Chapter 22
Petula sat, shivering. Not from the cold this time, but from shock.
She’d just seen her brother Jefferson for the first time in almost twenty-six years.
And he looked exactly like Statler.
That had made her want to reach out to him; enfold him in a hug she hadn’t been able to give to him for a very long time. Her arms had actually ached with the need.
He’d looked so…happy to see her. His crooked smile was exactly how she remembered it.
Her brain immediately headed down a rabbit hole. She couldn’t help but recall the last time she’d interacted with him in their family home…before her entire world had come crashing down.
Something wasn’t right with Jefferson.
He hadn’t been…himself for a long time.
Even at six years old, Petula knew her brother wasn’t okay, but today was something new. He always walked her to the bus stop in the morning, whether he felt ill or not, but he’d come into her room to sit on her bed while she filled her small backpack, telling her he was too sick to go to school.
“I’m just not feeling…normal.” His face twisted up, but in a frustrated way.
“You look okay to me,” she said, wondering at his funny choice of words.
He gave a long, shuddering sigh. “Come here,” he requested, patting a spot on the mattress beside him.
Petula walked over and sat down.
He draped an arm over her shoulders.
“I can’t explain it to you, Pet, but there are things going on in my head that…
overwhelm me sometimes,” he told her. His defeated posture gave proof to Petula that he was telling the truth.
The way he kept looking around nervously, like someone who was expecting bad guys to jump out and get him, had her worried.
He continued. “Mom and Dad won’t listen. You know how they are. I want to go to the doctor, but they won’t bring me.”
Yeah. Their parents were anti-medicine in almost all ways. Anything that wasn’t what they considered a dire emergency, like having blood streaming from a gaping wound, wasn’t going to get treatment.
Petula herself had been sick with a really bad bug a few weeks earlier, and had felt like she was going to die, but they’d told her she’d be fine, and had left her to cope with her own symptoms the best she could.
She was used to their dismissal of ills, but this thing with Jefferson seemed…bigger than any flu.
Petula felt really bad he wasn’t going to get the medicine he might need to feel better.
“You could tell the school nurse,” she suggested.
Jefferson snorted. “I’ve tried that, and when she called Mom and Dad to give them her opinion, they fluffed it off. As much as the nurse hates having her hands tied, she can’t do anything without our parents’ permission.”
Petula patted Jefferson’s knee. “That’s okay. You know, from all the times we’ve been sick, that we always get better.”
“Not this time, Pet. Not this time.”
Jefferson looked so down-hearted, she put her arms around his middle and gave him a big hug before leaning over to scramble under her pillow.
She handed Bun-bun to him. Petula’s stuffed rabbit always made her feel better.
“Take Bun-bun, and hug him tight. He’ll make it all go away, and you’ll be fine. Then we’ll walk to the bus together, tomorrow.”
“Okay, Pet.” Jefferson looked sad, but took her offering, then kissed the top of her head. “I’ll…see you soon,” he told her.
“Yup. After school and the ballgame Stat’s taking me to,” she responded cheerfully, certain that Bun-bun would fix everything.
Getting to her feet, she waved goodbye and headed out the door.
A tear dripped down Petula’s cheek.
When she and Stat had arrived back home, their world had drastically changed with police presence, strafing cruiser lights, and her own, deep sobs.
That was the last time she’d seen Jefferson until today.
Petula glanced down at the bed she sat on, now.
Tucked under the blankets beside her, was Bun-bun.
Jefferson had kept the stuffed animal all these years, and had gifted it back to her, tenderly and with so much love in his eyes…
Petula’s tears began in earnest.
Jefferson had been sincere. She was sure of it.
None of what had occurred in the past, should have happened.
It had taken many years, but Petula had finally figured out that Jefferson must have been suffering from the onset of either bi-polar disorder or schizophrenia; of which she and Slater eventually had confirmation.
Her guess had always been the latter, since Jeff’s symptoms hadn’t included drastic mood swings.
It had been wrong and blind of her parents not to have had him diagnosed and treated, but since they hadn’t trusted doctors…
Well, it had cost them all dearly in the end.
