Chapter 64 Jansen
Jansen
The funeral is somber and sparsely attended.
Clara’s witch of a mother (honestly, calling her that smears the good name of witches everywhere, but I don’t have the energy to swear, not even in my head, not today), is alternating between weeping loudly and laying blame for the coffin at the front with anyone and everyone.
One person is getting most of it though, which sucks. Everyone here is mourning. Her vitriol has no justification today.
Work friends sit in a clump, not knowing what to do about the shrieking woman on the other side of the aisle from us. Her own family left an empty pew between her and them.
Meanwhile, Clara’s dad’s family gathers off to the side, like they’re trying to figure out how long they have to stay before it’s polite to leave. With the way Clara’s mom is carrying on, I can’t blame them.
I’m not for forcing meds on anyone, especially not after my own experiences, but I’d almost make an exception for her.
She’s a piece of work that needs to go straight in the recycling bin, like those worksheets kindergarteners do where they trace the same letter over and over again—work not worth keeping in a memory box.
Work you only brought home because it was time for the monthly desk cleaning and you found it wedged in the corner, but your teacher wouldn’t let you toss it in the garbage without an obligatory ‘ooh’ from your parents.
She’s that kind of work.
This death, to her, is all about her. Her loss, her heartbreak, her grief.
But it’s not about her. Not at all.
It’s about the man who gave his life for his daughter. On her wedding day. At the wedding the woman couldn’t even be bothered to attend.
Clara leans against my shoulder, her fingers wrapped up in Trips’ big hand on the other side of me, and I run my palm along her arm, a few tears dripping from her cheeks and falling onto my already damp shirt. “Why did he do it?” she whispers for what must be the thousandth time in the last week.
None of us answer. We’ve tried, but she can’t hear us through her grief. It’s a heavy blanket over what should be a celebration of our tentative freedom.
Freedom was always going to come at a price, but none of us thought it would be this big.
The hard pew makes my sit bones ache, but I don’t shift my weight, a stillness I usually only manage during deep meditation holding me hostage, unwilling to be the reason Clara moves even a millimeter away from me.
I’m Velcro now that we have her back, but she’s lichen, clinging to us through the storm the last week has put her through.
Lichen with horrid nightmares and a penchant for disappearing in the middle of the night, only for Walker to find her curled up on the couch, sometimes asleep, but more often awake, the TV on with the sound off, and her vacant gaze staring but not watching.
Trips has taken to sitting with her, their heavy silence permeating the house, seeping into the drywall and studs.
It’s been painful to watch, painful to love. But we’re together again finally, even if things are currently miserable. Even if the plan mostly failed.
Trips’ favorite guard was arrested for shooting Clara’s dad, his father telling a different story than Trips or Clara.
The other guards backed him until my text came through announcing we’d destroyed the blackmail.
Now, through RJ’s portal into the police system, we’ve found a few guards changed their stories. We don’t know whether it’ll be enough.
The evil father of doom is still free, all our carefully planted evidence ignored by the cops. For now.
Walker said the cops taped off the office where the shooting happened, where we planted everything we had, and wouldn’t let anyone in. We’re still hopeful that our work won’t be for nothing. But it’s not looking good.
Meanwhile, Mattie’s vanished with Bryce, which has Trips teetering on the edge of sanity.
I can’t say I blame him. RJ’s doing all he can to find them, but Bryce ditched both his phones, as well as Mattie’s.
All my carefully planted Airtags stalled at a rest stop just outside the cities, and they’re not with them.
I drove out and checked. Bryce is nowhere associated with either of their families, and he knows we were tracking him.
Our best guess is they’re hunkering down at some random cabin that’s closed for winter.
None of us like that Mattie’s with him. And none of us like that we don’t know if she’s there willingly or not.
I haven’t said anything, not wanting to stir the pot, but if she’s there willingly, I’m not sure we’ll get her back anytime soon.
And if we do, she’ll be at least as broken as Clara was when she got out of his grip.
Because she’s younger, she could even be worse.
But I can’t say that. Trips is already so close to the edge, and RJ, Walker, and Clara all feel similar levels of big sibling protectiveness toward her.
