Chapter 10
Jackie put her suitcase on the floor in front of her dresser and sat beside it. She’d always found packing to be overwhelming. Where should she begin?
When her neighbor called this morning and asked if she wanted anything from town, Jackie had jumped at the chance to come along and see for herself if the roads were passable, especially after last night’s newscast. It was rough going, but to her great surprise, they were able to get through.
There was nothing keeping her here any longer.
No reason to stay at the resort with the Navy SEALs.
An image of Ian appeared in her mind, and her stomach pitched.
She shook her head. Getting away from Razorback and the way he made her feel was a bonus, and not one she cared to examine too closely. The man wasn’t even nice to be around.
Most of the trees had been removed from the road, and with four-wheel drive, Jackie’s neighbor had been able to navigate freely. Jackie didn’t have a Jeep like she did, but Jackie did have Bill’s truck, and felt confident she’d be able to get through.
She transferred clothing from drawers into the suitcase. What about Bill’s things? Could she just leave them behind? There was a limit to what she could bring with her, but emotionally it was beyond difficult to consider walking away without his belongings.
Her face crumpled. She hadn’t even begun to grieve the loss of her friend, fear keeping her defenses solidly in place and preventing the emotions from flooding her completely.
And now, to make matters worse, she needed to move. She wasn’t looking forward to telling Selena. The idea of leaving the only home the girl had ever known was daunting to say the least—especially when Jackie couldn’t share the real reason they had to go.
She started a bag for toiletries, then pushed into the hallway, heading for the bathroom closet, and nearly plowed straight into Razorback.
His hands went to her arms. “When did you get back?” He looked beyond her through her open bedroom door. “You’re packing?”
“Shh… don’t let Selena hear you.” She stepped back, waving him into the room and closing the door behind him. “She’s playing in her room. I haven’t told her yet.”
“Where are you going?”
“I don’t know. Away from here is a good enough destination at the moment.”
“Running away isn’t going to solve your problem.”
She rolled her eyes. “You don’t know anything about my problem.”
“I know you’re Douglas McGrath’s wife, presumed dead after a car accident eight years ago.”
Time slowed down. She’d lived in fear of discovery for so long, but she still wasn’t prepared for it. Her breaths came quickly, her muscles taut and ready to run. “How did you find out?”
“Photo album in the closet.”
Now she gaped. “You went through my things?”
“This morning while you were out. You weren’t being honest with us, and we needed more information to protect you.”
“Who the hell do you think you are?”
He took a step closer. She took a step back. “We’re on your side, Jackie.”
“Bullshit you are! You didn’t get the answers you wanted from me, so you just helped yourself to anything you could find, prying through my life without permission.”
He took another step closer. “We want to help. Why do you think Bill told you to call us? Because he knew he could trust our team. That we’d be there for you if he couldn’t be.”
She pointed at him. “Don’t you use Bill against me. Don’t you take my grief and throw it in my face to make a point.”
“And don’t you push me away because you honestly believe you have to handle everything yourself.
I’m standing right here. Sloan is right downstairs.
We are here for you, we can protect you, but we need to know everything.
” He wiped a tear from her cheek with his thumb, and she jerked back in surprise at the intimate touch.
“You have to let us understand why someone wants to hurt you. Why did you fake your own death?”
She opened her mouth to speak, her bottom lip trembling. “I didn’t plan it.” He was too close to her, too tall, too powerful. She scooted around him and crossed the room to get some space, reaching for a tissue and beginning to pace. She needed to get her thoughts together.
Bill had trusted these men. In the most desperate moment of his life, he had called them in to take his place.
She eyed Razorback warily. “We tried for years to get pregnant.” She forced herself to take a deep breath.
“Three rounds of in vitro before it finally worked, but at four months I lost the baby.”
It was a memory she rarely allowed herself to unbox, the pain of losing a child too intense to describe.
“I remember the nurse brought him to me to hold. He was so perfect, so tiny, my sweet little boy, but his skin was dark.” She closed her eyes, remembering the feather-light weight of his body in her arms, the grief she’d felt then melding with the pain of losing Bill.
She shook her head to clear it. “I thought there must have been some mixup at the fertility clinic like you see on TV, so I had them run my DNA and the baby’s to check.
” Those were difficult days. She’d lost her boy and been so damn confused.
A sob threatened, but she held it in check.
