by Jewel E. Ann
End of Day
by
Jewel E. Ann
This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblances to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales are purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 by Jewel E. Ann
Kindle Edition
ISBN: 978-0-9961564-4-8
Cover Designer: © Sarah Hansen, Okay Creations
Formatting: BB eBooks
For kick-ass women
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Also by Jewel E. Ann
About the Author
Chapter One
Day
Four graves.
Four caskets.
Two bodies.
A throng of family and friends mourned the loss of four innocent lives under dapple gray skies in a cemetery nestled at the bottom of a hillside just miles from the Golden Gate Bridge. A DEA agent and his wife were murdered a week earlier and their two adult children were reported dead in an apartment building the following day. Investigators reported the cause of death—self-inflicted gunshot wounds. Those same investigators collected a bag of cash at a drop location in exchange for their report which led to two empty caskets and headstones carved with the names Jessica Maeve Day and Jude Paxton Day.
“How many people live to see their own funeral?” Knox, the lead Agent for G.A.I.L, mumbled from the driver’s seat of the SUV custom built to meet presidential motorcade standards.
“I could snap your neck and not shed … One. Fucking. Tear,” Jessica Day answered.
The cocky agent chuckled, as any asshole that treated life and death like a business would do. “I taught you everything you know. I’m not too worried.”
“No, you taught me everything you know.”
“Jess,” Jude warned, grabbing her fisted hand and holding it until she relaxed.
“I’ve seen enough. Let’s go.” Jessica turned away from the window and closed her eyes as she released a slow sigh. Why couldn’t she have a normal life? A husband who worked too much but adored her, a daughter with long black hair and an ornery son that loved to pull it, and a dog that dug up the flowers planted along their white picket fence.
How could fate be so cruel?
“We’re gridlocked. We won’t be leaving early without busting up a few cars, which would make a scene. And the last thing we want to do is make a scene.”
Every word Knox spoke brought Jessica closer to the edge. She needed to hit something. She needed to hit someone. The most painful hour of her life passed with every second and felt like an eternity. Jessica didn’t want to live to see her own funeral. She fought the urge to jump out of the vehicle and race to the casket—her casket—climb inside, and let them bury her alive. At that point, no death would be as excruciating as the alternative—living.
“Look at me.” The uneasy tremble to her brother’s voice made her skin pebble, hair standing on end.
Jessica’s heart hid in her throat, sending waves of throbbing pain through her body as tears stung her eyes. She knew why Jude wanted her to look at him. On the other side of the privacy-tinted window was her everything.
How could fate be so cruel?
“Jess, don’t do it … just don’t.”
Jessica looked at her brother the way someone would before pulling a trigger pointed at their own temple—lifeless and regretful. “I have to … I have to see him one last time.”
The heartbroken shell of a woman turned toward the window and there he was, surrounded by his family. Sunglasses hid his deep navy eyes that had pieced her back together as much as his most brilliantly spoken words. His signature tailored suit he wore was black that day. She cursed him for not being more original—a splash of flare in honor of her funeral.
Her gaze drifted to his shoes. Inside she felt a blink of reprieve from the pain, a smile that didn’t reach her lips. He was wearing those argyle socks; she couldn’t see them … she just knew. Jessica knew that man. Jessica loved that man. And in that very moment, she said goodbye to that man. In another blink, the pain returned.
How could life. Be. So. Cruel?
Jude squeezed her hand. “He could come with us.”
“I know.” Her voice cracked under the weight of pain. He already thought she was dead. “I can’t take him from them. I want him … but they deserve him.”
*
The Days were transported to an undisclosed location that defined middle of nowhere, a million miles from civilization—no cell phones, no television, no computers … no alcohol. They were dropped off by plane, literally dropped from the plane with parachutes on their backs. Jessica and Jude were members of G.A.I.L. (Guardian Angels for Innocent Lives) and therefore they were experts in two areas: combat and survival.
Weekly food rations were deposited from the same plane, like aid and sustenance to soldiers. But their war was not a physical war; the enemy targeted their emotions. There were no hidden cameras, but those six months living by themselves in a tiny cabin as they moved through the stages of grief felt like a cruel psych experiment. They mourned the loss of their parents and the loss of themselves.
Cheating death more than once, Jessica had seen so much in her short life. Not once did she contemplate the worth of her own life. Not once did she think a single suicidal thought—until she said a silent goodbye to Luke at the cemetery. Jude spent months pulling her from the ledge, offering his shoulder, and sometimes beating some sense into her. How could the person she mourned the most be the only one still living?
Unfortunately, there was no room for error in their new lives. Severing emotional ties would keep them alive. Time. It would not heal them, but with each passing day it hardened their emotions, leaving them feeling numb.
