The fucking Dutchman, the man who gave me my first job, and the first and only one of my employers to ever know my real identity. The Moordenaar, a Dutch word for 'murderer', is what he called me.
Subtle.
I should slit The Dutchman's throat for not being able to keep his fucking mouth shut. Fuck it. I'll add it to my list of shit to do when I got out. "Wrong guy," I said, turning to look at the guy invading my personal space.
Small yellow lights lining the walkway outside my cell and the light from the half-moon through a high window on the far side of the cell block was all the light I needed to make out that the guy in my cell was huge. A wall of muscle sat on the ground a few feet from my bed, a cigarette hung from his lip, black and white tattoos covered the backs of his hands and one side of his neck, his dark hair cropped close to his head.
His eyes were black and in the light of the half moon he looked like a man possessed.
I may have been the devil, but with my blonde hair and blue eyes I know I didn't look the part. This guy looked like the floor had opened up and he'd just stepped through the gates of hell and into my cell.
"What do you want?" I asked.
"I need your help." He never took his eyes off of me.
"I don't know you. Why would I help you?" I swung my legs over the side of the bed and sat up.
“You killed the guy who hurt your family, am I right?” he asked.
“Allegedly,” I reminded him. I wasn’t about to admit anything to this guy. For all I knew, he was working for the DA and wearing a wire.
He laughed and shook his head. “I understand why you would say that, but I’m coming to you because I’m out of options.”
“I’m semi-retired,” I admitted.
“Well, Jake, I need you to semi-unretire, because my girl is in trouble and there are people that need to be killed.”
This guy wasn’t fucking around.
“Even if I wanted to help you, I can’t do shit from in here and I’m not getting out anytime soon,” I told him.
“You’ll be out.” He stood up, then lightly rapped on the bars. Seconds later, a guard appeared and opened my cell to let him back out. “And I’ll be in touch.”
When he was long out of sight, I realized I hadn’t even gotten his name.
What the fuck had just happened?
EIGHT
When the guard came to get me from my cell, I figured that I was on my way to meet with my lawyer to work out some sort of defense strategy. When we passed by Visitation and went into a room where they handed me the clothes I was wearing when they processed me, I was utterly confused. I didn't say anything just in case it would make them realize their mistake and I was led back to my cell.
When I took my first step of freedom outside the gates of the jail, the bright light of day blinded me after spending so much time in a dark cell.
The first person I saw was Bethany, who honked the horn of her car and waved me over. "Get in," she ordered, leaning over to open the passenger seat of her SUV.
I got in and waited until we were on the main road before I said anything.
"Why am I out?" I asked. "Where's Abby?" I should have been happy, but my frustrations got the best of me. "Bethany, what in the fuck is going on?"
"The DA dropped the charges, and Abby is at home with Georgia," she said casually, shrugging her shoulders, then adjusting the air conditioning vents.
"Why would they do that? How can they go from not setting bail to releasing me in less than 72 hours?" I was free, but I was on edge. Something wasn't right.
"Let's just say their witnesses weren't as reliable as they initially thought. In a case that is circumstantial at best, it's the witnesses that make or break it." She looked straight ahead at the road in front of us. She didn't make any sort of eye contact with me but adjusted the rearview mirror for the third time.
"What did you do?" I asked her. There was no way she didn't have a hand in my release.
A small, sly, corner of the mouth smile. A little glimpse at the pit bull lawyer Bethany used to be before morphing herself into a grandmother figure for Georgia. The woman who would move heaven and hell to win a case and who would do anything it took to win a case.
ANYTHING.
There was no doubt in my mind that she did something to cause those witnesses to become 'unreliable'.
"It was the oddest thing, really," Bethany said. "All of the witnesses who were going to testify that you and Owen were mortal enemies suddenly remembered what great friends you two were, how much time you spent together, how much you loved and respected one another. And then there was the little matter of your wedding." Bethany's smile was now a full toothed grin.
"Our wedding?"
"Yes, your wedding. It's odd that it had slipped their minds that they attended your wedding reception and that Owen was your best man."