“He was my son. That’s when Doug accused me of cheating on him. ”
It was too much. The tears spilled over, wetting her cheeks, and her breath hitched. “I’ve never told anybody this. I’m sorry.”
He crossed to her and opened his arms, and she stepped forward, resting her head on his shoulder as she wept. It felt so good to be comforted, to have caring arms wrapped around her, telling her it would be okay. Ian ran one hand down her back and her body thrilled at the touch.
It felt good. Much too good.
She stepped back abruptly. “I didn’t cheat on my husband. I knew there must be an explanation in our family history, so I started researching our ancestry.” She laughed without humor, chastising herself for how stupid she’d been then. “I foolishly thought I could save my marriage.”
“You were doing what any loving wife would do in a difficult situation.”
“Hard to believe I loved him once, but I did.” She sighed heavily, her breathing coming back under control.
“Hattie May Edwards, his grandmother, was black. But she died when his father was so young, and his grandfather got remarried to a white woman. That piece of the story was left out in the retelling. A second cousin on a genealogy website sent me a picture of the grandmother with her baby, Doug’s father. ”
Razorback moved to the bed and sat on its edge. “I’m ashamed to say, I just assumed your husband wasn’t Selena’s father, but he is, isn’t he?”
She nodded. Damn it, she was welling up again, and she grabbed a fistful of tissues from the bedside table.
“He didn’t want to try again after the miscarriage.
I begged. I thought the family tree stuff would convince him I could be trusted, that I hadn’t cheated on him and I loved him.
But he still didn’t want to do another round of in vitro.
I got pregnant with Selena the old-fashioned way, five years after we started trying.
” She smiled and wiped her tears away. “I was thrilled.”
“But your husband wasn’t.”
“No.” She sat down several feet from him on the bed. “I thought he was scared of losing her like we’d lost our first baby. But soon I realized it wasn’t fear I was seeing, it was anger. He thought I’d tricked him. Can you believe that horse shit? Tricked him, my ass.” She shook her head.
“Things between us were worse than ever. He was running for reelection as governor of California, and he wasn’t doing well in the polls.
He was stressed. We were both unhappy. That’s when he dropped the bomb.
He showed me the transcript of a speech he’d given at a town meeting after a racially charged shooting made national headlines, where he talks about being a white man, but a white man can still do some good. ”
Razorback’s head tilted to the side. “I’ve heard it. It’s an amazing speech about what we can all do to stem the tide of racism.”
“Right. That speech is what got him elected the first time, but it loses some of its impact if he’s actually of mixed race and lying about his ancestry.”
“He didn’t know his grandmother was black.”
“Oh, yes he did.” She turned to him. “He admitted it to me that night, and brought out of a picture of his grandparents that had been on the wall at his parents’ house the whole time he was growing up.”
“Wait a second. He knew he had African American roots. He knew your child could very well be his.”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“And he accused you of cheating on him rather than admit that to you.”
“Yes.”
“And he lied to the American public, denying his true heritage.”
“That’s right.”
“Why did he tell you all this?”
“Because he thought by showing me how having this child would ruin his career, I would agree to an abortion.”
“That fucking coward.” He shook his head. “And you said no.”
“I said yes,” she whispered, her gaze locked on a spot in the distance. “At that moment in time, I wanted him out of my life for good. I thought if I got rid of the baby…everything would be okay.”
She tore a tissue into thin strips. “I’m not proud of what I did, Ian.
Of what I thought and what I tried to do.
” Her hands dropped into her lap. “I drove to the clinic—out of state, of course—but I couldn’t even get out of the car.
I loved her, even then. What I didn’t know was that Doug’s campaign manager had followed me to make sure I did what I was supposed to do.
And when I didn’t, he ran me off the road, into the Pacific Ocean. ”
“That son of a bitch! How did you survive?”
She shuddered. “He had an attack of conscience and pulled me out of the water. Turns out cars take a long time to sink. Who knew? So we made a deal, he and I. I would walk away and start a new life out of the country. I wouldn’t tell anyone about Doug’s lies or Levi’s attempt to kill me, and he wouldn’t tell Doug I was alive.
It was simple, really. And it worked for eight years. ”
“Until McGrath became next in line for the White House.”
“That’s right. Until McGrath became next in line for the White House, and life as we know it came to an immediate end.”