Paradise Falls (26 page)

Neither of them said anything for a while. Jennifer slipped one boot off, and Katie helped with the other. Jennifer flexed her damaged ankle, and laid back on the bed. Without saying anything. Katie took Jennifer’s foot in her lap and started rubbing the joint.

“The swelling is almost gone,” said Katie. “You heal fast.”

“Great,” Jennifer sighed.

Katie smiled.

“Why don’t you go talk to him?”

Jennifer looked away from her. “I’m not good with that.”

“Jenn,” said Katie. “Look, I’m not the best judge of guys, either, but I’m worried about you here. I think you might be building this guy up into something he’s not. He’s ‘saved’ you twice over now, and I know how you are about that. I don’t care what you say, that’s why you married Franklin.”

Jennifer scowled at her.

“Scowl at me all you want. It’s true,” said Katie. She pulled her hands back and leaned back on the bed. “I think maybe we should take up his offer, and get out of here.”

Jennifer said nothing. Katie crawled up the bed and laid down beside her. It had been a long time since they talked like this, since before Jennifer left home to go to school. They used to spend quite a lot of time together this way. Katie ended up in Jennifer’s bed half the nights after their father died. Jennifer took her hand and squeezed, and Katie squeezed back.

“I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“He wouldn’t hurt me.”

“How do you know that?”
 

Jennifer closed her eyes, and sighed deeply.

“He’s a good man. He wants to be. I’ve seen him help a lot of people in the last couple of days. There’s a lot of anger in him, but there’s a lot of good, too, and I know how he feels.”

Katie looked up at the ceiling and breathed, slowly.

“Maybe you need to tell him that. Maybe he needs to hear it from you.”

“Really?”

“Give him a chance,” said Katie. “But give him one chance. I know you like this guy, Jenn, but don’t let yourself get dragged into something where you get hurt. If I lose you I don’t have anybody left.”

Jennifer stood up, and headed downstairs.

11.

Jacob drifted. The whole process was mechanical. He drove back to the house. He parked the car, got out. Jennifer opened her door before he had a chance to do it for her. She was pale and trembling and did not look at him. Her sharp grey eyes were focused, distant. He suddenly felt sick. When he had his blade against that little shit’s skin he felt heavy with righteousness, full of fury and conviction. Now, looking at her, he felt sour, like old sweat. She still didn’t look at him, even as they went inside. She almost ran upstairs, leaning on the wall to take the pressure off her injured leg. Jennifer ducked into the master bedroom and Katie, appearing in the hallway, followed her. Jacob rushed through the kitchen, opened up the basement, and locked the door behind him.

Downstairs, he all but tore off his shirt, dumped all his gear in a pile by the desk, and launched an assault on the heavy bag, pummeling it with his fists. No matter how hard he hit it, the tension would not fade. He had real information now, a connection tying a major drug trade to the police, and it was only a few steps up the chain to James Katzenberg. He could
feel
it. There was something much larger going on here, something far beyond a construction embezzlement scheme that went bad. There was more than just the bridge. Drugs were streaming through the town, and the police were tied up in it, with a biker gang. There was no way that, at the very least, Adam Katzenberg didn’t know what was going on, and what Adam knew, James knew.

His hands hurt. His left hand was throbbing. He looked at it and flexed it, closing his eyes to work through the pain. The bag was still swinging from his last punch. He stumbled away from it and sat down on the mats, and took a breath. It came out in hitching gasps. When he had Blondie hanging there, it was all so clear. He didn’t expect Jennifer to react that way.

Why shouldn’t she? She just watched you torture someone.

There was a knock at the door. His head shot up. When the knock came again he sighed and resigned himself to the tongue lashing Katie was sure to deliver after he dragged himself up the stairs. At the top, he undid the bolts and swung the door open. Jennifer stepped into the opening, still dressed in black. She’d let her hair down, and her eyes and cheeks were red. Jacob looked away from her, and walked back down into the basement. She pulled the door shut and followed. Jacob kept walking until he almost reached the wall, and stopped without turning around to face her. His breathing quickened. Her gaze was heavy on his back, accusing. There was something to say, he was sure, but she broke the silence first.

She put her hand on his shoulder.