"My best man?"
"Yes, you see since Owen was the best man at your wedding, which took place at Bert's Bar weeks after his alleged death, there was no way he could be dead, right? There was also the fact that he signed your marriage license as a witness which was filed by the court and a matter of public record..."
"Bethany..." I started, unsure of exactly what to ask her next.
"And of course, as Owen's mother I told the FBI that he disappeared often, sometimes for months on end and that I'd heard from him recently."
"Say what?"
"Yes, I told them that I'd heard from him recently, and he told me about an accident he'd had with his hand while gator hunting. He was still distraught about accidentally hurting Georgia when he was tinkering with his old shot gun, so he didn't have any plans to come back to town just yet."
And there she was, Bethany, the most ruthless grandmother in Coral Pines.
"Why did they wait so long to charge me if they had all these things in place a year ago?"
"Owen's father. He wasn't buying the story that Owen just took off, mostly because Owen had stopped using his credit cards the night he went missing, so when they discovered the hand and the surveillance video he used all his leverage with the DA to push everything forward even though the case was shady at best. Took him a while, but that persistent bastard wouldn't take no for an answer."
"How do you know he isn't still going to try and take me down somehow?" I couldn't relax until I knew I was out for good. That I could hold my family and not be worried about being dragged back in again.
"Because, Jake, he may have been a lousy husband, but he's a very smart man. I told him if he continued down this path that I would cop to Owen's murder myself, and since the bastard won't even sign the divorce papers because he's afraid of how it would look, he wasn't about to let me go down for murdering our son."
"How, how did you get the witnesses to change their stories?" I wasn't close enough to anyone to have them lie for me because they liked me.
Bethany thought for a moment. "You see Jake, the secrets of Coral Pines run deep. Like roots from an old tree, they grow and grow. For years, they spread under the surface until the roots are too big, and the surface starts to crack."
"What does that have to do with the witnesses?"
"Because, Jake, I'd been in Coral Pines long enough to know when it was time to do a little digging under the surface."
"So, basically, you blackmailed them using shit you had against them?"
"Blackmail is such an ugly word." Bethany patted my knee. "I just pulled up some roots."
NINE
Abby
The last thing in this world I ever wanted was for my daughter to suffer like I had. I spent every single day since the moment I brought her into this world making sure that her childhood looked nothing like the living hell of mine.
That's why at night I waited until after I helped her change into her pajamas, after I read her a bed time story, after I tucked her in and kissed her forehead, after I slowly closed her door and crept down the hall, and after I made my way outside to the patio, to sob uncont
rollably into my hands.
Georgia had scars.
Lots of scars.
Some deeper than mine.
Scars from the bullet spray, scars from the multiple surgeries to remove what shrapnel they could. Scars resembling white and red paint splatter across her ribcage from armpit to waist on her left side.
I'd failed her, I'd failed my baby girl, and now she was going to have to live with the exact same fate I never wanted for her.
All this on top of Jake being arrested for Owen's murder, and I was again seeking solace in my old hoodie. I tried to call on the numbness but I couldn't reach the place where I couldn't exist anymore. Georgia and Jake had made it impossible for me to retreat completely, but I was trying, because thinking about Jake being locked a way for life or put to death for that bastard’s murder made my stomach twist. Because I'd encouraged him to do it.
It would have all been my fault.
"Baby, not again," Jake said, coming up from behind me, his hand on my shoulder. He knew my reaction every time I saw her scars and where I went to hide my reaction from her.
He'd noticed the change in me. I saw it in the way he was more carful around me, practically walking on egg shells, choosing his words more carefully.
I hated it. But I didn't know how to get back to how I was, and with all that was going on inside of me, I didn't know if I wanted to.
"I can't help it." I wiped the tears from under my eyes and sniffled. "I failed her Jake. She is going to look in the mirror every single day and remember that horrible moment for the rest of her life. She'll remember how scared she was. She'll remember how mommy couldn't stop it from happening to her."
