she was still alive. That realization knocked him on his ass. She might as well have committed suicide. Either way, she made the conscious choice to leave him forever.

  Teetering on the edge of dehydration and death, he crawled into the hot shower, followed by a tall glass of water and two Advil. Then he tore into his closet. Luke ignored his own insanity that had led to all of Jessica’s belongings remaining untouched nearly a year later. Coat pockets, purses, shoes, boxes marked “childhood,” he plowed through it all over the following four hours.

  Nothing.

  “Fuck!” he roared, fisting his hair and falling to his knees in the middle of the ransacked closet.

  There wasn’t a single clue, not one dear-Luke-if-I-fake-my-death-come-find-me-here note. He knew her better than she knew herself, and yet … in that moment, he didn’t know her at all.

  “Luke?”

  He jerked his head up.

  “Luke?”

  In one swift move he jumped to his feet and combed his fingers through his hair.

  “Coming,” he called, emerging from the closet.

  “What the hell is going on with you? My God, you’ve lost weight.”

  Luke drew in a breath of courage to explain—lie—about his whereabouts and his condition. His sister, Lake, stood inside the door with her hands fisted on her hips. She’d mastered the tough role, even with her prosthetic leg that still tripped her up a bit.