For all their sakes, I hope she’s okay.
At their father’s insistence, the police are heading up a manhunt looking for them. They’re not doing any better than RJ, though.
Meanwhile, it took a few days for the girls who were going to be trafficked to realize they weren’t at the wedding as promotional models, but rather as victims. Summer worked on the girl she knew, and then that girl broke it down for the other girls.
I hear they’re mostly in shock right now.
Trips has already set aside money for each of them to get therapy, and RJ’s building a scholarship program for survivors of human trafficking, in case that’s the direction they want to go with their lives.
But there isn’t enough evidence to put Trevor behind bars.
Not yet, at least. The police are working through everything RJ gave them, along with the girls’ statements.
The three empty storage units owned by the family are suspicious, and the girls’ stories about their portfolio shoots there match with the images the cops have on the dark web auction site.
Just like the girls themselves match.
Reed says it’s just a matter of time. Someone will turn against Trevor in exchange for a reduced sentence.
Yet another predator will get a slap on the wrist, skirting the consequences of their actions.
I hate it. And until they get someone to sing, Trevor frolics free—you can’t accuse a political figure until you have every bit of evidence locked down. Unfortunately.
At least one part of the plan went better than we expected. It turns out the clearing where I burned all the blackmail had secrets of its own. The kind with dental records.
RJ got his hands on some preliminary paperwork the country cops have, and the pyre was right over a stash of old bones.
Clara and Trips said just enough those first few days for us to worry about fresh bodies with their DNA on them, but so far, everything’s old, old, old.
And after an uncomfortable chat through IRC with Jasmine in Chicago, we learned that the ‘cleaners’ both her family and Trips’ use don’t bury onsite.
Either way, the cops have called in cadaver dogs to clear the rest of the woods. We’re just glad that Clara and Trips don’t have to worry about the people they were forced to kill coming back from the dead with DNA evidence that points straight to them. A small win, I guess.
But even out in the boonies, the police work slowly and carefully, not wanting to upset such a powerful family.
Justice and molasses share too many traits in my opinion.
Another good thing is that, as far as RJ can tell, Trips’ father hasn’t realized there are cops all over his rural property. I guess, having lost his blackmailed manpower, he can’t keep up with all his evil plans.
And he was full of evil plans. Clara and Trips haven’t been able to give us a full account of what happened, but what they have shared was horrifying.
That the only repercussions so far seem to be nightmares for Clara and even worse insomnia for Trips might seem like a blessing. But it’s not. They’ve been through so much, they’ve changed, and it scares me. Because I’ve changed, too.
Once this calms down, will we be able to get back to where we were, where we always should have been? Will we be closer, or do our jagged edges no longer fit together?
Clara shifts her weight, a shuddering breath leaving her as she forces herself to her feet. “I think I’m ready,” she whispers.
Our group shuffles out of the pew, Emma and Summer with us, and follow Clara to the front. She motions for us to stay back as she approaches the casket. A trailing bit of a white flower dangles over the side of the burnished wood.
Clara whispers to the wooden box, pressing her forehead to the smooth surface. My heart aches, having stood in the same place, whispering words to my dad that I’d never get to say to him in person. Gone too soon. A foundation crumbling.
Her mother’s sobs get louder as Clara says goodbye, drawing my attention from where it should be to her furious form.
She glares at her daughter, trembling. Everyone near her turns away, not wanting to watch the woman lose it.
But then she’s flying at Clara, her screams garbled and unintelligible, snatching the back of Clara’s loose curls with clawed fingers.
RJ gets to her first, snagging the woman around the waist and hoisting her away, even as Clara stumbles back with a whimper, her hair locked in her mom’s fist.
“This is all your fault!” her mom screams.
Clara says nothing, just untangles her hair from her mom’s fingers, tears clinging to her eyelashes.
The rest of us slide between the two women, a living wall between them.
But Clara acts like she doesn’t notice the drama, her mother flailing her legs hard enough for one heel to clatter against the floor as her wails grow louder.
Instead, my girl turns back to the coffin, her hand stroking the side. “Love you, Dad,” she says.