“It’s Jessie,” Charlie called back to the open door of the house, unsure whether Dee knew the sound of the car as well as he did. Dee had her back to the big window, so she didn’t see the car pull in, but now she twisted around, the hope on her face an intense open book. She and Lydia both stood, relieved Jessie was finally seeking their company.
Charlie didn’t wait for Jessie’s cues. He grabbed her immediately and held her tight. She could feel his body shaking. Of course. It’s been a long day for everyone, she thought. She willed herself not to cry, but suddenly the signs Susanne was so carefully monitoring all day ganged up on her. A crippling anxiety overtook her now in the comfort and care of people she loved and trusted. It started at the base of her heels and worked its way up through her body, like an explosive satisfying cleansing orgasm, full and complete and overwhelming.
Her knees failed her, and she heard a wail that somewhere in the distance Jessie recognized as her own.
Deuce is dead. Oh God. Finally. Josh is holding his own. What the hell does that mean, anyway? And Jacob is a traitor. Almost.
It was all she could handle.
“Is it Josh?” Dee was asking, suddenly acutely alarmed.
Clutching both hands decisively over her mouth, eyes wide, Jessie slipped out of Charlie’s grasp and stumbled towards Dee. Gasping for breath, her sobs came from somewhere so deep she thought she might split in two.
Susanne whispered to Carlotta, who was hovering in the foyer behind Charlie, to dig up a paper bag in case Jessie started to hyperventilate. She texted Matt. Jessie might need some help to get through this.
But the only help she needed in the end was Dee. After so long, after so many years of suffering on her own, of keeping secrets and denying relationships, hiding, Jessie finally went to Deirdre Keating for comfort. Dee drew her into her arms and cried wholeheartedly too while Jessie let go of a haunting, debilitating pain. Charles and Matt discovered them later on the chaise, Jessie asleep with her head in Dee’s lap, a sad but wide smile creasing Dee’s worried face as she stroked Jessie’s hair.
Matt touched Charles’ arm and slipped into the kitchen to join Susanne and Carlotta, who were swapping quiet stories in the kitchen over jasmine tea. Charlie had left earlier to drive his mother home.
Tiptoeing quietly into the front room, Charles stole past Jessie and Dee to the fireplace. The night had cooled, and so Charles put a fire on before bending down to take a closer look at his girls.
“She told me she was sorry,” Dee murmured, a light in her eyes Charles was certain he had never before seen. “That she told me I wasn’t her mother, I mean. She told me she wished I was her mother.”
“You are,” Charles said, grinning openly now, boyish and young again. “As much as anybody is a mother, Dee.” He brushed a loose strand of hair off Jessie’s forehead. “And I’m her father.”
Jessie stirred then, her awakening inspired by a tender light in Charles’ eyes.
“Hey,” she murmured groggily, grasping his hand. “How’s Josh?”
“He’s doing okay, Jessie. He’s been awake off and on today.” Charles said fondly. “How are you doing?”
Jessie struggled to a sitting position before snuggling up against Dee. “Better.” Then gloom settled across her face again. “Where’s Jacob?”
“He’s at your place, Jessie. He’s pretty broken up.”
She nodded, and didn’t have to elaborate or ask Charles to do so. Charles had been there, at the jail. He heard Jacob’s confession. “I guess I should go there. Talk to him.”
“Yeah, kiddo. Likely you should.”
As she removed herself from underneath Dee’s maternal embrace, Jessie asked, “Charles?”
“Yep?”
“Will you keep working with Jacob?”
“I don’t know, Jessie.” A sigh. “I’d like to. I suppose in some ways that’s up to you.”
“He killed Deuce,” she whispered, standing in front of Charles, ever hopeful, even after Jacob’s chilling admission.
What a girl, Charles thought. Always believing the best in people. That there is something enduring and wonderful in everyone.
“That he did,” he responded with the grace and dignity the comment deserved. That Jessie deserved. For she seemed to have already forgiven Jacob for his alarming, insidious thought.
