Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
JACK
It’s been a few days since I slept at Alaska’s.
Each night, I replay it all to my ceiling.
Did it really happen? Now my bed isn’t as welcoming anymore.
The sheets are empty from her form, the other pillow mocking me.
It’s hard to describe how something can feel so right all of a sudden.
It’s like I’ve been underwater for decades, searching for her.
Waiting, when she was there all along. Waiting for me too.
To be honest, I could listen to her for hours without ever getting bored, and even so, share silence with her too, without it being awkward.
We haven’t talked about me staying in Lakeside again, but I’m planning on figuring this out today with Captain Fletcher and seeing if there’s a spot for me as Jared’s teammate.
I won’t miss Minneapolis, for sure. The noise, drug cases, nonstop honking, and the loneliness I felt there.
Nah, I’ll find a way to see my family or make them come here as often as possible.
I still need to figure out if Captain Raines will accept me staying here, though.
Jared enters our office. It’s late in the afternoon, he should be going in half an hour. He never stays too late, unless we have an emergency. Likes to play soccer with the local team. “You should come,” he said multiple times. Maybe I will. Yeah, why not?
“Alright,” he sighs, “we did good today, not saying we’re gonna get a medal for it,” he punches the air twice, “but we’re finally gonna be able to confirm to the family what happened,” he grins, motioning a fake baseball throw, talking about case number five we closed today.
I’m seated in front of him, sorting out paperwork.
“Hope they’ll find peace once they know.” I can’t imagine something worse than losing someone you love and never knowing what happened to them. It’d be like waiting for a train that’ll never arrive, clutching your luggage so hard your knuckles turn white from desperation.
“Kind of the whole purpose of it,” he says, bobbing his head and chewing his gum. “Fletcher is going to be real happy about us.” He winks. “We’re one hell of a team, you know?”
I roll my eyes. “Yeah.” Then I clear my throat, rubbing my neck with one hand.
“How’d, um, how’d you feel if-if, let’s s-s-say, I would, you know, st-stick around a bit?
” Jared lifts his face from the screen and stares at me with what I gather is the epitome of the insolence his parents must have put up with for years.
“No way. City boy wants to stay in the countryside?”
“What did I t-tell you about this nickname?”
“Alright, alright. What do you mean? You wanna stay? Don’t you have a huge promotion waiting for you there?”
“Yeah,” I rasp, “kind of, b-but—”
“But there’s Alaska,” he finishes for me with a smug smile. I keep my mouth shut because why would I even try to hide the obvious?
“Hope you do, partner,” he says, his voice softer, and it reminds me of the time Annie asked me to stay with her before going to her first summer camp. “Hope you’ll stay. You know, I still have to annoy you a bit more; someone’s gotta do it.”
“Let’s see what the C-Captain will say.” He nods back, because that’s both out of our hands. Still, I wanted to know if he wanted that too and I’m glad he does.
“How ’bout we go get some beers and celebrate? We deserve it.” He exhales a pink bubble, making it snap.
“Nah, don’t think we d-deserve a break. There’s still lots to do.” A strong, older voice bounces off the wall.
“Come on, Parkson, live a little,” Captain Fletcher says from the doorframe, hands on his waist. “I just read your report. This family is finally going to get the answers they’ve been looking for, thanks to both of you.
So go on, get out and celebrate.” Jared doesn’t wait.
Shuts down his computer and grabs his jacket.
“Come on, Parkson. No time to waste,” he says, running a hand through his hair and bending to see his reflection on the black screen. I stand too, a ball of nerves in my stomach as I turn to my Captain, the question about to pop out.
“Parkson, I had Captain Raines on the line about two hours ago. He’s thrilled about your work, as I am.
He offered to get you back there within a month,” he declares bluntly, before I even get the opportunity to ask if I could stay.
“Keep me updated,” he grunts, rushing back to his office.
In a month. The air leaves my lungs. Damn it.
I’ll ask him tomorrow. It’s not like anything could change in one night.
I make my way out of the station and join Jared in our patrol car.
“Tamison’s Bar?” he asks, revving the engine.
“Sure.” We begin driving toward the center of Lakeside, heading to the local Irish pub.
