The Girl Next Door
Page 27
For an uncomfortable moment Jane hesitated. She remembered something else. That night. The car accident. The ambulance. The kids all standing around watching.
She was pretty certain she’d never told Jake, never told anyone, about her and Mason’s baby, and she never would. Mason never even found out about the baby or even that Janine was Jane.
But like a cracked egg, the truth of Jake’s words broke open in her sluggish brain—he meant the recent car accident—and she realized she could have just made a huge mistake. If she’d mentioned the miscarriage… Jake wouldn’t like that, knowing that Mason was the one who took her virginity. No, he would never know, but all the same Jane had avenged her poor baby now. Ven, she called him, to remind herself of a vendetta that would never expire. But Jake was referring to something Kendra did that… she almost retched as the truth dawned upon her.
Both her hands clutched her head. “The car accident. She was the one who ran me off the road.”
Granite-jawed, he nodded. “That was never part of the plan obviously. She saw you at the gas station…. You never checked in with me… I couldn’t get any information at all. My friend Kurt has access to a police scanner. I called him, and he told me about the accident. You have no idea how much I suffered when I heard. Even though I took a huge risk, I went to the hospital to try to get information. I couldn’t stand it any longer.”
Her eyes widened. “You were Ed Jensen.”
He nodded. “I was sure the cops would get the security footage of that day, but it never occurred to them. I guess, why would it? The… event… hadn’t even occurred yet. Just my paranoia.”
Jane was quiet for a moment and Jake rushed to fill the void, as if any silence would turn her against him. “It came out during Kendra’s trial about her running you off the road—she was actually charged and convicted for it. The state pressed charges since you refused to speak to the cops or anyone from the DA’s office. And you called a blackout on the trial. I guess it’s come as a shock now?”
She nodded, swallowing back the lump that lodged in her throat.
“The DA won two murder convictions against her for Cate’s death and that of the gentleman involved in your crash. And then one for attempted murder. Of you.”
“Where did the money come from? The cash paid to the killer?”
His smile stretched from ear-to-ear. “A big chunk of it came from Cate herself. Her loan for the company. I needed less than I thought, but I never gave it back since she insisted on my making her a partner. The rest you and I put in over many months, a few hundred here and there. It wasn’t all that difficult. We kept it in a shoebox.”
“We placed the photo of me in Mason’s drawer?”
“Uh-huh. Mason had given me the key to their old place, the condo. You and I went there and you put your fingerprints all over it. Later on, I slipped in the photo. When it came time for the happy couple to move, good ol’ Jake helped them pack things up. Cate didn’t trust the moving companies with her precious antiques. I made sure to wrap the dresser myself with moving blankets, preserving the prints.”
“Why did we do that anyway? We wanted the police to suspect me?”
“You don’t remember?”
Jane shook her head, feeling bad about the disappointment shading his eyes. “There are gaps…”
“First, we found a reliable hitman. Pernod was a professional assassin, and we never thought he’d be sloppy enough to get caught. We’d figured the testimony from the one paid witness—the guy we had watching the money exchange—would be enough to exonerate you, and I also had another trick up my sleeve if that didn’t prove enough. What we didn’t count on was Pernod getting arrested and becoming a witness for us. Not at all. But he became the star witness, and it was all unplanned. His testimony was the coup de grace for the case against you. I mean, Kendra was the only person he’d dealt with, either by phone or in person. He couldn’t give anyone else up in a plea deal.
“We tried to stay three steps ahead of the police. Since I had something to gain—monetarily—coupled with my history with Cate, we wanted to divert attention away from me. We figured we’d throw the suspicion on you initially. By making it look like someone was framing you, you would soon be excluded once the exonerating testimony came to light. That was set up in advance, for Benny to wait until you were charged before telling the prosecutor it wasn’t you.
“Everything went perfectly according to plan… when Mason told me the house next door to the one he’d just purchased was for sale, I knew it was meant to be. Every single piece was plotted meticulously… except for your car accident.”
Jane watched his handsome face as he explained, trying to stitch together all of the individual memories into one coherent quilt. She still had holes but the beauty of the design was now apparent.
“C’mere, baby.” He held out his arms and she went right into them with no hesitation. He was her safe harbor, and she guarded his tender heart. Nothing would ever make her turn against him. Nothing could.
******
Jake came back from a walk on the water’s edge to a silent house. He found Jane asleep on the charcoal chenille sofa in the study. It was the one from her Riverdale house, the only piece of furniture they took with them, and she loved it. Even her favorite brown velvet chair had been left behind. Jane had chuckled, saying no more brown was allowed in her life. He tiptoed out of the room, quietly closing the door behind him.
Making a cup of coffee, he took it and went out on the deck with their dog. Jane had learned that the man who was killed in the car collision had a dog with him that survived the crash. Unfortunately, there was no family member available to adopt the poor little guy. That’s all softhearted Jane had to hear; in a heartbeat, she was in New Jersey, knocking on the door of Barkingham Palace—the shelter housing him—to adopt the pup. She also made a large donation to the NAACP, the organization where the man worked.
Unlike his feelings for his former girlfriend’s Afghan hound, Jake loved this dog. He was a garden-variety mixed breed, maybe a shepherd and husky blend. His name was Hugo, and they liked it so much they kept the name. Hugo was about four years old and a great pal, following Jake everywhere he went, and Jake enjoyed the fact that he could feed him whatever and however much he wanted to. There were no shows in Hugo’s future.
They were a little family, and they’d gotten their happily ever after, and if and when they were lucky enough to have a kid or two, it would get even better. He’d never give up on Janey, and he’d never let anyone or anything get between them.
Janey wouldn’t either. Of that he was as certain as he was that the sun would rise in the morning.
END
Dear Reader:
Thank you for taking the time to read THE GIRL NEXT DOOR. If you enjoyed it, please consider telling your friends or posting a short review on Amazon and Goodreads. Word-of-mouth recommendation is an author’s best friend and very much appreciated.
Thank you,
Lisa Aurello
Amazon link:
https://www.amazon.com/Girl-Next-Door-Lisa-Aurello-ebook/dp/B07CXCCTHY