They embraced, and then Dee walked Jessie to the door. Jessie thanked Susanne for spending the day with her before waving to Carlotta and driving herself back to her condo, followed at a careful distance by Matt, who beeped twice and waved so long when she reached the underground garage. She felt relaxed and cleansed to a point, her burden less heavy after the cathartic cry. But she was oh so tired. And Jacob awaited her at home.
She found him sitting in the dark on the outdoor balcony, his back to her. The place was somewhat quiet – there was only the sound of geese flying overhead, and a cacophony of city sounds far below, horns and traffic and a wailing siren somewhere off in the distance. Jacob was not playing music or listening to music, nor was the television on. He was alone, pondering life, she supposed, and his place in it.
Jessie padded across the room before stepping gingerly outside. She straddled the end of the long lounge chair Jacob occupied and faced him. He was struggling, his face rigid and eyes empty.
“Babe,” she said, taking his calloused hands in hers.
He couldn’t bring himself to make eye contact, and so Jacob focused his blank stare downwards at a blue stripe running the length of the chair.
She changed tactics, and placed her hands on his cheeks. “Look at me, Jacob.”
With great courage, Jacob lifted his chin and felt his heart break again when their eyes met.
One thing had remained unspoken that morning, something Jessie should have said in the heated moment after Jacob pulled the trigger and fired the fatal shot. Jessie reached for it now, finding it inside a bottomless pit of profound gratitude hiding behind the agony of the last few days, and behind the last many years as well.
“Thank you,” she breathed, with eternal devotion for this boy whose music she believed in. Who, during her long drive with Susanne, she realized had set her free in so many ways. Who consciously made a split second choice to sacrifice himself and his own wants. He could have made another choice, one that could just as easily have taken him – and Jessie – down an endless dark path. But he didn’t. In his heart he was true, and good.
Jacob comprehended what she was saying on some level, but in his bubble of self-loathing and confusion he wondered whether she was thanking him for killing Deuce McCall, or for not killing Josh Sawyer. He went back to studying the blue stripe. He couldn’t see where it ended, but he wished he could follow it like he would have with his dinky cars as a child; such wide stripes were roads then, places to travel, escapes. Hope.
She gave clarity to his thoughts by telling him softly, “Jacob. You need to pack your things. You know that, right?” Because no matter how the pros and cons played out, neither had anything left to give the other. And because Jacob deserved better than what Jessie had to give.
It took a momentous effort, but slowly he raised his chin and gazed at her. He knew she was free from McCall’s reign of terror now, and that ultimately he was responsible. But he was also wise enough to understand that the more significant moment of truth was not about McCall. It was about Josh.
“I know.”
“Listen. Dee has someone in place to help you with all of this. To help all of us. Someone to talk to.”
“I don’t know,” he said numbly.
“You killed a man, Jacob.”
“I killed a monster.”
“He was a man, Jacob. A man who was ill.”
He paused. “Okay.” On some level that gave him hope. Not about the counseling, but because the Keatings were offering to help him. Of course – he set their girl free. Maybe he and Charles could still make music together. But would he want to, without Jessie? He didn’t know. Only time would kn
ow.
Then he added earnestly, as she made a move to get up, “Jessie. I wish you were still Annie Hayden and we were still in Edinburgh. I miss your purple hair.”
She would have said me too, but Deuce was dead now and Jessie had found out about the prayer vigils in place around the world for Josh, and so in her mind everything had changed again. There was hope now - Josh admitted it himself at the restaurant that day at brunch, and so she could not respond to Jacob with what she would have said such a very short time ago.
Jessie left a trail of silence and clothes behind her as she walked to the shower. She stood naked as steam started to cascade around her, to swallow her in its misty warm veil. She placed a hand against the wall just above the hot and cold tap, and leaned her forehead against the tiled surface. Soon she felt Jacob’s presence in the room and, as she felt him step in behind her, her right hand automatically fingered the nape of her neck, where Josh’s ring once dangled for so long.
Jacob laid his hand over hers, not unaware of what she was doing and not trying to pull her away, but simply trying to tell her he understood, that he had always understood, that it was his mistake in the first place to ever hope that she, Jessie Wheeler, could possibly give up on such a great love - one that was borne of loneliness, of a union of two lost souls. What was harder to bear was that Jacob was lonely and lost too, and once upon a time he hoped that would be enough for them. And perhaps it would have been, had he come along first in her life, but then again, perhaps not. For, like Deuce McCall, who thought of himself as some kind of master puppeteer, the universe likely already knew all the rules and the outcomes, and it had its own master plan on how to get there.
