Chapter 8 #3
Jack said it was an RPG, a rocket propelled grenade, that had destroyed the stores.
That meant intent. It wasn’t like one of those was available at Walmart.
Griffin Shaw, a man who had once hugged her and gave her condolences on the loss of her father-in-law, had set out to destroy her husband.
She didn’t know what the man’s plan was with salting the icy pond.
Had he wanted the kids to fall into the water too?
Her? Jack? Or had any one of them been worthy, so long as it caused terror?
It was possible he hadn’t wanted any of them in the water and just wanted the ice to crack, but Jenna didn’t think so.
Not with the man’s history of killing for hire.
Had he thought Jenna and Jack were inside the store?
Jack didn’t think so. His belief was that Shaw knew they were up on that overlook and had planned the attack for them because of their vantage point.
Which was just sick. Anyone could have been hurt.
What if Mr. Gaunt had been working late?
It wasn’t unusual for the man, and the only reason he wasn’t was because of the holiday.
What if some young couple, like Ollie and Aaron, had been walking by when Shaw had shot his weapon and they’d been caught by the blast?
As she stood by the edge of the rubble that had once been her store, she had to wonder why.
All this for revenge? Jack hadn’t set Shaw up for murder.
He’d committed those murders. He’d taken his military training and used it to line his own pockets.
He was guilty. Yet he held resentment for Jack?
After all this time, enough to try to make Jack suffer?
The only reason Jenna could think was if there was something more.
Something that had either happened to Shaw in prison or that he’d missed because he was in prison that made him blame Jack.
There had to be more. There had to be a better reason than Jack turning him in to the authorities thirty years ago.
There just had to be. Because if all of this was senseless? If Jack got arrested, if Scar went into that freezing water, and if her store had been destroyed for nothing but some twisted game of a sick man, then she really would lose it.
Jack’s arms circled her from behind. Jenna hadn’t realized she was starting to sag until she felt him take her weight.
His lips touched the shell of her ear, raising goosebumps all over her body.
“We’ll rebuild. Maybe not here, but we’ll rebuild.
I’ll give you back your dream, even if I have to do it brick by brick. ”
Jenna closed her eyes, not wanting to see the destroyed building anymore. It would be a while before they’d be able to start cleaning up and seeing if there was anything salvageable underneath. She highly doubted it, but it never hurt to be hopeful.
Jack’s words struck her hard, though. To start over terrified her.
She barely had the energy to run her store now, or the store before it had been destroyed.
Did she really want to start over? She wasn’t sure, and the worst was the fact that she knew Jack would give it to her.
He’d sit her down and do all the work himself just to give her back what she’d lost. He wouldn’t allow her to lift a finger, and he would keep going until it met her specifications perfectly.
She couldn’t do that to him. Maybe Mrs. Gaunt had a point. Maybe she should look at this like an opportunity, rather than a tragedy.
Jenna shook her head, “No.”
Jack stood upright. He kept his hold on her as he shifted around to face her, placing his back to the rubble and blocking her view of it. She opened her eyes to look up at him. “No?” he questioned back.
“No,” she repeated. “I don’t want to rebuild.”
“Jenna, baby, this was your dream,” he started, but she put a finger to his lips to stop him mid-sentence.
“It was,” she agreed, “but dreams change. Yours did. You gave up the club for me. I would have never sold the store or quit because I loved my store. And it fucking sucks that it’s gone. But I don’t want to rebuild, Jack. I don’t want to start over.”
He stared down at her for a long while, as if he was looking for something. Checking she was telling the truth? “What do you want to do then?”
Jenna took a deep breath, and the acrid stench of burnt plastic filled her nose.
She crinkled it. “First, I want to get out of here. You were right, and I shouldn’t have come.
I’m sorry I made you bring me.” Jack had valiantly fought Jenna on bringing her here, but in the end, she’d convinced him.
She’d been wrong. “Second, I don’t know yet.
It’s not something we have to decide today, though.
Right now, Jack, I want to go home and just curl up in bed with you.
I just want to forget the outside world for a while. Can we do that?”
He leaned down and brushed his lips against hers. “Anything you want, baby.”
He helped her turn, keeping a strong arm around her waist as he walked her back to the SUV where the prospects waited. They’d retrieved the old truck from the mountain the morning after Valentine’s. They checked it over for trackers or sabotage, but Jack said nothing was wrong with it.
Jenna’s stomach growled as Jack was buckling her in. “Can we stop by the diner first?”
He smiled and kissed her before repeating, “Anything you want, baby.”
Jenna smiled back, because she was lucky enough to be one of the rare few who got to see his smile regularly.
Jack wanted to give her back her dream, not realizing that she’d never lost it.
He was her dream. Jack, their kids, the club…
Jenna had her dream. The rest? It was all just icing on the cake.
Shaw would soon learn that it would not be so easy to make them crack. He would get pissed off and he would make a mistake, and when he did, Jack and the VDMC would be there to catch him. Pretty soon, Griffin Shaw would be nothing more than a name, but Jenna would still have her dream.
“You’d think I’d be used to this by now.”
Steel raised an eyebrow. “Four kids, four passing driver’s tests, and three successful first solo drives, about to be four? Yeah, one would think.”
Jenna lifted her hand to slap the back against him. Because she was sitting and he was standing, she almost got his dick but ended up at his navel. Too bad they weren’t alone, or he’d do something else to make her reach for him—only this time, he’d better her aim.
In the weeks since Little Shoes had been destroyed, Steel had been keeping a closer eye on Jenna than normal.
Regardless of the fact that she said she didn’t want to rebuild, that store had been her dream since before Carter had been born.
It was hard to believe she was just ready to let it go so easily.
But she’d had no relapses. Other than increased fatigue, her symptoms were not progressing.
Cleanup was still underway. Insurance had been a big holdup, and then the weather.
As February turned into March, the snow lessened and the days gradually got warmer.
Cage’s construction crew put off starting work on Keys’ new building to help the town clean up before the tourist season started in the spring.
As a trade, Keys and Tom were taking over several of the open apartments in the clubhouse.
Master Key Security Solutions was now officially open, and they were taking applicants.
An active duty Navy SEAL Lucky and Bear had met in Disney World the previous year was coming in for an interview soon, and he was bringing his two old former SEAL brothers with him.
Steel did not allow Jenna to return to Little Shoes, or the space where Little Shoes had been.
Every day someone from the club would bring totes of things they found in the rubble to Jenna and Steel’s house for Jenna and the ol’ ladies to go through.
Anything they thought was able to be kept and donated went into a pile to be washed or cleaned.
Everything else went into a dumpster Steel had rented to help dispose of the large amount of trash.
They catalogued what they could against Jenna’s last recorded inventory to help with the insurance claim.
With Steel’s accusation against Griffin Shaw, Carlos was able to put a BOLO out for him as a person of interest. However, there was no proof.
None of the cameras in town showed any clear image of the culprit.
Just some shadowy images and one of a man in a mask carrying a guitar case.
As far as records went, though, Griffin Shaw was presumed dead over thirty years ago.
When he’d joined the CIA, his records and identity ceased to exist. The military had him marked for an execution that didn’t happen.
If it had, it would have been the first US military execution of a service member since 1961.
Carlos’s resources were limited when hunting a man whose history stopped in 1996.
Keys’ methods were proving just as inadequate, but the Tech was determined.
He swore if he could find Scar’s records after his presumed death, he could find Shaw’s too.
The biggest difference was that Scar didn’t have the CIA running his life for over a decade.
He’d only been with Primis for two years, and they’d never created a fake identity for him.