Lilly picked up the cup that was on the nightstand and helped Jenna hold it as she sipped from the straw. Once done, Lilly connected the headphones, placed them over Jenna’s head, and then dialed Jack from Jenna’s phone. She left the door cracked open on her way out.
“Jenna! What the fuck is going on?”
There was something comforting about Jack’s worried anger, always had been. There was nothing like the knowledge that her man would tear the world apart for her. Jack was a protector, which was one of the reasons Jenna was working on forgiving him for his absence. He needed to right a wrong, and frankly, Jenna had no desire to live in a world where her daughter’s killer also breathed. They needed closure, even if that closure wasn’t within the limits of the law.
“I’m f?—”
“So help me God, Jen, if you say, ‘I am fine,’ I will lose the very tentative hold I have left on my sanity.”
Jenna clamped her mouth closed. He had a point there. Instead, she told him the truth, revealing the challenges she’d been facing recently with mobility. A common misconception of MS relapses were that they were short episodes, lasting minutes to a few hours. In reality, though, they lasted for days, even weeks, at a time. Certain symptoms, once they appeared, never went away.
Jenna’s active relapse in the hospital when Jack had told her about Melanie’s murder had not been a pseudo-exacerbation. It had been the threshold, the point of no return that they’d been avoiding since receiving her diagnosis. Her symptoms were better, but she had her good days and her bad.
Today was just a bad one.
“Fuck, baby…” She could hear the anguish in Jack’s voice. She didn’t know where he was, but she imagined him leaning up against a door frame with his head resting on his arm.
There wasn’t anything Jenna or Jack could say to change her condition, so Jenna asked, “Where are you? Did you figure out what Shaw meant?”
Jenna knew that she would never learn what happened to Shaw, and she was okay with that. She didn’t need or want to know. All that mattered was that bastard wasn’t alive to terrorize her family anymore. But the idea that Melanie’s killer was still out there?Thatbothered her. Because it opened up a new wound of an entirely new mystery of who else wanted Melanie dead.
Jack was quiet for a heartbeat before he answered, “Shaw wasn’t in the state when Melanie died, Jen. It wasn’t him.”
Gutted at the news, Jenna had to remind herself to breathe. “You’re sure?”
She wasn’t even sure why she asked. Of course Jack was sure. He wouldn’t have told her otherwise.
“He was over seven hours away, with a woman, the night Melanie was murdered. I spoke with her. It wasn’t him.”
Jenna breathed in deeply through her nose and let it out slowly through her mouth. She didn’t know what she felt about the knowledge that Shaw had been with a woman—she assumed in a romantic sense—and giving him a perfect alibi.Disappointedmade her cringe, but it was the best description she had.
In the absence of Jenna’s verbal response, Jack continued talking. “I think he loved her, or his version of love anyway. He was lying to her, but when push came to shove, he left her to protect her.” She heard a rustling over the line and pictured Jack running his hand through his silver hair. “The craziest part is that he could have had a life with her. If he had let go of his need for revenge, he might have faded into the shadows and I never would have figured out who framed me for Dixie’s murder. But he didn’t. He couldn’t. And it cost him his life.”
Jenna wiggled slightly to shift her weight on her hip. She didn’t need a psychology degree to draw the comparison between Jack’s words and his actions. “Are you asking me if you should let this go? If you should forget your promise, come home, and we move on like our daughter’s murderer isn’t still out there?”
“No,” Jack said without hesitation. “Just the opposite. I’m asking for your forgiveness because Ican’tdrop it. I won’t. It’ll take as long as it takes, Jen, but I swear, I will make the bastard who took our baby girl from us pay for what he did. Even if it means staying away from you.”
Steel,Bulldog, and Ranger rolled up to the colonial home. They were in the outskirts of Philadelphia, close enough to the city where they had easy access but far enough away where they were not bombarded by the noises and distractions of city life. Keys’ van was parked off to the side of the massive columns with the four motorcycles of the others parked in front of the stairs. Since there wasn’t a fifth motorcycle present, Steel could only assume that Scar, and by default Tally, had not made a reappearance.
Which was fine. Scar had helped him get Shaw, which had meant weeks away from Tally. Steel did not want to cost Scar, or any of his other brothers, time with their loved ones. Ghost and Ranger might not have a significant other, but they had responsibilities. Additionally, Ghost’s absence meant Lucky was picking up the slack back home.
It was nearing dusk as they walked up the mossy stairs. The giant house had an empty feel to it, removing the ‘home’ feeling from the house’s description. From the overgrown grass, unkeptgarden, and weed-covered cracks in the driveway, it likely hadn’t been a home for some time.
Upon opening the door, Steel was surprised to see the overhead lights had power. He would have thought utilities for a place like this would have been turned off long ago. There was a dank, mildew smell to the place, along with evidence of an animal nest in one corner. The large foyer had a naked lightbulb hanging from where one might expect a chandelier to be hanging over the grand staircase. Its presence was practically useless in such a large, open room. Flat ceiling lights also littered the ceiling like polka dots.
A sheen of dust on the floor revealed the boot prints of the others as they trekked through the manor.
“What is this place?” Ranger asked from behind Steel. All three of them had a saddlebag slung over their shoulders. When the others had met up with Steel and Scar, they’d had supplies he hadn’t bothered to bring with him the first time. Tally had been the only ‘supply’ they’d brought for Scar.
“Foreclosed estate,” Ghost said as he entered the foyer under a large doorframe from their left. “Keys says the IRS seized the estate and everything of value in the place to pay back the debt the previous owners had accumulated.”
“Everything?” Ranger questioned his best friend.
“Everything,” Ghost reiterated with emphasis. “They even took the toilets and copper pipes. Keys was able to hack into the electric company to get us power, but that’s basically it. We’re roughing it, boys.”
There was a gleam in Ghost’s eyes that made Steel wonder if the man missed the rougher, harsher parts of military life. Ghost had been a SEAL, but hadn’t retired from injury or old age. He’d left because he’d been given an order he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, carry out. And if it hadn’t been for Keys’ interference, Ghost might have been court marshaled for the infraction. It was one ofthe reasons Ghost had fought so hard to allow Keys into the club, even though the kid hadn’t been honorably discharged.
“Been a while since I had to shit in the woods,” Bulldog commented as he walked past Steel and Ghost.
