by Meli Raine
Jenna’s dad is a partier.
“Of course not.”
“And if a car guns its engine –”
“Silas!”
“I will be right next to you the entire time we’re here.”
“What if I have to use the bathroom?”
“I’ll close my eyes.”
“Pervert.”
His mouth moves up with a hint of a smile. It fades fast. “I mean it. This makes me uncomfortable.”
“Life makes me uncomfortable.”
“I’m doing everything possible to stop that.”
“Only because I let you,” I remind him. Last night he insisted on being my bodyguard. I relented. I don’t know how I feel about our future, but I do know he’s damn good at his job.
And besides, I feel like he owes me.
Jenna comes out the front door, one arm wrapped around the other, both pressing into her stomach. It’s a gesture of extreme stress. Always lithe and stunningly gorgeous, Jenna’s modeling career took off about five years ago.
You can guess why.
She’s folding in on herself. Always thin, she’s emaciated now, with elbows that could cut diamonds. When we hug, it’s tentative. Fake.
And her bones hurt to touch.
“Let’s stay outside,” she says, nervous and twitchy. “You want a water?” She hands me one of two bottles she’s carrying. Silas goes tense.
“Thanks,” I say, holding it. I know what his body is saying. Don’t drink it. Might be poisoned.
And the crazy part is – he may be right.
Jenna twists hers open and takes a sip, looking at Silas with open speculation. “You’re Jane’s bodyguard?”
“Yes.”
“Same guy who was there when Tara and Mandy were killed?”
“Mm hmm.”
“Don’t you want a better bodyguard than that, Jane?”
Silas goes tense again.
“I’m alive, aren’t I?” I tell her. Time to be direct. “Why am I here?”
“I can’t speak to your motive.”
“Jenna. I’ll leave if you don’t get to the point. Being here is incredibly dangerous.”
“For who? Me! Not you. You’re the one who is the angel of death. I’m taking the bigger risk asking you here,” she whines.
“Why did you?”
“Because your track record meeting old friends in public isn’t so great, Jane. I thought I’d be safer here.” I don’t admit it hurts to hear that. Of all the girls in our group, Jenna was the one I felt closest to after Lindsay. Seeing her, hearing her, opens old wounds.
In the weeks after Lindsay’s attack, after Mandy, Tara and Jenna turned on her, I tried to see Jenna. Came here, walked these paths, brushed against these bushes.
And her father threatened me with a restraining order.
Correction: he couldn’t be bothered to tell me himself. Sent their household manager outside to do the deed.
Acid fills my mouth. “Look, are you just going to make digs at me? You, Tara, and Mandy had your fun years ago. I don’t need to listen to this shit,” I tell her.
“I have information on Nolan Corning,” she says.
Silas grinds to a halt. Being out of range of his body heat feels like a tethering cord has snapped.
“What?” he and I say in unison.
“I thought you might find that interesting.” Jenna smirks.
“Have you told anyone? Police, FBI, CIA... ” Silas demands.
“No one. My dad won’t let me.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s sensitive.”
“You mean because he’s being blackmailed.” Silas is so matter-of-fact. His eyes scan the background constantly.
She touches the tip of her nose and points to Silas. “Correct.” She sighs. “Look, this is really painful shit to have to tell. But I don’t want to die.”
“Who does?” I ask, staring her down. “You all set Lindsay and me up for it, though.”
“We didn’t understand what they were doing.” Her voice goes bleak. “Trust me. We had no idea. If we had, Jesus...”
“Spare me the fake remorse,” Silas snaps. “Get to the point.”
Jenna straightens her shoulders, her t-shirt saggy and hanging off her. “It’s not fake!”
I give him a look. Shutting her down right now means losing important information. “No, it’s not,” I say. We’re becoming a good cop/bad cop routine. “I believe Jenna.”
“You do?”
“I do. Now tell us more about Corning.”
“My dad would kill me if he knew I told you this.”
