Chapter Six JACKIE
Chapter Six
JACKIE
Any moment now, Eliza’s going to snap if I don’t pry her from the clutches of the wedding planner. My crowd-averse brother is somehow planning her a royal wedding. I get it. He loves her, but he’s sprinted past the romantic fairy-tale wedding, straight into a tulle- and stationery-fueled nightmare.
“How about we take all these binders back to my place and look them over?” I quietly interrupt Grace, glancing inconspicuously at Eliza.
“Oh, I can…” The event planner looks ready to grab everything and follow us.
She’s only doing her job, and I don’t want to hurt her feelings. “I think it will help Eliza to take a step back for a few hours. We’ll call you after we look at them with a clearer mind.”
Eliza is far too nice to say anything, but the look she shoots me is almost comedic in its unfiltered relief.
“That was a lot,” she exhales once we’re safely in the car.
“Tonight, you’re taking a break,” I say, sliding in next to her. “No negotiations. Carter can survive twenty-four hours without his bride-to-be.”
She slouches in the backseat, looking a bit deflated. “Never thought getting married came with that many spreadsheets. It feels like I don’t have time for anything else.”
“It’s your wedding. You call the shots. And you shouldn’t push your life back to plan a huge wedding you don’t even want.”
She sighs, fiddling with the hem of her dress. That small gesture reminds me of the first time Mom and I dragged her to a woman’s luncheon. She was totally unprepared and overwhelmed.
“Yeah, but everybody expects Carter’s wedding to be this grand social event. And I don’t want to disappoint Clara. I know what people say about me,” she murmurs, voice barely audible above the hum of the engine. “I’ve overheard them a couple of times.”
A wave of protectiveness surges through me with such force, my ears ring. “Fuck. Them.” I clasp her hand and squeeze it. “Forget about everybody. You deserve to do whatever makes you happy. Mom might try to get into full Met Gala mode, but I’ll handle her.”
Eliza still looks unsure. Her gaze drifts out the window, to the brownstones lining the streets, the Hudson River glinting through the narrow alleys between them.
“My brother would marry you in a back alley if you asked him to. All he wants is you.”
The corner of her lips lifts slightly, and I take it as a good sign.
After the car stops, Patrick, my bodyguard, is at my door in a flash, opening it with a smile.
“Come on,” I tell Eliza. “I’ll make you an iced tea. We’ll sit on the terrace and relax a bit. God knows we need it.”
The ivy climbing up one corner of the house sways gently, leaves rustling in the breeze. This neighborhood has a kind of hush I’ve come to love. Here, I can finally breathe.
“Still can’t get over how beautiful your house is,” Eliza giggles, admiring the old brownstone with a look of awe. “It looks like it wants to tell me a story.”
I punch in the key code. “It would probably have some juicy ones. The industrialist who built it was a fan of crazy costume parties. I’ve got some old news clippings in the attic.”
She follows me inside, a new idea taking root. “Did you ever think of throwing one? Maybe—”
Firm hands clamp around our arms, and the rest of her sentence scatters into the quiet hallway.
“Don’t move.” Patrick’s voice is tense, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up straight.
Eliza stiffens beside me, her chest barely moving.
No strange noise breaks through the tense air, but I follow his narrowed gaze past the foyer to the arcade leading into the living room.
The coffee table is flipped, with its legs up on the hardwood floor.
Rosie’s not supposed to come and clean until tomorrow.
Nobody else had any business being in my house today.
“Possible intrusion,” Patrick barks into his sleeve. “Send a team. Now!”
He’s pushing us against the wall, shielding us. Eliza’s shrinking behind his tall frame, her lip trembling.
No. Not in my home. This can’t be happening.
“Move,” I snap. “Let me see.”
“You can’t go in there,” he mutters, eyes darting between the stairs that lead to the upper floor and the living room.
The door bursts wide open, and three other security guards barge in, guns raised.
“Take them to Mr. Rawlings’s penthouse. Now!” Patrick orders, steel in his voice. “You.” He points at one of them. “Clear the upstairs. I’ll take the ground floor.”
“No!” I duck under his arm and march to the living room.