The bigger question for Petula now, was, since Jefferson had found the help he needed while incarcerated, was he still taking his meds?
Today, even though their time together had been brief, he’d seemed so…normal. And he really had been unquestionably happy to see her.
Had she gotten that wrong? Was Jefferson still a dangerous man?
She wiped the tears from her face and squared her shoulders.
Maybe it was a good thing Julian had come crashing in.
Because, she told herself in a voice that sounded eerily similar to Statler’s, she didn’t know who Jefferson was right now.
Just because he’d spoken in a familiar cadence, looked like Stat, and the loving memories of him as a child had come rushing forward, didn’t mean he had good intentions.
Hell, he had been stalking her.
Still…
Was that purported stalking because Jefferson was waiting for an opportunity to meet her again? An effort that had been thwarted by the number of bodyguards she’d acquired? Or had he, as Statler asserted, been plotting to harm her?
Statler’s words, once again, came crashing back into her head.
The bastard killed our parents, Petti. He can’t be trusted.
Then why hadn’t any of her internal alarms gone off when Jefferson had snuck into her hospital room?
“Is it because he looks like Stat?” she asked out loud, tamping down a new round of sobs that threatened.
Every man in the room turned their head toward her.
“Is what because he resembles Stat, Pet?” Julian asked gently.
She was glad he was treating her with kid gloves. She felt very fragile at the moment. Even more than when she’d been on top of the van, which shouldn’t have been remotely possible.
“That…that I immediately trusted him,” she rasped.
Julian, always in tune with her needs, handed her the cup of water that was still sitting on the table. His brothers shuffled around, then turned away, ostensibly to give them a little privacy as they set about cleaning up any stray glass that had made its way inside the room.
Petula took a big sip, waiting to hear what Julian had to say.
“Maybe,” he responded judiciously. “Or perhaps he really was trying, benignly, to get near you just to say hello, since you sensed he meant you no harm.”
That’s certainly what it had felt like, to her.
“We may never get the truth,” Julian went on, “because now that he’s made his presence known like…this,” Julian waved his hands toward the broken window, “he’s crossed a legal line, and won’t be trusted.”
Petula drew Bun-bun from beneath the blankets, and hugged her long lost pal to her chest. “I know it looks bad, especially now, but him being a danger just doesn’t feel right.”
Julian didn’t contest that, but looked down at the item in her arms, instead.
“Who’s this?” Julian asked.
“Bun-bun.” She conjured a smile. “He’s a stuffie I had when I was young,” she told him, sniffing. “I gave him to Jefferson on the morning when…everything blew up, and he obviously…kept him.”
And now, Petula would never let the rag-tag plushie out of her sight, again. As tattered and worn as it was, it brought her back to her days of innocence; back to a time before she’d witnessed all the evil and cruelty in the world.
Trask interrupted with a slight cough.
“We’ve, uh, done as much as we can here, Julian.” He stood up. “I’ll get the maintenance crew to finish the job, while you…” He gestured with his head that Julian should take Petula out of the room.
Petula fully agreed. She had her release papers, was bone tired, and all she wanted to do was go home and hide under the covers. Which wouldn’t be an option for long. Statler was going to demand answers.
As if she’d conjured him, her brother came barreling through the door.
“Are you okay?” he asked, heading right for her and hunching down so they were eye-to-eye, as if he needed to see for himself that she hadn’t been harmed. Petula got that. It had been the two of them against the world for a very long time.
“Fine, Stat. Just…worn out. I want to go home.”
His face hardened. “Okay. But hear this, Petula. I couldn’t find him this time, but I swear that asshole will never get to you again. I—”
He blinked down at the object she was holding, and an incredulousness came over his features. “Is that…?”
“Yeah,” Petula confirmed. “Jefferson gave him to me.”
“He…kept your stuffie, all these years?”
His face looked like it was about to crack.
“Yeah,” Petula attempted to soothe her brother. “He said it reminded him of me, and over the years, no matter who wanted to take it from him or how much shit he got for keeping it, he never let it go.”
Yeah. There’d been more said between her and Jefferson than she’d let on, but it was her conversation with Jeferson to hold close, and nobody else’s business.
