Chapter 14
Jessica told the driver to floor it. She was not sure if Linda had been bluffing or if she was truly calling the cops, but she was afraid. She had the taxi drop her off at a corner where she called another to take her the rest of the way home, just in case she was being followed.
It was time to go apparently. With someone as powerful as Linda Davis on her tail, she could not stay in Las Vegas. It was time to find another city and another start. She had not been prepared to make such a big change, but it was time. Gary had taught her to always put her survival first and to bolt at the first hint that her cover was blown. In fact, her mother had taught her about survival and doing whatever it took to make it even before Gary. So she scurried up to her apartment and began to pack her things.
At first she was strong. She was too angry to cave into her internal torment and grief. But as she began to sift through her things to find the essentials, her heart broke. She collapsed into a puddle on the floor, sobbing.
She had just started to slip into love for Evan. And he had been just another sicko, another billionaire playboy. Men were so worthless! Of course he had been a man whore who had cheated on his last girlfriend. Of course he had only been with her for the sex. What a great sweet talker. He was ultimately a better scammer and liar than she was!
It surprised her that he was not the least bit angry that she had been running a scam on him. At first she had thought that he must be a true saint. But now she knew the truth. He was just a sicko, taking her for a ride. It seemed that she was just an object with a pretty face and a great body that men liked to look at and touch. When it came to actually loving her, well, no one did. No one but her mother did, and her mother was gone forever. Now all Jessica had was herself.
She kind of wished that she had stayed to pull off this scam. But obviously Evan knew what she had up her sleeve and would have averted her efforts. How would that have gone down? Would he have sent her off to prison? If he hadn’t, then his mother would have. That was a close one. She had been a fool to think that she could scam the Davis family. They were an evil bunch, more than capable of crushing her family to smithereens. They had before and they were about to again. Jessica couldn’t seem to escape their cruel grasp. If only she could find a way to crush them back. They didn’t deserve to be rich. Why did good people have to suffer, while they got to live lives of opulence and joy? Linda appeared to love hurting Jessica and also seemed to feel no remorse for what she had done to Jessica’s mother.
Jessica looked up at the photos of her mother that she had pinned all over her room. She was stricken with grief as she watched her mother’s pretty face. Recollections of her last conversation with her mother began to play in her ears, as if playing out loud on a recording device.
“Mom, you’re going to be okay.” Jessica had stood over her mom’s bed in the living room of their old apartment where they had lived for her entire childhood. She was holding back tears as she surveyed her mother, laying there as lifeless as a wax doll.
Her mother had not been able to open her eyes. But she squeezed Jessica’s hand. “Take care of yourself, my girl,” she had rasped. “There are many bad people in this world. They will kill you with kindness and then kill you some more.”
“I know, Mom,” Jessica had said. A single tear rolled to the tip of her nose.
“You don’t know anything yet, my darling. But you will find out. Life is cruel. It is hard. I just want you to be careful.”
“Why? You know that you will be here.” Jessica had tried to keep up the pretense that her mother would not die, even though it got harder by the day. Her mother always entertained it. But today she was dead serious. She had one last message to impart to her daughter because she knew her time was drawing near.
“I can’t teach you everything that you need to know. There are some things I wished I had taught you.”
Jessica looked around the apartment. “You have spent the last few months showing me how to do everything, Mom, from the cleaning to the baking. You have taught me everything.”
“But there is more to life than that, honey. Part of building a home is building your heart. I was too busy to teach you that. But I know that you know it already. It is wisdom within you.” She sighed and whimpered in pain.
Jessica knew that her mother was now on unlimited morphine. She went to get her another pill.
“Wait.” Her mother put her hand up. “I don’t want to fall asleep yet.”
“Mom, you’re in pain. Please take one.”
“Just a minute.” Her mom’s face creased with pain. “Listen here. Boys don’t mean a thing. They won’t stay by your side. They are loyal until something else distracts them and they’re always looking for the next best thing. So you rely on yourself before you get with any boy. You be strong and you take care of yourself.” Now exhausted, she accepted her morphine and fell into a deep sleep. Jessica kissed her forehead and murmured “I love you,” but she knew her mother hadn’t heard.
A few hours later, the hospice nurse announced that she had lost pulse. A beautiful star was extinguished that night, and Jessica had never been the same.
But Jessica had always been strong. The only times that she had been hurt was when she failed to listen to her mother’s parting advice. It made her sad that they couldn’t sit and talk as they used to, whenever her mother wasn’t too tired from work and had a few spare minutes. However, it was clear that her mother had really meant what she’d said. It had been so important to her that she had saved it for her last speech to her daughter, her parting wisdom.
Jessica didn’t want to take too much. However, her pictures of her mother and her mother’s journal meant more to her than clothes and jewelry. Her clothes could be replaced with time; her mother’s things could not. She took the pictures off of the walls and packed them with a few essentials. She abandoned almost all of her things, save for the gold earrings that Evan had bought her. At first she wanted to throw them out of the window or in the trash, but then she thought of the amazing day she and Evan had shared in Mount Charleston. Oh well, she thought, why not pawn them later? She tossed them into her bag, lying to herself about how she wanted to hold onto them to hold onto her memories of Evan. Part of her still loved him; it was a deep love that would never end. But she was too angry to feel it or acknowledge it at that moment.
She gazed around the apartment from her couch. It was home. She was so sick of ditching home after home. She wanted a normal life, where she could just settle down and have something stable for once. Something like the apartment she had shared with her mother for her growing up years.
In the morning, something woke her up. She was stunned to realize that she had fallen asleep. How lucky she was that the cops had not found her! She grabbed her bags and banged out the front door. It was only five in the morning and quite chilly. But it was high by the time she hit the bus stop.
“You need a ride?” her neighbor called. She had never really spoken to them before but they seemed nice enough. They always had lots of family over and tons of kids yelling in Spanish. “Sure,” she assented. The stop was a little distance away, especially with her big bags.
At the stop, she stared at the schedule. Where to go? The world was open. She had no family to stay with. She had no friends, not even here. So there was no limit. That freedom felt terrifying rather than liberating, however. If she could have it any other way, she would have. Finally, she settled on Reno. Reno was enough like Vegas that she could make it there for a while, running her usual scams. From there, maybe she would go to Oregon to hunt Gary down, or something like that. Maybe New York City. All of those options depressed her, however.
On the bus, she half-slept with her headphones on so that no one would sit next to her and try to make small talk. Some men tried but she ignored them until they gave up, calling her a bitch. All she could think about was Evan and the sting of his betrayal. How could such beautiful eyes and such kind actions and such thoughtfulness hide such a sick pervert? How could she not have seen his sinister intentions and lewd thoughts about her running behind his eyes?
The bus dropped her off in Reno. She looked around the town and wrinkled her nose. What a miserable and windswept place. It was a mockery of Las Vegas, and just as dirty and down. She hoisted up her bags and began to walk toward the blinking light of a motel near the stop.
Here’s to a new life, she told herself bitterly.