Present Day
Jace Bennett
ASKING FOR A favor wasn’t something I made a habit out of.
This, though, was something I needed to know, and wasn’t sure I’d gotten the entire truth when I asked.
I’d clicked on her resume at least a dozen times since coming face-to-face with her in that conference room.
What it stated was all fact. She’d graduated Michigan State and had gone to work for the Crestfall Paper Company as their Network Administer. It was a small job with a less than decent salary of forty thousand a year, but then again she managed a one-person department in a company whose financials were seriously suffering.
All of what she had said was backed up in black and white on the document she had presented before she was hired. It wasn’t that I doubted her. I just didn’t think it was the whole story, and I just didn’t get why she never pursued her dream.
There was more to it.
The knock on the door was expected, and the person who strode in was also expected.
Ethan was . . . as usual, serious. Although today he looked even more serious, and that made my gut twist.
I’d asked him for a favor. One he wasn’t keen on. I wanted him to hire someone to do a background check on Hannah. Ethan was reluctant, but I knew as one of the top attorneys in Chicago, he had the connections to find out what I could not. To uncover the stones that weren’t easily turned, if there were any. It took a bit to get him to agree, but he finally did. I wasn’t saying it was right.
I didn’t do it for work.
I did it for me.
For her.
Wearing a frown, he sat in the chair across from me. “You’re not going to like this,” he said in a quiet, serious tone.
Alarm made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. “What did you find out?”
Ethan flopped a fairly good-sized folder down on my desk. “Nothing good.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Just fucking tell me.” The gesture he made with his chin toward the folder told me I needed to start there. I opened it to find a blown up black and white photo of a very pregnant Hannah all beaten and bruised. She was sporting a black eye. Split lip. And there were bruises up and down her arms. Her body was covered, so I couldn’t see the rest, but they must have been there. “Jesus,” I muttered.
Ethan rubbed a hand wearily over his face, his eyes sick. “The investigation into Hannah’s past is thorough, you can read it all right there,” he pointed. “But I’ll give you the highlights and spare you the pain of reading the details.”
My jaw ticked as I stared down at the photo. Then I lifted my gaze back to Ethan. “Yeah, I’d appreciate that.”
So unlike Ethan, he seemed really disturbed by what was in the folder. Emotions were not something he easily showed. He was pretty even keel most of the time. Not this time. His nostrils flared and his eyes blazed as he spoke. “That picture was taken the day before she gave birth prematurely to her son, Jonah. The police report, which had been buried, cited domestic violence. Adam Crestfall, her then husband, was accused of beating her. The internal injuries were so severe, the doctors were forced to induce Hannah at seven months to save both her and the baby.”
My blood went cold, freezing in my veins as that so familiar white-hot haze clouded my vision. “I want to fucking kill him,” I somehow managed to say against the bile in my throat.
“Yeah, me too,” he said. “After doing some digging, the investigator discovered that she decided not to press charges after all, the reason wasn’t documented. But he did discover that upon Adam Crestfall’s release from lockup, he immediately got on a plane headed for California. He remained there until this past June, when his father suffered a stroke, and he returned to Grand Haven to run the family business.”
I pushed back in my chair, agitation gripping me. “This past summer?”
Ethan nodded. “Upon his return, Hannah promptly quit, and filed harassment charges against him. An order of protection was granted for both her and Jonah. I can ask the investigator to find out why if you want?”
I shook my head. I would find that out from Hannah when the time was right.
“Until she moved to Chicago, she continued free-lancing, which she had been doing for quite some time. Despite the fact that her bank accounts are solid, it doesn’t appear she has ever received child support or taken a dime from the Crestfalls. She sold her house in Grand Haven and paid considerably more for the home she bought in Lakeview, then again, the neighborhood is up and coming. She made a down payment on it and mortgaged the rest. Her car is paid for. She doesn’t have any debt. She doesn’t live an extravagant lifestyle. And she has a little more than ten thousand in her savings.”
Sitting back in my chair, I felt like I wanted to punch someone. “So the douchbag returns and she moves heaven and earth to get her son away from him.”
Ethan’s face crinkled in sympathy. “Yeah, it would appear that way.”
Where she ended up was my fault. She might never admit it, but I knew it. I stared over his shoulder at the door, a sick feeling I couldn’t shake taking hold of me.
“This isn’t your fault,” Ethan said in a soft tone.
The look I sent him said otherwise. “Are you sure about that?”
Concern flashed in his eyes. “I am. And I know you aren’t used to hearing me talk like this, but just maybe everyone ended up where they were supposed to. You with Scarlett, and Hannah with Jonah.”
Of course he wasn’t wrong, but that didn’t stop the weight I was feeling. Had I been the catalyst behind the hardships Hannah had faced?
The fact that I met Tricia in the aftermath of Hannah and we had Scarlett was what Ethan was referring to.
I always knew the day I met Tricia had changed my destiny.
But had it changed Hannah’s too?
Believing in destiny seemed absurd, but the idea that it had been in play was harder to ignore.
“Jace,” Ethan said. “You can’t go back in time, and you can’t change anything. All you can do is live with it.”
“Or I could try to make amends,” I whispered, more to myself than to him.
Amends, though, what would they be and were they even possible?
In the end I’d loved them both, but I’d chosen Tricia over the hardship of trying to win Hannah back. Looking back I couldn’t tell you why.
Maybe because Hannah had left me like everyone else in my life, and I wanted to punish her.
Maybe because I wanted to mask the love I had for Hannah with Tricia.
Or maybe because I loved Tricia more.
I honestly just didn’t know. And without the ability to go back in time and consider this . . . I never would.
I wasn’t sure if that was good or bad.