“Jackie!” I hear the edge in his voice, but I don’t care. “The intruders might still be here. It’s dangerous.”
“Good thing you’re here and armed then,” I grit back over my shoulder, before I step into the room and finally take in the scene. And freeze.
My living room is trashed. The furniture is askew or turned over. Pieces of broken ceramic pepper the floor. Paintings are slashed. Every drawer and cabinet door pulled open and left hanging.
“Fuckers…”
The Monet, a birthday gift from my brother, ripped to shreds above the fireplace. The little girl he said reminded him of me when I was little, ruined. I don’t care about the value, but the memory of that day. Torn open.
My favorite reminder of how much my brother loves me.
Tears sting at the corners of my eyes. It’s the first time the reality of my situation truly hits me.
Patrick’s patience is wearing thin, and he grips my arm, his voice booming in my ear. “Enough. You have to get out of here.”
“What about the other rooms?” I mumble. “My office—”
“Jackie, please.” Eliza’s small voice breaks through my haze. “We’ll figure it out later. Just let them make sure it’s safe.” The panic in her voice gets me moving. After everything she went through last year, this must be sending her into a tailspin.
I follow one of the other guards, my feet heavy.
“Call me the second it’s all cleared. I want to check if anything’s missing.”
The image of strangers rummaging through my home, invading my private space, churns unpleasantly in my stomach. Were they after money? It’s not like I keep it under the mattress. Valuables or…something worse?
Logan’s team pours out of their armored vehicle, rushing past us as Patrick pushes us toward the car.
The SUV takes off with a screech, another black SUV with extra security trailing behind us.
“Oh my God, Jackie, are you OK?” Eliza’s expression is contorted with worry.
I can’t answer her. My jaw is locked solid, shock and anger writhing under my skin. This loss of control over my belongings, my life, is pulling at the center of who I am.
It’s like somebody threw a lit match into my perfectly curated life.
When we arrive, a ridiculous number of men in suits funnel us into the glossy elevator. There are too many people in here. Too silent besides the hum of the rolling cables. It’s suffocating.
On the top floor, the doors open, and Carter’s rigid frame is waiting for us. Nostrils flaring. Barely contained rage.
I expect him to run straight to Eliza and check on her, but he takes two large steps and hugs us both with an urgency that makes the back of my eyelids burn.
“We’re fine,” Eliza murmurs, but my brother only holds us tighter.
We probably make for a weird sight, but I can’t bring myself to care. For the first time in what feels like hours, I let myself relax.
“You can let go, Carter,” I mumble into his crisp shirt. “I’m running out of oxygen.”
He reluctantly takes a step back, with Eliza still plastered to his side. She doesn’t look ready to let go yet, and I can’t blame her.
“You’re not going back there,” he says in the tone I’ve heard him use to order people around at the office.
It’s enough to straighten my spine. “Let’s not jump to conclusions. We don’t know what happened yet.”
“What is clear is that your house is not safe.”
“You should move in here,” Eliza chimes in quickly. “Right?” She glances up at my brother for confirmation. By the way he smiles at her, she could have asked him anything, and he’d agree.
Something about the ease with which they find comfort in each other makes my heart twist. For the briefest of moments, I feel a pang of jealousy for what they share.
Embarrassment quickly snuffs it out, and I get back to the issue at hand.
“Don’t get the guest room ready just yet.” I strive to sound confident. “We don’t even know the extent of the break-in. Maybe they only rummaged through the ground floor.”
“And how’s that better?” Carter snaps. “Your house has a security system. How did they get past it? Until we know, you’re not stepping foot inside—”
“It’s my house!” I snap. “I’m not running because someone trashed a few rooms.”
“Did they take anything?”
“I don’t know, I didn’t get to see much.”
Carter runs a hand through his hair, frustration simmering. “You should’ve listened to me and agreed to more security.”
Before I tell him where he can shove that condescending tone, Eliza steps between us, toning down the argument, like sand over fire. “Come on, I’ll make you some tea,” she says gently. “It might take a while before they finish with the place.”
Cup in hand, half-listening to Carter’s call with Logan, my gaze keeps drifting past the edge of Central Park. From up here, I can just make out the block in the Upper West Side where Adam lives now.
