Chapter 18 #3
“However, the plan fell through. Your father was arrested, but you weren’t.
My parents used my reckless train ride in the middle of the night as the excuse they needed to keep me in Seattle.
They uprooted from Port Townsend and decided to return the estate to their vacation home.
After Carolyn,” her voice cracked, “well, I think they used her as an excuse too. I don’t have proof, but I think my dad was trying to keep my mom out of the press for a bit in Seattle after there were some speculations about her illicit affairs with her bodyguards.
I didn’t know about any of that when we moved up here, but it explains why they stayed even after sending me back to Seattle. ”
Jack took in a large, heavy breath and then let it out slowly. The fire did not provide them with a lot of heat, but it helped them to see, along with the partial moon. “That’s a lot to take in. Do you think Carolyn knew? Is that why she left?”
Jenna shrugged, looking away from him. “I don’t know. I don’t know where she is or why she won’t come talk to me. I have so much to ask her and talk to her about, but I have no idea how to get a hold of her. I can only hope she’ll reach out to me when she’s ready.”
Jack squeezed her gloved hands in comfort. “How did you learn about your mom paying my dad in the fall? She told you?”
Jenna’s laugh was humorless. “She bragged about it to me. Like she was some Mafia Donna with a wicked scheme.” She shook her head in disgust. “It was honestly too easy to get her to talk.”
“How did you know what to ask her?”
Jenna glanced back at him. “Chief Cunningham told me what to ask.”
Jack’s mouth gaped like a fish out of water. “What?”
Jenna looked pained as she continued speaking. “Last week, my mom came to my dorm room. She was pissed. Telling me that I’ve lost weight, that I’m failing my classes—”
“You are?” Jack questioned.
She nodded sheepishly. “I couldn’t really…concentrate without you. It was like the world had no taste.”
“I noticed you looked thin today, but I wasn’t sure because we were in heavy jackets most of the day. Plus, I know women like to wear those things around your waists to church.”
“Girdles?” Jenna laughed in earnest. “And how do you know about girdles, Mr. Duncan?”
His cheeks heated. “I…read.”
Jenna raised an eyebrow. “Oh, yeah?”
“Fine,” he growled. “Mrs. Zarin leaves—left,” he corrected with a wince, “copies of her Cosmopolitan magazines in the bathroom sometimes. They’re, you know, something to read when I’m in there.”
The night was silent for a single second before Jenna’s laughter rang out. “Jack Duncan, you read Cosmo while taking a shit?”
Jack shrugged, a little defensively. “Like I said, it’s something to do.” To quickly change the subject, he said, “Have you really lost that much weight? Are you okay?”
“It’s some weight and not as much as what my mom was saying. She was accusing me of withering away to nothing over a boy. And while I was having a hard time eating and concentrating on schoolwork, I wasn’t dying. At least not on the outside.”
“It was awful for me being separated from you too,” Jack told her.
“But it was almost like a drive for me. To make myself better for when we were finally able to be together again.” He pulled on her short hair that was sticking out under her hat.
“Your mom came to your dorm on Tuesday. That was the day…”
Jenna nodded, not needing him to finish that sentence. “This is where I need you to stay calm, Jack. I am not condoning a single thing she did. In fact, I’m condemning her for it. But I do need you to hear me all the way out before you jump to conclusions.”
Jack did not like the sound of that, but he promised.
“From what I understand, your dad tracked down my mom in Seattle. For months since his release, he was trying to get the money she owed him for robbing her house. She’d promised him money, but he’d gotten little, if anything, up front.
The rest was supposed to be paid after you were arrested.
Mom kept going on about how stupid and gullible your dad was that she was actually going to pay him and not have him thrown into jail beside you.
“Anyway, finally your dad was able to corner my mom in Seattle. Rather than give him what was promised, my mom was able to convince him that you had his money. That after he was arrested and went to jail, she gave you the money.” Jenna’s chin trembled as she admitted, “He believed her.”