“Someone else may kill you if you don’t tell us,” Silas points out.
She goes sickly green.
He’s being an asshole. Channeling Drew. I’m embarrassed to admit I kind of like it.
Kind of like it a lot.
Taking a deep breath, Jenna starts moving around the house, taking us to a side patio, past it, then down to a terraced yard. She folds herself into a hammock. Silas looks around. Two men I recognize from Drew’s company come into the bushes. A buzzing above us makes me look up.
“Is that a drone?” I gasp, pointing.
“One of ours,” Silas assures me.
It’s not reassuring.
“Mandy and Tara’s parents were involved in low-level drug dealing,” Jenna says without any prelude. She pulls out a vape pen from her pocket and takes a long drag. Cotton-candy scent fills the air as she exhales. “Mandy’s mom, Tara’s dad.”
“What does that mean? ‘Low level’?” Silas asks.
She shrugs. “That’s the phrase my mom used. She told me all this. Not Mandy or Tara. I don’t think they ever, you know, like, actually sold the drugs. Just helped with networking. Storage. That kind of thing. When you live this close to the border, if you know the right storekeeper, you can make it easy to move stuff across the border. Our border agents are a lot easier on rich white women. You know,” she says, as if that were common knowledge.
Conventional wisdom.
“They were mules?”
“God, no. Not official mules. Not, like, swallowing balloons filled with drugs or anything.” Jenna’s nervous, her ankle bouncing on the edge of the hammock. She takes another drag. “They smoothed it all out for him.”
“Him?”
“El Brujo.”
“They worked directly with him?” Silas is intently watching her. “Because if that’s the case, they’re very high in the org structure.”
“You sound like a business prof.”
“Drug trafficking is business,” he counters.
“No. Tara and Mandy’s parents were nobody. It was John and Stellan who had their entire families involved.”
Silas just blinks, stunned.
“What?”
Jenna gives me a twisted grin. “Stellan and John made deals with the devil.”
“The warlock,” I whisper.
“Huh?”
“Not the devil. They sold their souls to a warlock. El Brujo means warlock. Or wizard.” But warlock fits better.
“Seriously?” Her eyebrows go up. They’re overplucked in an arch, thick toward the middle, as if someone drew them in with charcoal pencil. “What a stupid name. What kind of drug king calls himself a warlock?”
“One who thinks he has special powers,” Silas explains.
“Hold on,” I interrupt. “No way were all these parents involved. I just don’t buy it.”
“I didn’t, either, until Nolan Corning showed up at our house the day after the attack on Lindsay.”
“Which one?”
“The first one. He said we needed to shut up. That everyone else was, and if we didn’t go along with saying Lindsay asked for what happened with John, Stellan, and Blaine, we’d be ruined.”
Silas is keeping a stoneface, but I know what he’s thinking.
“John and Stellan’s parents were high up in Hollywood. Had tons of connections. Lived the life. Stellan’s dad w
as a producer, but he took out a lot of loans. They were deep in debt. They also owed favors to people, and helping people launder money became kind of a side job.”
The words launder money make Silas’s eyes change. He goes deeper in thought, letting her explanation take hold.
“I know they’ve got stuff on Corning. Everyone knows about him because of the news after the attack last year. But he’s out now. He’s still threatening people.”
“Did he threaten Tara? Mandy?”
“Not directly. But the way they died is the only message he needs to send.” She looks at me. “I know you’re not the one killing people. I mean, come on. You’re just Jane.” Her little sound of derision makes Silas give me a sympathetic side eye.
“What about Blaine?” Silas asks. “Why was he involved? You haven’t mentioned his parents.”
“Blaine did it for kicks,” she says with a nasty, sick smile. “He was like that. Some people just are.” She drags on the vape pen again, her hand shaking. “Corning used him once he realized how stone-cold socio Blaine was.”
“Socio?”