As he did that first morning just after Christmas less than six months ago, Jacob ran his hands through Jessie’s hair and let the water soak it through. Lifting the shampoo bottle – his pungent green apple, as always – he let some thick liquid fall into his palm and then he merged them together, he and Jessie, as he lathered her hair under the flowing water. She arched her back, leaning her shoulders into him, the feel of his warm body against hers almost more than she could bear during this, the most exquisite and tender of all goodbyes.
After he rinsed out the soap she turned to him, and then Jessie let her body give in to him. For Jacob had been her island to float on in a stormy sea and, regardless of his feelings about Josh, ultimately he did not squeeze the trigger on the wrong man. He was and always would be Jacob whom Jessie met and loved in Edinburgh, a boy who made exceptional music, and whose pained soul on this day hung in the balance.
“I do love you, Jacob,” she whispered one last time to him, and he knew she spoke the truth, and so his soul stopped its teetering and leaned towards home.
He slipped himself inside her one last time as she wrapped a leg over his hip and fingered deeply the tattoo on his back, leaving red marks there above the cross, evidence that she had been, and then was gone.
***
Chapter Thirty-Five
Maggie called Jessie numerous times but her calls weren’t answered or returned. The Saturday after Deuce was erased from their lives, at least in a physical incarnation, she decided her friend’s personal bubble needed invading. At the hospital, Charlie told them Jacob had moved out of the downtown condo and Jessie was falling into old patterns of seclusion. They decided an intervention was necessary.
Maggie’s text to Jessie read:
Coming over clean your bathroom bringing food and drink
Food and drink was an understatement. Maggie and Sue-Lyn arrived together with armfuls of Indian food and spices the girls prepared for everyone. Jessie was put to work chopping onions and peppers, and stirring sauces. Soon the rest of the gang arrived – Charlie and Jane, Stephen and Sophie, Carter and his old-new gal, Ashley, and later, Kayla and Paul. Zach stayed at the hospital. Hilary had taken the kids back to Seattle. The older group – Jonathon and Giselle, Charles and Dee, Matt and Julie, and Jack and Lydia were hanging out over wine and cheese at La Casa.
Big Dan was on duty at Jessie’s place, mostly to avoid any unpleasant sneaky photographers, but the gang fed him and he was able to avert the boredom and worry of watching Jessie sitting on a couch moping, wrapped up in a blanket and, once again, smoking too much. In short, he was relieved at the friends’ intervention. He settled into his chair in the foyer with one eye on the elevator and the other on the now heavily guarded cell phone, thankful he still had a job after his stupidity at the Cactus Club the night Josh was abducted.
The party eventually moved out to the balcony. It had been a gorgeous June day in Vancouver, and the clear skies were holding as the afternoon evolved into night, lending a soft twilight indigo glow to the evening. Somewhere down in Burrard Inlet a seaplane was landing, and the gentle buzz of its engine was somehow soothing – it lent a feeling of normalcy and continuity to the otherwise curious mood that still permeated the air. Stars were twinkling in the blue-black sky and the moon was luminescent. In a condo a few floors below, someone was playing Diana Krall, and Jessie’s white curtains were lifting on the breeze as if they were dancing in time to the harmonious jazz. A pleasant aura nourished and reunited the friends, considering the heavily felt absence of both Josh and Jacob.
As they settled into the outdoor space, drinks in their hands and Jessie’s cigarettes finally extinguished, talk inevitably turned to the events of the last few days. Charlie made his way over to Jessie, who was scrunched up in a light afghan on the lounger vacated by Jacob a few days before. Lying back against the cushion Jessie imagined she could smell Jacob’s scent still imbued in the fabric, a faint hint of green apple and a slight musky male earthiness that she coveted, and missed.
“Shove over,” Charlie demanded, and Jessie scooted her bum over to make room for him. He wrapped an arm around her and winked at Jane, who was rolling her eyes next to Sophie at the rail, the coolers in both women’s hands inciting sporadic giggling attacks.