Slowly, he turned around. Jennifer looked up at him, but somehow managed to look down at him at the same time. The look on her face made Jacob sick, some mixture of compassion and fear and disgust. Her lips trembled, before pressing into a thin line before she spoke.

“You scared me.”

Three little words, but it was like a knife in his chest. He backed against the wall and and his legs went slowly out, and he slid down to sit on the concrete floor. Jennifer continued to stand, arms hanging at her sides, looking down at him.

After a time, she moved to his side and sat down, and pointedly didn’t look at him.

“I like you,” she said.

Jacob blinked and looked over at her.

She was beet red, and brushed the hair out of her face. “I l-like you a lot,” she blurted, her voice choking a little. “I like the Jacob that made sure Liz would be taken care of. I liked the Jacob that made sure those two girls would be okay. I like the Jacob that the kids liked on the first day. I like…” she sucked in a breath, closed her eyes, and tensed with effort as she forced the words out. “I like the Jacob that came to my home and made someone stopped hurting me, and picked me up and carried me away.”

She breathed in and out slowly, shaking with the effort.

“I don’t like the Jacob I just saw.”

Jacob swallowed. “I had to-“

“You cut him,” said Jennifer. She twisted with sudden speed and traced her fingernail along one of the ridged scars on his chest. “Like this.”

He swallowed. “I-“

“Be quiet,” she said, softly. “Look at me.”

Meeting her eyes was the hardest thing he’d ever done. An angel, a goddess. To see that look on her face. She glanced back over her shoulder, at the vault.

“You don’t have all that stuff for target shooting,” she said. “You’re planning to kill somebody, aren’t you?”

His head sank and he looked at the floor. He couldn’t face her.

“I… no, but yes. I thought…”

She waited, watching him.

“You know, I thought about that. With all my resources, I could get close to him. It wouldn’t be easy, but it would be doable. I wouldn’t need a weapon. Just my hands. I wouldn’t survive, but I wouldn’t have to. It would be worthy. My mother and father and my sister would be avenged. It would be a beautiful death. I would look James Katzenberg in the eye and say to him, ‘Hello. My name is Jacob Kane. You killed my family. Prepare to die.’ Candy would have liked that.”

“Would she?”

“I don’t…” he trailed off, and sighed again, and scrubbed his hands over his face. “I decided against it.”

“Why?”

“You teach
The Count of Monte Cristo
every year, right?”

She nodded.

“The Count doesn’t just kill his enemies. He could. He turns their own sins against them, makes them suffer and twists them until their own natures destroy them. That’s what I wanted to do here. I decided to start small, work within the town, start by challenging their economic base here and work my way up. The plan always ended the same way, though. With my hands around James Katzenberg’s throat. I just want him to lose everything first. The way I have. I’d give all this up if I could have my sister back.”

Jennifer didn’t say anything for a while. She pulled her knees up and leaned on them.

“If that boy said he pulled the trigger,” said Jennifer. “If he said he shot the kids, would you have killed him?”

“Yes,” Jacob said.

Jennifer cleared her throat. “Why?”

“He’d deserve it. I’m not sure he doesn’t anyway. He could have done something, he-“

“There are many who live who deserve death, Jacob. There are many who die who deserve life. Can you give it to them?”

Jacob’s teeth clicked.

“That’s not fair,” said Jacob. “Quoting Tolkien at me.”

“You can’t bring your sister back,” she said. “You can’t bring my husband back, or anybody else that died. I can’t bring Krystal back. They’re gone.”

Jacob could have said something cruel then, but he didn’t.

“I know,” said Jennifer. “I’m not in any position to give advice about letting go. I feel the same way that you do about your sister. Sometimes I think I would do anything to bring him back. Sometimes I wish I’d died, too. Sometimes I wish I’d never met him him at all, so I wouldn’t have to feel like this.”

Jacob slumped.

“I’m sick of feeling like I have nothing to live for,” said Jennifer.

“So am I.”

She took his hand. He drew in a breath, and watched her slender fingers lace through his. She squeezed.

“What I saw tonight wasn’t the real you,” she said. “Was it? Tell me it wasn’t.”

“You weren’t angry at all?” said Jacob. “You weren’t mad at him?”

“Yes,” said Jennifer. “Yes, I’m mad at him. I want to hate him, but it won’t bring anybody back. It won’t fix it. We can’t fix it.”