“Sociopath. Blaine had no conscience. He reveled in it. Fed off people and their pain.”
“Like El Brujo,” Silas mutters.
“Like Nolan Corning,” Jenna says. “That evil sonofabitch is loving this.”
“But he’s been indicted.”
“You think he cares? Guys like him think the laws don’t apply to them. Is he in prison now? No. He’s out. He’ll find ways to get around all this,” she says bitterly. “They always do.”
“Blaine was in line for Harry’s old congressional district, and eventually his Senate seat. Just how much support did Corning give him?” Silas asks.
“All of it. Blaine wanted something, he got it from Corning.”
“Why?”
“Sociopaths sticking together? I don’t know. My dad thinks Blaine was a sockpuppet. Corning gave him whatever he wanted politically because then Blaine voted however Corning told him to.”
“One person can’t have that much power in California state politics,” Silas scoffs.
“I don’t know. I’m not into politics. I’m just telling you what I know.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I want you to ask Senator Bosworth to give me the same protection you have.” She eyes Silas. “Especially if they’re all this cute.”
The last person who asked me for this got her intestines rearranged by a car grille. I don’t say this aloud.
I still have some social skills.
Not many. But some.
“I don’t have any control over that,” I tell her honestly.
She makes a dismissive sound. “That b.s. won’t work on me. You know damn well they can give me protection if they want to.”
“Who is ‘they’?”
“You tell me. You’re at the center of everything. You must know who all the theys are.”
“I wish I did. Trust me. I wouldn’t have to live my life in a cage if I knew, Jenna.”
A surprised fear makes its way to the surface of her eyes. She flicks it away with a few blinks, but seeing it matters. I’d be terrified if I were her, too. Mandy and Tara died violent deaths. What do they know that is so important?
“Is there anything you know, that you were told or that you saw, that is making this happen now?” I whisper, pleading with her. “I mean, the attack happened eight months ago, and –”
“Five years ago. This all started nearly five years ago. This nightmare.”
“Mmm hmm,” I say, trying not to talk. She needs to be the one to spill information. Not me.
“My entire life changed that night,” Jenna muses, her eyes shining with unspilled tears. “You came out and insisted on going to the taco place with us. I didn’t understand why Mandy was so mad. She was just so mad, but we finally went. Now I get it, but back then I didn’t. God, Jane, if you’d stayed, Blaine was going to do the same thing he did to Lindsay to you.”
Every time this comes up, my body reacts differently.
This time, it’s a flat anger.
When Mandy talked about it, she was flippant. Annoyed. As if I’d inconvenienced her by not accidentally offering myself up as a plaything for sadists.
This time, Jenna’s showing some compassion toward me. But it’s under the guise of wanting me to help her. Wanting to use me. Turn me into a tool.
Why should I offer myself up like that? Why should I bear the responsibility of helping someone so despicable? What moral compass makes me feel guilt and shame when I contemplate not helping her?
I can.
She’s right.
I can get her the kind of protection she wants.
Not the kind I have. Silas isn’t about to create a protective cage around her, because the way he does it for me is driven by love. Not duty. Not a paycheck. Not a moving-target plan.
But love.
Jenna doesn’t get that.
Jenna will never get that.
In more ways than one.
Silas
“If you’d stayed, Blaine was going to do the same thing he did to Lindsay to you,” Jenna says to Jane, making my skin surge with a rush of protective fury at her words. Without thinking, I step closer to Jane.
Who doesn’t notice.
Jenna’s bleak looking. Bony thin with the haunted eyes of someone who has been living in fear for a very long time. Unlike Jane, she isn’t resilient. Unlike Jane, she isn’t compassionate.
But like Jane, she needs help.
“Are you willing to testify to all this?” I ask her, wheels turning like a revving engine in my mind. Moving even closer to Jane, I take a second to scan the area. No obvious danger.
All the danger is right here.
