CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Jesse was not happy. First, he had spent hours in Albany in the middle of freaking nowhere while Derek Stark and Kelly had afternoon tea with a couple of old folks. These were the same people Derek had visited before and from Jesse’s vantage point on the side of the bluff that surrounded the property; there was as much crying going on today as there had been the other day. Since the first time he was here, he’d been able to find out these people were Derek’s in-laws. They were his dead wife’s parents and he seemed to be very attached to them still.

What Kelly had to do with it all was still a mystery. The only saving grace to this day was that he enjoyed having the time to watch her. She didn’t look exactly the same as she had, but he recognized a lot of her mannerisms. The way she held her mouth when she talked or brushed the hair off her shoulder as she turned her head to the side were all familiar to him. You can dye your hair and sculpt your body…but you’re still the same despicable slut you always were.

There was one point when he got a little worried. Kelly walked over to the edge of the patio and looked up into the bluffs. He was in a patch of deep brush, but he started to become paranoid that she was going to see him and he was going to have to kill them all. It wasn’t that he’d really mind killing the others…it was just that he so badly wanted to take his time with her. Besides, his private war didn’t involve the rest of them, not even that pussy, Stark. Kelly was his target. Killing her was his goal. He’d been looking forward to it for so long now. He sat still as a rock with sweat beading down the sides of his face. After a few minutes when she’d gone back to sit with the others and he realized no one else was coming out to look, he breathed a sigh of relief.

When Kelly and Stark finally left the house, he’d followed them into the city where they went straight to an upscale hotel. He wasn’t surprised. She’d always been a slut. She used to try and dress up and seduce him when she knew he was mad…like offering up her skinny, scarred body could make up to him for anything. Jesse fucked her because she was there, but he could have had any woman he wanted and he knew it and so did she. Stark was probably only using her while he was between real, classy women. He didn’t seem like the trailer trash type. Get your fill of her man because soon that newly seductive body was going to be worm food.

Jesse sat in his car all night. He had to get out several times to stretch his legs. The fucking Prius was built for a fucking midget. He had to pee on the wall in the back alley and he ate a nasty sandwich during the night from the twenty-four hour gas station across the street. By the time the lovers emerged hand in hand in the morning, he was almost ready to kill them both right then and there. He followed them back to Rhode Island and when Stark dropped her off at the condominium, he stuck around.

He once again parked the car a good distance away and took off his shoes for a stroll along the beach. The big guy didn’t seem to be around anywhere that he could see, but there was another big, bald guy that looked like a bouncer standing near the back porch. He was obviously watching the house…watching for him. Jesse even knew there was something twisted about it, but he took a great deal of pleasure in knowing that. If people were watching her, that meant she knew he was coming. If she knew he was coming, she was living in terror. He couldn’t wait to get into the same room with her and see the look on her face when she realized he had her. It was going to be priceless. For now, he was going to have to figure out how to get past the watchful eye of big and bald. Exhausted and in need of re-fueling and clearing his head, he called it a day and went back to his hotel room.

He drove towards the little hotel he’d rented a room at. It was a few blocks from the marina where Stark lived on his boat. He was about to pull into the lot when he saw them. There was one marked state trooper car and three big SUV’s, one black and one white. Fuck! Somehow they’d tracked him here. It had to be through that damned debit card!

He’d taken out as much cash as he could before he left New York, but he’d had to use it to pay for the room. But if they used that to track him that would mean his own father had turned him in. That couldn’t be possible. Even when they told Vince that he’d taken a knife to Kelly, Vince had been his staunches defender. He’d told everyone that Kelly had to have done something horrible to provoke him and he’d blamed it on the alcohol. He’d done everything in his power as D.A. to keep Jesse from spending his life behind bars. There’s no way he would have turned him in unless…Shit! They found Chantelle. That had to be it. His father would want him brought in so that he could clear his name and assure him that he didn’t have anything to do with the bitch’s death. That didn’t make sense either though. If she was dead, what made them suspect him? He knew for a fact that he didn’t leave any traces of himself behind. That bitch better be dead. If she’d survived that beating somehow— shit! He kept driving, imagining what he would do to her if she had lived. If she thought the other night was bad, she hadn’t seen anything yet.