“By the way,” Jared says casually, focused on the road, “I thought about your misplaced tape again. We had a guy here who got transferred to another station, used to take care of the archives. He was a lazy ass and would often misspell things. It happened a few times. Anyways, now that I think about it, maybe your W was actually an M. Just saying.” He shrugs, like what he just said didn’t shatter my world into an effervescence of uncertainty.
Perhaps your W was actually an M.
I freeze, my blood stopping its course. The initials on the tape might have been mistaken. The name, or place, that was supposed to be W.J. was, maybe, in fact, M.J.
My stomach drops.
It wasn’t written W.J.E.L.C.
One simple mistake changed everything. I knew it in my gut, I had seen those letters somewhere.
M.J.E.L.C as is Matthew Jenkins Evidence from Lakeside County.
Suddenly, it all makes sense. The damp fabric photograph.
The piano teacher’s reaction ‘cause of course he’d taught him at some point.
Matthew’s a pianist, she said it multiple times.
He must have learned with him. The old man knew.
There's also the way Alaska talks about her brother, and yet I’ve never seen the guy anywhere.
In a town smaller than my pocket. The truth hits me like a ton of bricks. Alaska’s sweet face flashes in my mind.
“Jared,” I ask, my voice shaking, “c-can you turn back and d-drop me off at the st-st-station?”
“What?” Jared shouts above the pop music he’s been singing along to. “Why?”
“I forgot something,” I say, on autopilot. Both palms resting on my thighs.
“Kay,” he grumbles, turning around and dropping me off at the parking lot.
“Don’t wait f-for me,” I shoot at the open window as I close the door.
“You’re dumping me? Thought we were gonna celebrate.”
“I… I forgot I had to do something. We’ll celebrate another day.” I turn, leaving him with both brows raised and his head shaking.
“Whatever,” he mutters. I head back to the office, but I don’t stop at my desk.
I head straight to the archives, retrieve the misplaced tape, and bring it back to my desk to view it on my computer.
I wipe the dust from the plastic case, insert it into the tape player, a much more modern version than the one in the archive room.
And this time, it works. I shut the door, put my headphones on and watch the worst thing I’ve ever seen.
My chest tightens when a sixteen-year-old Alaska appears on screen, seated in our interrogation room.
Ghostlike. Barely alive. Her knuckles are still smeared with blood, fresh stitches across her skin.
She’s hunched, sitting as if she could fold into herself and vanish into dust. A voice speaks off camera, making her shoulders jerk.
“Alaska. Alaska Jenkins,” she says with a broken voice.
Time passes and I keep watching as the woman I fell in love with gets drowned in questions and accusations.
The cop in front of her twists her words, makes her say things she doesn’t mean, or doesn’t even register.
There’s no spark in her cobalt pools I’ve grown so used to.
No blood pulsing under her skin. Nothing remotely close to a functioning human being.
She’s in shock. That much is obvious. Her shattered voice cuts through the blur of the footage.
I can’t look away. She’s the embodiment of fragility, and it makes me sick to my stomach.
How did she end up like this? Why is no one helping her?
No doubt the interrogator is forcing answers out of her.
Whatever she’s done, she isn’t fully responsible.
She’s too young and too lost to have committed the unthinkable.
All I see is a wounded animal, backed into a corner.
I shut my eyes as the video ends, and then I do the one thing I should have done in the first place.
I could look up his name in our police database. It’d be a formality if only her white scars didn't haunt me.
No.
Doing it now would be a betrayal. She deserves to tell me first. So I do what I should’ve done months ago. I turn off my computer, take the tape, the photograph, and head straight out to the parking lot, ignoring the stares of my colleagues.
The drive takes longer than usual, every mile stretched to hell.
By the time I park in front of her place, my pulse is hammering in my ears, just like the day my mom told us about my father’s heart attack.
Her house is dark, except for the faint glow from the living room window.
I check my watch. 6:30. She’s home. I step out of the car, my breath misting in the cold air.
Every part of me wants to rush inside, demand answers, make sense of the last few months.
But I force myself to slow down. If I come at her wrong, she’ll shut down.
That’s how well I know my girl.