Jude marked off each day on their calendar until the one with the star finally arrived. It read: fin de journée—End of Day. A knock at the door had them bodychecking each other, desperate to see a different face after six long months.
“Greetings!” Knox smiled as he stepped inside.
Jessica never imagined feeling excited to see Knox. In all respects she hated him. However, by then she would have welcomed the devil himself into their cabin. She loved her brother, but six months alone with him, living in such primitive conditions, tested her already-questionable sanity.
“So I see you haven’t killed each other.”
Jessica and Jude shared knowing smirks. On severa
l occasions they sparred one blow shy of knocking the other one unconscious.
“Did you do your homework?”
“Homework?” Jessica looked at Jude. “You mean there was more than just not killing each other?”
Knox groaned. “God! Can’t you two just do what you’re told for once? We insisted on grief counseling and you refused it. We suggested Jude have all visible tattoos removed, and he refused that. Now you know damn well we asked you to give yourselves a past and plan out your future—think of new professions or new skills you want to acquire—and you’ve not done that either? I’m tempted to put a bullet in each of your heads myself and call it a day!”
“We picked out names.” Jude grinned, eyes wide. He couldn’t feign an ounce of sincerity in his expression.
“Well, thank fuck for that.” Knox took a seat at the kitchen table and pulled a computer out of his bag. “I’m going to go over a shitload of information with you. Our main goal is to keep you safe so if you listen and follow the rules, there shouldn’t ever be a problem. Our second objective is to make sure the discovery and identification of G.A.I.L is never revealed or compromised.”
Jessica and Jude nodded.
“So let’s get started.”
Four hours later they completed their exit training and packed their minimal belongings for the transport to their final destination.
“Got everything?” Knox asked as he finished typing a few things into his computer.
They looked around the small cabin one last time.
“We’re ready,” Jude affirmed.
“Alright, one last thing so they can have your new IDs ready by the time we get there. What’s it going to be? What new names have you chosen?”
The Days looked at each other and grinned.
Chapter Two
Knight
For nine months they were inseparable in the womb. Thirty years, two murders, and fifteen hundred miles later, Jillian Knight rolled down the smoked Escalade window. The pungent stench of manure was no longer detectable inside the city’s limits. Her life was supposed to be a self-induced state of amnesia, only she remembered everything: the therapeutic monotony of her job, Samovar Tea Bar for plum pu-erh and scones with her mom every Saturday morning, and strolling for miles with Jones—the greatest of all Great Danes—along the scenic trails on the high bluffs of Fort Funston overlooking large sand dunes and the rolling waves of the bay.
“What did you tell the realtor?” Jackson Knight asked, drumming his thumb on his leg with the intensity of a smoker in need of nicotine.
Agent Knox McGraw glanced over his shoulder, beady eyes narrowed against the rays of the June sun cutting through the moonroof. “About?”
“Us,” Jackson replied as he pushed his black-framed glasses up his nose.
“Nothing.” Knox shrugged.
“He didn’t ask about the new owners?”
Jillian smirked while she dabbed her pinkie toenail with blood red polish.
“He did, but I told him it was none of his fucking business.” McGraw winked at Jillian as she capped her bottle of polish.
Somewhere over the previous few days and long hours in the SUV, Jillian bonded—a little—with her nemesis, Knox McGraw. They shared a love for driving her brother crazy.
Jackson caught their exchange. “I’m intelligent, not paranoid.”
Jillian laughed. “One word: Luke.” His name tasted equally bitter and sweet as it slid across her lips, the one person who loved her, all of her—the woman, the survivor, the monster. She imagined Luke taking Jones on those long walks. Her boys. That’s what she called them. And now she’d never call them anything ever again because the woman they loved died.
“He snuck up on me.” Jackson rolled down his window as the vehicle turned into the Peaceful Woods townhome development.
“He tapped your shoulder.” She chuckled. Her dear brother was a hair trigger. She’d adopted sarcasm to hide her nerves. Jackson used the Japanese Chokehold to hide his.
“When he sneaked up on me.” Jackson narrowed his eyes at her.
Jillian slipped her feet into her flip-flops, careful not to smudge her shiny wet toenails. “In the grocery store! You had him on his knees, an inch from his life, in under a second.”
McGraw shook his head. “Enough, you two misfit psychos. Out! Good riddance. Utilities are due on the fifteenth. I’d say try to stay alive, but you’re not the ones I should be concerned about. So don’t kill anyone but yourselves.”
The Knights stepped out of the vehicle that sped away the moment their doors slammed shut. They stood in the two-stall driveway, making a 360-degree survey of their new neighborhood: grey cookie cutter homes in groups of two and three, each with a small, staked maple tree in the front yard.
In that moment they were reborn.