In a woman who can’t weigh more than a hundred pounds soaking wet, but whose words give her more power than anyone could possibly want.
“You protect me, I’ll tell anyone whatever you want.”
“I only want the truth to be told to the right people.”
“I’ve got the truth. You get the right people.”
“Why don’t you hire your own security team?”
“No money.”
I look pointedly at the mansion.
“This? This is all going away. Dad hasn’t paid the mortgage in over a year. It was bad before John, Blaine, and Stellan kidnapped you,” she says to Jane. “But it got worse after that, because we were exposed.”
She says the word ‘exposed’ with an affect that makes me murderous. As if she didn’t deserve to be exposed. As if having the truth of her deception exposed was an affront to her.
And not justice.
What she’s telling us blows my mind. Drew is going to shit bricks when he hears this. I doubt Jenna has any proof. Hard evidence would be even better, but her story is enough to get some gears turning.
“I can’t guarantee anything,” I tell her, trying hard to keep my disgust out of my voice. Being neutral is the most important part of this job.
It’s also often the hardest.
“Not good enough. I just gave you all the information,” Jenna says with a pout. Her eyes are filled with panic. She looks around. We’re on a grassy, wide-open field. No red trucks. No slasher in a bathroom.
No obvious threat.
“You did. And we can get you to a safe place to tell this to people with the ability to do more about it,” I start to explain.
“That’s crap and you know it. Anything I’ve told you is enough for someone to give me a security team.” She looks at Jane. “You’ve got Lindsay’s dad helping you. How’d you swing that? Everyone knows your mom was a fucking traitor.”
The slap happens before I can stop Jane, her arm pulling back and hitting Jenna dead on her left cheekbone. Jane’s perfect execution makes Jenna’s head snap to her right, her narrow neck twisting so her cheekbones stand out even more, her own hand flying up after.
“You nasty piece of nothing,” Jane growls,
her ribcage expanding with sudden, hard breaths. I move between her and Jenna, who is howling in pain, her sobs hitched and erratic. Jane’s about to lunge.
And I have no choice but to stop her.
“Don’t,” I snap, my hands going to her shoulders as she makes a move to attack Jenna.
“She’s just like the others. Always a user. I’m putting myself in danger coming here so she can say that?” Jane hisses.
“Like the others?” Jenna moans. “You mean dead like the others?”
“I mean a nasty waste of flesh who turned against Lindsay and me for kicks.”
“We were blackmailed!”
“SO WAS MY MOTHER!” Jane’s voice is like an IED, unexpected, loud, explosive.
And ripping through my guts.
Jenna looks at me like a submissive dog, head hanging down. “Will you help me? Please? She’s crazy and dangerous.” Her eyes flit to Jane, who is a hot, red coal in my arms, her muscles tight with tension.
“I’ll try,” I say, terse. Jane jerks in my arms, her body responding to Jenna’s words.
“Why help her?” Jane sneers. “Why help anyone? Why don’t I just let them get me, too? Maybe that’s the end game here. Maybe I’ve made it too much fun for them.” She looks at Jenna, who is nursing her red, splotched cheek. “Maybe that’s how this works, Jenna,” Jane says with a cackling laugh that sends chills up my back. “Maybe we should just stop running, stop hiding, and take what’s coming to us. What’s coming for us.”
“I don’t want to die!” Jenna wails.
“Maybe I do.” Jane’s words come at the same instant she pulls out of my arms and storms away.
I have no choice now, either.
I follow.
Chapter 10
Jane
That gutless bitch.
That soul-sucking, heartless, vapid, self-centered waste of skin.
The ocean normally calms me, but as I make my way back to the SUV with tears blurring my vision, angry tears that have nothing to do with grief or sadness but everything to do with pure rage, the wind knocks my breath out of me. It flies in my face, stuffing itself down my throat, making my hair brush against my ears as a cold blast makes me gasp.
I don’t want to die.
But I’m not so sure I want to live right now, either.