“Then what am I doing?”

“Liz. The two girls from the motel. There’s other people that need your help. If God or some force did make sure you made it back, it wasn’t to hurt and destroy. That’s not who you are. That’s not who you want to be.”

He managed to look at her, then. He wasn’t sure if she really believed what she just said, or if she was just willing it to be true.

“It’s not who I want to be,” said Jennifer. “I don’t want to be part of that. If that’s what this is, then Katie and I are leaving. If you offer us financial help, I’ll take it, but either way, we’re gone. I’m not going to stand by while you murder people.”

“I can’t let people suffer,” said Jacob. “Think about what we heard tonight. At the very least, the Paradise Falls police are part of a huge drug distribution operation. That’s not all they’re into, I’m sure of it, and James Katzenberg
is
responsible for the bridge collapse. You know that.”

“That’s right,” said Jennifer. “Don’t let people suffer. Just don’t turn it into an excuse to… to give in. What you did tonight. We saved those girls. We did need that information, but that was the wrong way to get it. You can find a way to make this work.”

Jacob looked at his hand, and flexed his fingers.

“I need to know what you’re going to do. Do I need to leave, or not?”

“I want you to stay,” he said. “Very much.”

“I want to,” said Jennifer.

“Don’t go,” Jacob managed. “I don’t want to be somebody you can’t stand. I need you.”

Jennifer got up. She rose to her knees, then threw her leg over his, straddling him. Jacob pulled back, wide-eyed as she lowered herself into his lap. She rested her head on his chest and put her arms around his waist. He froze, waiting, though he didn’t know what he was waiting for. Her hot breath tickled his skin, and her silky hair slid against him. Slowly, he put his arms around her and pulled her closer. She tensed, her muscles going tight as steel cables for a moment, but then she relaxed, the tension easing out of her along with a deep breath. His fingers wound into her hair. It was so soft.

“I like this.”

“Me too.”

“I can’t do more than this,” she said. “Not yet.”

“I know. It’s alright.”

She rose up on her knees, until she was face to face with him, and looked him in the eye. Her beautiful face filled his vision. She closed her eyes and leaned in to kiss him, and his lips met hers. The urge to hold and touch her grew, but he kept his arms settled gently around her waist, for fear he would frighten her if he moved too fast. She pulled back and took a breath, and then kissed him again. When she pulled back once again, she had to brush the hair out of her face. She was gorgeous with her hair down, even if she was red-faced and her eyes were bloodshot from crying.

“I might still have to hurt people,” he said.

She looked down, but she nodded. “I know that. I know this is dangerous. I know people will try to hurt us and you’ll have to defend yourself. And me. But we don’t have to be like the bad people. We don’t have to hurt people and kill people and bring misery into the world. We can be better than that.” She leaned in and whispered in his ear.

Jacob gaped at her. A smile formed on her lips, and broadened. He couldn’t help it. He started grinning, too.

The smile faded from her face.

“Krystal’s funeral is tomorrow. I have to get up and talk. I don’t know if I can do it.”

“Yeah, you can,” said Jacob. “You’re stronger than you think you are.”

She pressed her hands to his cheeks.

“So are you.”

Her soft lips brushed his forehead, and he breathed in her scent. When she stood up it hurt, like she was ripping part of him out.

“I should go to bed.”

She looked like she was about to say something else, but she stood up. Jacob stood up with her. She bit her lip and looked around the room and her fingers worked in little twitches, the way they did when she was about to say something, but whatever it was she dismissed it and turned away. She did look back before she went up the stairs.

Jacob sat down on his cot and watched her go.

Damn.

12.

Of course, it was raining.

The water drummed steady on the roof the whole way to the funeral parlor and washed over the car in heavy sheets. The Aston Martin was left behind, tucked into the carriage house. Instead Jacob drove a big Lincoln sedan. Katie looked small in the back seat, all in black, like she did the last time she attended a funeral with Jennifer.

There was a lot of traffic and it was all headed for Mullen Brothers, the funeral home. Half the town was in attendance, and that wasn’t all. There was an honest to God motorcade- James Katzenberg would be attending. That explained all the security. Jacob had to stop and let some government men look through the car. This time, he let it pass without comment. Jennifer shifted uncomfortably as they looked her over from behind black sunglasses.