Jack closed his eyes, his head falling back against the glass of the rear windshield. “‘Bring me what’s owed to me, boy… My money for the bitches…’” He pressed his bent knuckles to his forehead. “That fucker!”
Jenna carefully lowered his hands back down.
She waited for him to open his eyes. “Tuesday morning my mom came to my dorm. I don’t know when she talked to your father specifically, but I’m assuming it was that morning or the night before.
She told me that she’d had enough. That if ‘that boy’ meant so much to me that I would be willing to ruin my life over him, then I could return to him.
To you,” she corrected. “In a sense, she was releasing me from my prison. She did warn me, though, that I wouldn’t like what I found.
That you’d likely moved on and I would see for myself that I was making myself miserable for nothing. ”
Swallowing hard, she continued, “I bought a car and drove myself as fast as I could to your house. Only…I found police cars and ambulances outside your house. You know what I found when I went inside. After you told me to leave, I spoke with Mr. Zarin. When he went back to talk to you, I found Chief Cunningham looking at me funny. That was when I learned about his suspicions about my mother’s part in Mrs. Zarin’s murder.
I don’t know what my mom expected me to find.
I do know that murder was never her intent. ”
“She didn’t pull the trigger.” His voice was hoarse. “My father still pulled the trigger. We learned from Lilly that Mrs. Zarin tackled my dad. She threw herself on him, even though he had a gun, so Lilly could run free. She… She sacrificed herself for Lilly.”
Jenna’s gloved hands gripped his cheeks.
“My mom still put the gun in his hand. Metaphorically, at least. My mom is the reason he went to your house on Tuesday. She set all of this in motion to keep us apart, Jack. To make you look bad in my eyes. To change my perception of you. Your dad pulled the trigger, but my mom loaded the gun.”
Jack shook his head. It was all so…stupid. Mrs. Scanlon’s hatred of him, all because he didn’t live in the same tax bracket as she did, had killed an innocent and good woman. A woman who had taken in two abandoned children who needed a home. “What happens now?”
“Well, that’s up to Chief Cunningham. Unfortunately, it took a bit for him to track down a judge that isn’t in my parents’ pocket.
I borrowed a camcorder from my school’s library and was able to get my mom to confess on tape.
She doesn’t know I have that tape, by the way,” Jenna added.
“Or that I did. I gave it to Chief Cunningham at the funeral today. It just all worked out that I was able to get the confession before the funeral and don’t have to go back to get it. ”
“Are you staying then? Here, in Port Townsend?” Hope nearly set his chest on fire.
“For a bit at least. I don’t know what’s going to happen to me.
Once Chief Cunningham gets the judge to sign the warrant, my mom’s going to be arrested.
As far as I know, my dad’s not involved but he might be.
If he is, I don’t know who gets custody of me until I’m eighteen.
I don’t know if I should look into emancipation too.
I don’t really know much beyond tonight.
Chief Cunningham will have a battle on his hands against my mom’s lawyers and I need to be available as a witness if they can’t use the recording against her. ”
“You’ll stay with us,” Jack declared. “We’ll figure it out.”
Jenna leaned down to kiss him. “Thank you, Jack. I am so sorry for my part in this, too.”
“You and I did nothing wrong,” he argued.
“Our only crime was falling in love. Your mother’s actions and my father’s actions were their own.
” He pulled her back down to his lips. “No more talk of guilt tonight, Jen. No more sadness or pain.” He kissed her again.
“Just you and me, making love under the snowy night sky.”
She rested her forehead against him. “I know I said I wanted to make love, and I do, but I feel like I need to remind you that I’ve never done this before and I might be really bad at it.”
His chuckle was not aimed at her. “Jen, baby, have you forgotten that I’m in the same boat?
I’m as much of a virgin as you are. We’ll figure it out and learn what each other likes and dislikes together.
That way, on our wedding night, after I make love to you, I can fuck you to prove just how mine you are. ”