Steve wandered outside, settled next to the rail by Sophie, and looked at Jessie soberly. He held up his cell phone.
“Zach just texted. Josh is spiking a fever. They’re putting him on some new meds to counteract infection.”
Charlie squeezed Jessie’s shoulder and she rested her head there, relishing the familiar smell and feel of her old boyfriend and now cherished friend. He heard her whisper, “Will this ever end?”
The friends talked for a while about Josh and what the doctors were saying, that he seemed to be rallying and was young and strong. They all felt he was holding his own, and everyone was humbled by the prayer vigils. They had all attended one in Vancouver the night before. Even Jessie was there, in Matt’s Audi, but she refused to get out and mingle. She was in full retreat mode.
Overall, Josh’s prognosis was good. But still, he suffered a severe trauma. Time was the only real healer now. Time and God, to whom Jessie was talking almost incessantly. Not praying, really, just talking. Asking questions and trying to figure things out; sending messages to her dad and Sandy, Rachel and Terri. Occasionally she resorted to begging. Please God help Josh be okay. Please God help Jacob be okay. She was worried about Jacob, too. Charles told her he was staying at the Sheraton for the time being, until the police decided on charges. John Paul had flown back to Vancouver earlier that day, so Jacob wasn’t alone, at least.
Paul threw in a twist to the conversation. He spoke directly to Jessie. “I hear things are moving along in Charleston.”
Charlie could feel her shifting, uncomfortable with the topic. But she rallied.
“Yeah,” she answered. “It amazed me, but the investigators ripped apart the room…that room…in the house on Tradd Street, and they found evidence they were able to link to the knife…um…the first one.” She shuddered and looked out over the city’s multitude of colored lights, and then continued. “Matt tells me they used a tool called a Luma light. Even if a room has been renovated – and this one was, apparently, more than once – the Luma Light can detect bodily fluids. They use
chemicals to detect the blood. They just start by taking off layers, like molding, carpet.”
She shrugged. Suddenly the balcony was very quiet. “Then the lab does the work. They found hair and fiber also. And…fluids. From…from Deuce. And enough blood to prove someone died there. After all these years…” Her voice trailed off. She didn’t add yeah they linked me to the crime scene too. She knew that was a given and she didn’t want to talk about it. “Matt and I found Sandy in a missing kids database. The police tracked his family down and matched the DNA – his blood - from the crime scene with their DNA. To identify him. So now at least his dad and his siblings know what happened to him, although they’ve kept pretty quiet about it. Someday maybe I’ll go see them. I dunno. None of them seem to want to come this way, or to Charleston. His mom’s been gone for years, I guess. Maybe she and Sandy are hanging out in the ether somewhere.” She liked the idea that Sandy was not alone.
“And Rachel?” Maggie breathed, almost afraid to ask, intuitively echoing Jessie’s own thoughts.
Jessie shook her head. “No. Nothing. I didn’t really think…” She shrugged her shoulders. “I’m her family. Sandy’s too, I guess, since either his dad is simply overwhelmed or…or just doesn’t give a shit.”
“The map?” Steve asked quietly, steering the conversation down another road. “Matt mentioned they found the map in Deuce’s coat pocket.”
Jessie stared at him blankly for a moment, but yes, she knew the map had been found. Charles and Dee were by earlier to share that welcome news. What unsettled her most about that was, despite the obvious mental instability of the man, Deuce, in the end, came through for her. He provided the probable location of Sandy’s body somewhere back in Charleston. Jessie had no reason to doubt Deuce. It was just that she was finding it hard to thoroughly despise the man, despite his appalling actions. No, Jessie saw Deuce as a troubled mentally ill man whose life and circumstances infused tragic consequences into her own affairs. Yes, he was cold, hard and calculating, but do people start out that way? She didn’t think so. She had a hard time picturing Deuce as pure evil. He was grey. Definitely leaning towards black, she often thought as she remembered Sandy’s torment, and Josh’s. But things just went wrong for him somewhere along the line; he crossed some invisible line most people manage to avoid.
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