“Kansas?” Jackson asked.
“Omaha … Nebraska.” Jillian nudged his shoulder, a snicker vibrating from her chest.
“The Cornhusker State?”
“Yes.”
“Warren Buffet?”
“Yes.”
“Malcolm X?”
“I don’t know, Jack. You’re the geek.”
He looked down at her, pushing his Clark Kent glasses high on his nose. She ripped them off his face and snapped them in two.
“What the hell?”
Jillian tossed them over her shoulder. “You have twenty-twenty vision, and if I have to give up my everything, it’s not going to be to stare at you in geek glasses that make me want to punch you squarely between the eyes.”
The bitter sister with a penchant for snark opened the front door to their three-bedroom fully furnished ranch. “Yeah, no one will ever find us here. After all, who voluntarily enters the gates of Hell? I bet the bathroom is wheelchair accessible.”
Jackson feathered his hand along the floral wallpaper that plastered every inch of drywall like geriatric graffiti in the story-and-a-half great room. Jillian eyed the polished brass fixtures, none more nauseating than the gaudy crystal chandelier over the dining room table.
“McGraw is going to die.”
Jackson nodded. “I won’t be getting laid here anytime soon.”
“Not unless she’s blind. Then again, I think you could manage to get laid in the front pew of a Baptist church during communion.” Jillian wrinkled her nose, walking toward the master bedroom. “It even smells like old people.”
“And what is that smell?”
The bedroom was a replica of a 1980’s Motel 6 room, complete with a dusty rose bedspread and a brass-framed knockoff of Monet’s Blue Water Lilies over the white wicker headboard.
“You know … Bengay and carnations.”
“What’s in the garage?” Jackson walked past her.
“I told McGraw a Harley Davidson for me and something sophisticated like a BMW or Mercedes for you. I miss my bike, I miss …”
Jackson turned, giving her a sad smile. “It’s okay. I miss Dad too. He would be pleased to see that your love for his hobby was genuine.”
Jillian nodded as he opened the door to the garage and flipped the switch for the florescent lights that flickered in protest with their last bit of life.
“So. Fucking. Dead.”
Jillian squeezed past him. “Oh God.”
“Yup.” Jackson chuckled until it grew into a full-out hysteria-filled laugh.
She didn’t share his humor. Her eyes flitted with disbelief between the pink Vespa with a cream seat and chrome mirrors and the eggplant PT Cruiser with wood panels.
“I’m calling him Woody.” Jackson opened the driver’s door and slid down into the tan leather seat, hands clenching the steering wheel. “You should call your motorcycle Candy.”
Her nose wrinkled in disgust. “It’s not a motorcycle and you know it. I wouldn’t be caught dead on this thing.” She made a full-circle inspection without touching it. Jackson and his friends used to call her a tomboy because she liked motorcycles and tools. She hated that stereotype. There was so
mething in between a frilly girly girl and a tomboy. Jillian called it badass sexy.
Jackson climbed out, shut the door, and leaned back against Woody, arms crossed over his chest. “I think not being caught dead is the point.”
She riffled through the contents of the red, five-drawer Craftsman tool chest she requested. “No, the point is to fit in, not look like a Mary Kay consultant.”
“I think they drive Cadillacs.”
The daughter with her father’s temper slammed the drawers shut and balled her hands at her hips. “Look at us.” Her emotions warred between laughing and crying, but Jillian Knight didn’t cry, or maybe she did. She didn’t know this Jillian woman well enough to say for sure. Years of repressing her true feelings and hiding any weaknesses had left her emotionally disoriented.
“It all sounded so easy. New identities, new appearances, new location, new professions. But I can’t … I can’t let go of that life. Thirty years. It’s too much to just forget in six months. Hell, it’s too much to forget in a lifetime.”
Jackson shared a pained smile. “You don’t have to forget, but you do have to let it go. Those caskets … they represent that life. It’s dead, but we’re not. We have each other. I still get to look at you and see my sister, and that’s enough for me to move on.”
“How can you look at me and see anything? Have you looked in the mirror? You have a disturbing mess of dark hair sprouting from your head with gel in it. You haven’t had hair in over a decade. And this…” she held her long platinum blond hair out from her ear “…my IQ went down ten points in one hour at the salon.”
“But our eyes…” Jackson pulled her into his strong, safe arms and looked into her eyes “…they’re—”
“Amber … like the desert sunset.” She’d lost count of how many times their mother had said those words—at least a million.
“I want to go back, even if I die. I just … I don’t want to be here.” The honesty ripped from her gut. They were conditioned as teenagers to show no emotion, to find strength in bravery. But no one could live that way forever. Everyone needed a safe harbor to release their rawest emotions. Jackson was hers.