**

That afternoon, Chloe spent some time visiting with Lexi before she had to leave for work. They hadn’t had much time to talk lately and the first question Lexi asked her was, “So what’s up with you and Mr. Dreamy pants?” Chloe laughed, Lexi always had some new, silly nickname for Derek.

“Nothing’s up,” she said. “We’ve just been taking things slow.”

“Hmm…”

“What do you mean, “Hmm???”

“You’ve been spending a lot of time away at night. I don’t want to assume those nights were spent in Mr. Dreamy’s arms but since it’s the first time in the two years that I’ve known you it’s happened.”

“I don’t kiss and tell,” Chloe told her with a grin.

Lexi rolled her eyes. “You’re no fun. I, on the other hand, would love to tell someone. Brock is amazing in bed!”

“Lexi!”

“What?” she giggled. “We’re all adults here.”

“Besides bed, is he good everywhere else too?” Chloe asked her.

“Where else matters?” Lexi said with another grin.

“Pervert!”

“Yes, I am,” she said. They talked a little more about Brock and then Chloe finally turned serious and said, “Jesse’s been out of prison for a little over a week now. I haven’t heard from him yet.”

“I'm careful,” Lexi said. “I don’t leave the house any longer without Brock. So see, careful and well taken care of.”

“Good, I don’t know what I would do if I was the reason for anything bad happening to you.”

“Hey, nothing’s going to happen. But if it did and it was at Jesse’s hand that still wouldn’t be your fault. You can’t control what that animal does.”

“Unfortunately,” Chloe said.

Lexi gave her a hug and said, “Pretty soon you’ll be Mrs. Mc. Dreamy Pants and you won’t have to worry about another thing as long as you live.”

Laughing, Chloe told her, “Get out of here, and go to work.”

“Okay, but for the record, I’m awfully jealous that you don’t have to go and I do.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You can make it up to me with breakfast when I get home. I’m off at two a.m.”

Chloe laughed again and said, “I’ll see what I can do.”

After Lexi left, Chloe showered and dressed for her evening kick-boxing class. She took out her journal before she left and wrote:

July 7th

I’ve been lax in my writing lately, so much has been going on. I met Trevor and Samantha Whitemore…more than likely my biological parents. It sounds so weird to say that. I always knew I was adopted, but I never imagined that one day I’d actually find my parents…much less that they would be such wonderful people…or that I’d be falling in love with my dead twin-sister’s husband. It all sounds really twisted and like a soap-opera sweeps week. But it’s my reality and the funny part is all of that is the best part of my reality.

The other part of my reality that is ever present of course is Jesse. I haven’t forgotten for even a fraction of a second that he’s still out there, waiting for his opportunity to get me. I live and breathe it every second of the day. I’m trying not to let it get to me too badly so that it consumes my life…but it’s hard. I check my messages every day. So far, I haven’t heard from Chantelle since right after she told me he was out. I find that a little strange since I would think she’d want to check in with me. She’s probably just busy with her own life, but I know as soon as I finish here I will check the message and I’ll once again be worried if I don’t hear from her.

For now, I will try and bask in the glow of finally trusting a man enough to feel the beginnings of falling in love flutter in my belly and the glorious fact that I have a set of parents who are actually real, warm, sweet, flesh and blood people. I will try hard to focus on that.

Chloe put the journal away and slipped on her tennis shoes. Then she took out her phone and signed onto the Facebook page where she got her messages from Chantelle. She felt a tickle in her belly at the sight of the message icon. She wasn’t sure if it was good or bad. She clicked on it and her fragile world shattered as she read the words:

Chloe:

I’m sorry I couldn’t write sooner. As it is, someone else is taking this down for me. I’m in the hospital and I hate so badly to have to be the one to tell you this, but Jesse put me here. He beat me and cut me with a knife. He left me in the bushes…he thought I was dead. A man walking his dog found me the next day. I was unconscious and they had me listed as a Jane Doe for almost a week. I’m on the mend now, but it’s required several surgeries and probably more to go. I am not telling you this so you will feel bad. I’m telling you so that you will run…far and fast honey. He is coming for you and from what he told me, what I got was minor compared to what he intends to do to you. I’m so sorry. The police are looking for him too, so hopefully, that helps.

