Chapter 11 - Delilah #2
"Yeah," I say simply, because it's easier than explaining that my interest in criminal psychology comes from firsthand experience with monsters. "I want to help people someday. Maybe work with the FBI, or be a therapist. Help other kids who are going through what I went through."
It's not entirely a lie. I do want to help people. I want to understand the darkness that lives inside people like my father, want to learn how to identify it and stop it before it can hurt anyone else.
I just don't mention that my definition of "stopping it" might be broader than what most people would consider appropriate.
"That's a beautiful goal," Janine says, and I can hear the genuine pride in her voice. "You're going to do amazing things with your life, Delilah. I can already tell."
The confidence in her tone startles me. Because she's looking at me like she sees potential instead of damage, like she believes I can become something other than just a survivor of my father's violence.
Maybe she's right. Maybe the girl who helped position a dead body with clinical precision, who felt satisfaction watching justice being served, who carries a confession tape like a shield against the world's lies—maybe that girl can become someone who helps people.
Just not in the way Janine imagines.
I finish my breakfast while she talks about mundane things—grocery shopping, redecorating my room, maybe getting a pet if I'd like one. Normal concerns for a normal life, the kind of conversations that happen in houses where safety is assumed rather than fought for.
But upstairs, hidden in my backpack between schoolbooks and spare clothes, sixty-three minutes of recorded truth wait like a time bomb. Evidence of everything my father really was, everything the world will never know about the man they're mourning as a hero.
Kent gave me that tape for a reason. Not just as proof, but as power. The ability to control the narrative if I ever need to, to defend myself against anyone who might question what really happened that night.
Someday, I might need to use it. Someday, someone might threaten the new life I'm building here in Janine's bright, safe house. And when that day comes, I'll have the tools to protect myself.
Because I learned something important last night, watching Kent work. Sometimes monsters have to be killed. And sometimes, if you're very lucky, someone else does the killing for you.
But if you're not lucky—if you're alone and threatened and no one's coming to save you—you learn to save yourself.
The confession tape is insurance against that possibility. A reminder that I'm not as helpless as I appear, not as innocent as everyone believes.
I'm Delilah Jenkins, daughter of a dead monster, keeper of dangerous truths.
And I'm finally, finally free.
***
The phone starts ringing at nine-thirty, just as I'm finishing my second cup of coffee. The sound cuts through the peaceful morning like a knife, sharp and insistent in ways that make my shoulders tense automatically.
Janine frowns at the caller ID. "Metro Times," she says, declining the call with a quick swipe. "Vultures."
Before I can ask what she means, the phone rings again. Then again. By the fourth call in five minutes, Janine turns the ringer off entirely, but I can see the screen lighting up with incoming calls every few seconds.
"What do they want?" I ask, though part of me already knows.
"You, sweetheart. They want to interview the grieving daughter of the hero cop who was brutally murdered.
" Janine's voice carries disgust that she doesn't try to hide.
"The story's already hitting the news cycle.
'Decorated Officer Slain in Own Home.' They're playing up the tragedy angle, the devoted single father raising his teenage daughter alone. "
The words hit me like ice water. Hero cop. Devoted father. The same lies that have followed my father his entire career, now being carved into stone by people who never lived with his fists and his rage.
"Can I see?" I ask, surprised by how steady my voice sounds.
Janine hesitates. "Honey, I don't think that's a good idea. The coverage is…sensationalized. It might be upsetting."
"I need to know what they're saying." The words come out firmer than I intended, carrying an edge of authority that makes Janine's eyebrows rise slightly. "Please."
She studies my face for a moment, then nods slowly. "Okay. But we're doing this together, and we stop the moment it becomes too much."
She retrieves her laptop from the living room, setting it on the kitchen table between us. The Metro Times website loads slowly, and there it is on the front page: a photograph of my father in his dress uniform, looking every inch the professional law enforcement officer he pretended to be.