Jefferson had, indeed, said he was sorry, and that he missed her, but he’d also reassured her he’d been able to get the help he needed in prison. For his schizophrenia.
It didn’t feel at all comforting that she’d been right about his condition.
And that he regretted being the catalyst for every horrible thing that had happened to her—in that household—after he’d…done what he’d done.
Petula had been taken aback by that, and had been in the middle of asking Jeff how he knew about her time in the Bothwin’s home, when Julian had rushed in.
But she thought she knew.
Jefferson had been a genius with his computer all those years ago, and she could only imagine he was more of an expert now. He’d most likely kept track of her from prison during those dark days, and despite two name changes, it hadn’t been much of a challenge for him to track her down.
But Statler…
The appearance of Bun-bun seemed to have taken the starch out of her normally skeptical brother.
“That’s…nice,” he finally said with a slight break in his voice. “I’m glad you have it back.”
He cleared his throat and stood up. “Let’s get the hell out of here, shall we?”
He offered his hand, and Petula took it.
There really was nothing else to be said at the moment.
Statler would want to hear her story over and over, once she was feeling up to it, but even he understood that now was not the time.
As the group of large men, Stat, Julian, Spence, and Trask, walked her to Statler’s truck, she overheard Stat and Julian, who were walking a few paces behind her now, discussing her safety.
They weren’t exactly trying to hide their conversation.
Julian was prodding Statler. “I think that once my house is fully furnished in a few days, Petula should come stay with me. It’s pretty obvious that Jefferson knows where you live, but I’ve been staying with my parents, so even if he’s followed me in the past few weeks, he thinks that’s where I hang my hat.
With my new place—an address that isn’t on anybody’s radar yet—Petula will be much safer. ”
“I see the logic in that,” Statler gave in, partially, “but I want my own eyes on her,” he rebutted.
Of course he did. Statler was a protector at heart, but so was Julian.
She waited for the rest of the conversation, to see who would come out on top.
“You could stay with us, too,” Julian offered. “I can make sure my mother and my sisters-in-law set up two extra bedrooms.”
Two extra bedrooms? Oh, hell no. If Petula ended up at Julian’s house, which she was determined to do, there was no way she was doing anything other than share his bed.
And if Stat were in residence…
“Can we decide all this later, please?” Petula pleaded again, this time a little more sharply. She didn’t have the energy to engage right now, but she would be the one calling the final shots, regardless of all the male, chest-thumping.
“Of course,” Julian told her, opening the passenger door to Statler’s truck when they reached it, to help her up and in.
“And don’t worry. We’ll do whatever it takes to make you happy and keep you safe at the same time.
” He glanced at Statler who was rounding the truck and raised his voice to be heard.
“Stat, is it okay if I follow you guys back to your house.” He looked at her a little sheepishly.
“I have a need to keep Petula in my sights, as well.”
Statler grunted, which it seemed like Julian took as a yes, because he grinned.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
He blew her a kiss and closed the door behind her.
Fastening her seatbelt, she gave Statler the hairy eyeball as he hoisted himself into the driver seat beside her.
He didn’t speak.
Smart man.
Clearly, he wasn’t seeing things Julian’s way, but he didn’t want to start a fight. At least not yet.
Good luck with that.
He’d soon find out that Julian’s thoughts aligned more closely with hers, and that this wasn’t a battle he was going to win.
Petula must have slept for the entire ride home, because before she knew it, her brother was gently nudging her awake.
“Petti. We’re here,” he told her quietly.
“Mmm?” She opened her eyes groggily and looked around. “Oh.”
Julian was already outside, standing next to the truck.
She undid her seatbelt, reached for the door handle, and had cracked the door when she heard him curse.
“What the fuck?” His posture had gone rigid.
Statler was out of the truck in a blink, also swearing up a storm.
Petula’s eyes went to where they were both looking, and her gut flip-flopped.
Written across the front of the house in blood red paint—she hoped it was paint—was a warning.
YOU CAN’T KEEP HER SAFE FOREVER.
I’LL BE WATCHING.