Love to you!

Chantelle

Chloe stood staring at the phone in the grip of a silent panic. If anyone had been there to see her, they would have seen a pair of wild eyes with dilated pupils. Her heart was racing and her brain was on fire. The synapses were firing like she had just done a monster line of cocaine and sending conflicting messages to every part of her body. Her hands were trembling and her legs felt so weak they were about to give way underneath her. She headed for the chair in front of the desk when her stomach got in on the panic and began to lurch and roll. She ran to the bathroom, stumbling twice before she got there and she began to heave into the toilet. When she finished, she sat down where she was and she cried. She cried giant, gulping sobs for her friend.

Poor Chantelle. God, what did she do by getting her involved in all of this? Once Jesse found out she lived, would he go after her again? He’s here in Rhode Island now, she was sure of it. If the police can’t find him, he must have left New York right after he left Chantelle for dead.

Chloe wrapped her arms around herself and sat there on the floor of the bathroom rocking back and forth. What should she do? Should she call Derek? Should she put him at risk like that? Her answer to both of those questions was no. She should do what Chantelle told her. She should run further this time. But what then? Be a pole dancer the rest of her life? Never get close to anyone? Never get to know her parents or explore what falling in love with Derek felt like?

No, he wasn’t doing that to her again. Never again would she give up her life for this monster. Never again. She used the side of the toilet to push herself up off the floor. On noodle legs, she stumbled over to the sink and turned on the cold water. The first catch in her hands, she threw on her face. The second and third she drank like a woman who had been lost in the desert for days. She couldn’t get enough.

When her thirst was finally sated, she dried her face and went back into the bedroom. She fished her smokes out of her bag and went through the house out to the back patio. The sun was just going down and she could see the big, bald guy that Derek’s father hired to watch her standing a few feet from the side of the house. She lit her cigarette and brought it to her lips with a hand shaking so badly; she could hardly hold it. She inhaled a deep drag and held it in her lungs, letting the calming nicotine find its way into her veins. It gave her a head rush and she had to lower her head until it passed. She took another drag and looked out across the ocean. This was her home now and she loved everything about it. Jesse was not going to take that away from her.

**

Jesse sat on the rocks with his binoculars and watched her. She was dressed in some kind of work-out gear and every one of her supple curves was visible. He wondered why she’d gotten all dressed for a work-out and instead of going, she was standing on the porch smoking like a freight train. She used to smoke when they were together too. She said she only did it when she needed to calm her nerves. He wondered what she was nervous about.

Jesse had gotten rid of his phone and the debit card and then he’d borrowed a phone from a guy on the pier and he’d called his mother. She told him about Chantelle being found and telling the police he’d tried to kill her. He worked himself up into a frenzy of tears and swore to her up and down that he was set-up. It must be someone who was trying to sabotage his dad’s career or even a criminal that Vince had put away, trying to get even. He wasn’t a murderer. He’d pleaded with her, “Mom, please tell me you know that.”

“I know it, Jesse. But they think you did it, honey. They’re tearing our houses apart looking for you.”

“I need to get out of town, Mom. Will you send me money? I can’t use the card. I need you to wire me some money. Please Mom,” he’d sobbed. “I’m so scared. I’m all alone and I don’t want to go back to prison. Please help me.”

She had agreed to wire the money. Jesse thanked her profusely and told her he loved her so much and he would call her as soon as he got somewhere safe. An hour later he was picking up his one thousand dollars from the little run down pharmacy on the far end of town in a neighborhood where no one noticed anyone unless you had a hook-up of some kind for them. He bought a disposable cell phone and filled the Prius with gas. Then he drove back up the coast, parked the car and now here he sat, looking at Kelly.

He adjusted the lenses on the binoculars so he could get a closer look at her face. It looked like she’d been crying. She must have gotten word about that slut, Chantelle. He hoped that she knew it was her fault. He hoped that she was sick about it and he hoped that she was very, very afraid.