"HERO COP MURDERED IN brUTAL HOME INVASION"
The headline makes my stomach clench, not with grief but with fury. Home invasion. As if this were random violence instead of justice delivered with surgical precision.
Janine reads aloud, her voice growing tighter with each paragraph.
"Detective Harold Jenkins, a fifteen-year veteran of the Metro Police Department, was found dead in his home Tuesday evening.
Jenkins, who received multiple commendations for bravery and community service, leaves behind his sixteen-year-old daughter, Delilah, who discovered the body upon returning from work. "
I watch myself perform appropriate reactions—a sharp intake of breath at "discovered the body," a slight tremor in my hands that could be grief or shock.
But inside, I'm cataloging the lies with clinical detachment.
Multiple commendations for bravery. Community service.
The careful construction of a mythology that erases sixteen years of systematic abuse.
"Police Chief Morrison described Jenkins as 'a pillar of the community' and 'the kind of officer who made us all better,'" Janine continues reading. "'This isn't just the loss of a good cop, but the loss of a devoted father who lived for his daughter.'"
The phrase "lived for his daughter" makes me laugh, a sound sharp enough to cut glass. Janine stops reading, concern flickering across her face.
"Sorry," I say quickly, composing my expression back to appropriate grief. "It's just…that's not how I'd describe it."
Janine's eyes sharpen with understanding, but she doesn't push. Instead, she closes the laptop with a decisive snap. "That's enough of that nonsense. You don't need to read their version of events."
But I do need to read it. I need to understand exactly what story the world is telling about Harry Jenkins, because that story will shape how people see me, how they treat me, what they expect from me going forward.
The grieving daughter of a hero cop carries different social weight than the grateful survivor of a child abuser.
The phone lights up again—Channel 7 News this time. Janine declines it without even looking.
"How long will this last?" I ask.
"A few days, maybe a week. Until the next tragedy captures their attention." Janine reaches across the table to squeeze my hand. "I won't let them get to you, sweetheart. You don't have to talk to anyone you don't want to talk to."
The protection in her voice is genuine, fierce in ways I've never experienced before. Someone actually shielding me from harm instead of being the source of it. The unfamiliarity of it makes my throat tight with emotions I don't know how to name.
"What if they keep calling? What if they show up here?"
"Then we'll deal with it. Together." Janine's grip on my hand tightens. "You're not alone in this, Delilah. You don't have to carry this by yourself."
If only she knew what I'm actually carrying.
Not just grief for a dead father, but gratitude for his killer.
Not just trauma from years of abuse, but a confession tape that could destroy half the police department.
Not just the weight of loss, but the burden of maintaining a lie that protects the truth from people who would never be able to handle it.
The phone lights up again. This time it's a number I don't recognize, probably another media outlet fishing for an exclusive interview with the tragic orphan. I watch Janine decline it with practiced efficiency, her movements sharp with protective anger.
"They're like scavengers," she mutters. "Feeding on other people's pain."
"What did they do when Mom died?" I ask, surprising myself with the question. I've never talked about my mother's death with anyone except therapists and police investigators, never explored what the media coverage looked like from the outside.
Janine goes very still. "It was different then. Smaller story, less dramatic. 'Local Woman Dies in Car Accident' doesn't capture headlines the way 'Hero Cop Brutally Murdered' does."
"But they covered it?"
"Some. Mostly because of your father's position, the tragedy of a police officer losing his wife, leaving behind a young daughter.
" Janine's voice carries careful neutrality, but I catch the undertone of something sharper.
"The narrative was very focused on his grief, his struggle as a single father. "
His grief. His struggle. Even my mother's death became about him, about his loss rather than the destruction of a woman who'd been trying to escape. I wonder what the real story was, what details never made it into those carefully crafted news reports.
I wonder if Janine suspected then what I know now about the nature of that "accident."
"Delilah," Janine says carefully, "can I ask you something?"
My body goes tense automatically, muscle memory from years of loaded questions. "Okay."
"What really happened that night? When you came home and found him?"