I’ve never been to his new place, of course. That doesn’t mean I didn’t go on a little virtual tour online when Carter sent me the link. And possibly slip into an ill-advised daydream about having breakfast together on that small terrace by the kitchen.
It’s stupid, I know that.
And yet… Why am I wishing I were there instead? Waiting for news in his arms, rocking to the sound of soft words whispered against my skin?
The tension in the penthouse hangs low like a storm cloud. Everyone’s frowning, calling whoever needs to be looped in. My mom’s hysterical, frantically packing her bags in her Paris hotel room to come back, yelling into the phone at me to move in with her.
Five agonizing hours of pacing and an uncountable number of calming teas later, Patrick finally calls.
“Security footage’s been wiped…” He sounds tired, and I instantly regret giving him a hard time earlier.
“Not exactly the good news I was hoping you’d lead with.”
“Yeah, sorry,” he sighs. “Agent Ruiz is here. She’s waiting for you.”
After one whispered argument with my brother, Eliza “decides” to hang back and get the extra bedroom ready for me. I can’t blame Carter for wanting her out of the chaos. This is not what she signed up for.
My stomach drops at the sight of the house. The street’s flooded with flashing lights and barricades. NYPD cruisers. Evidence collection vans. And, of course, the ever-hungry news vans, reporters circling like vultures.
We duck under the yellow tape in silence, ignoring the questions yelled at us. In the doorway, Agent Ruiz is already waiting, arms crossed, her gaze as stern as the blue suit she’s wearing.
She doesn’t bother with pleasantries. “I need to ask a few questions.”
Inside, the house is unrecognizable: black fingerprint dust smears everything, evidence boxes litter the floor, and harsh fluorescent lights flood every corner. People are roaming around in white coveralls, cataloging everything, and I want to scream at them. To throw everybody out.
The sick, slithering feeling of so many strangers stomping through my space crawls over my skin. I put on a good front for Carter about not moving out, but I don’t know how I’ll be able to relax or sleep again in this house.
My brother takes in the place in silence, grinding his teeth. “You can’t stay here.” His tone is non-negotiable. “Pick a place, and Logan will turn it into Fort Knox.”
“How homely,” I deadpan.
Carter glares at me, totally unamused. But he doesn’t understand. No steel door or bulletproof windows will fix the gaping hole threatening to tear my sanity apart.
At the base of the staircase, Agent Ruiz stops and turns to us, her sharp gaze assessing me for a beat too long. “Is there anything you haven’t told us about the attack?”
My brother jumps in, his voice clipped. “We’ve shared everything.”
I glance up the staircase. I can’t see the team, only hear muffled shuffling and camera flashes.
A dark feeling seizes my muscles. “Why are you here?”
I’m not an expert on police investigations, but this level of response doesn’t say common burglary. The FBI wouldn’t be involved.
Ruiz’s lips press into a thin line, her gaze calculating. She doesn’t say anything, but motions for us to follow her upstairs.
She heads to the first room, and I brace myself for any comments.
“Are any works in here valuable?” Ruiz waves to what’s inside.
My hobby room. I know I’m not talented. Calling all this art would be an insult to the word.
Even Bob Ross couldn’t say anything nice about my paintings.
Still, something about that sound of the brush dragging against the canvas, the repetitive rhythm of each stroke, seeps into my bones and tethers me to calm.
When I paint, I can unplug my brain for a while.
It’s all been trashed.
“Not to anybody with a shred of good taste,” I say bitterly, taking in the broken brushes, busted tubes, and slashed canvases.
“So, this is all more of a statement,” Ruiz clips, already moving on to the next room. “Much like this one.”
The door to my bedroom is wide open, and she lingers in the hallway, allowing me to step in first.
I smell the paint before I see it. Sharp and metallic.
“What the fuck.” Carter’s voice breaks behind me, but I’m numb.
Thick red streaks cling to the wallpaper in erratic waves, dripping like blood. I follow the trace until it leads me to the words smeared in bold strokes above my bed.
My vision blurs.
My knees give out.
One second later, I’m weightless as Carter’s arms wrap around me, steadying me by the waist.