"Bee, she's so young. She sees the head shrinker. He says she will be fine. She barely remembers anything at all, and he thinks that even with a fuck up like me as her father that she is going to be okay," Jake assured me, trying to make me laugh as always.
"Yeah, but what about later? What about when one day if she does remember everything? What then? I don't want her to relive that pain every single day of her life."
"Then we will deal with it, Bee. We make sure she knows how much she is loved and when and if she freaks the fuck out, we will again remind her of how much she is loved, and if it gets worse, we will love her even fucking harder. The only bad thing that is ever going to happen to Georgia again is that she might suffocate under all our love." Jake circled my chair and crouched down in front of me. "It's all we can do," he said softly, his hands on my knees. He tilted my chin up so we were eye to eye. "What's this really about, Bee?"
I sighed. "She deserves better than me as her mom."
"That’s a fucking cop out, and you know it. All parents are fucked up. We are just fucked up in a different kind of way. Now spill it, woman," he demanded. "Tell me what is going on in that beautiful red head of yours."
"I still see them." I blurted.
"Still see what?"
"I still see my scars. Every day. Even under all the tattoos, I still see right past the colors and right to the marks. Every single fucking day of my life, I'm reminded of what happened, what that bitch did, and even if it's just for a minute, I remember what it felt like." My eyes started to water, blurring my vision. "I remember the hurt. I feel it all over again. I don't want to feel it anymore."
Jake softly ran his fingertips across the largest scar that started on my shoulder and slowly traced it down to my elbow and back up again. His go-to way to way of comforting me. "I can't imagine how badly it hurt, Bee."
"Not there," I said.
"No?"
"No," I took his hand and placed it over my heart. "Here. It hurts here."
Jake scooped me up like I weighed nothing and sat back down in the chair, arranging me on his lap like an infant, cradling me in his arms and holding me tightly to his chest.
"I don't want your heart to hurt. Tell me what I can do to make it better," Jake said, his voice strained.
"It hurts me that Georgia might feel like this someday."
"Her scars are still healing, baby. We will do whatever it takes to make it so she doesn't hurt. But you can't be worried about what she will or won't feel. We have to take this day by day, or you're going to make yourself crazy."
"I know," I sniffled.
"What can I do to make it better?" He kissed the top of my head.
"I don't know that there is anything you can do. You can't wipe my memories away. You can't make me think of something else when I see the marks. It was so much better for a while. So much easier than it used to be. Then Georgia got hurt, and now it's like I'm right back where I started."
"We, baby. We," Jake said. "You don't have to go through this alone. We're a family, and we will fix this as a family."
"But you can't fix it."
"No, but I can help you," Jake said.
"How?" I whispered.
"Do you trust me?"
"Yes." I didn't even hesitate. Jake is the only person in the world I did trust. He was Georgia's father. He helped me to feel again when I thought I was going to live my life without ever knowing what it was like to be close to anyone. There was no reason NOT to trust him.
"I’ve been thinking about something. Something that could help. Stay here for a minute," Jake ordered, lightly pushing me off of him. He stood and pulled his cell from his pocket pressing one of the speed dial buttons.
After a few seconds of ringing, I heard someone pick up.
"Bethany," Jake said stoically. Why was he calling Bethany? Usually I was the middleman between Bethany and Jake. They rarely spoke, and it's not like I blame them. Bethany spawned Owen and tried to protect him when she knew what he'd done, but I'd already looked past it. Anytime I feel the anger or resentment toward her that I once felt, I just remember how it felt to set her house on fire, and I'm quickly brought back to feeling that all is right between us.
The new Bethany barely resembled the old one, and her love for Georgia, the granddaughter she never had, had been a big part of setting things right in my eyes. Bethany had spent the last year proving to our family that she was worthy enough to be a part of it.
"Yup. Yeah. Everything is fine. Georgia is great. Yeah," he said rather rudely. "Can you come and sit with Georgia for a bit? She's asleep, but I need to take the boat out for a spin to make sure it's seaworthy for the morning, and I need Bee to come and be my second eyes and ears." There was a short pause, then Jake ended the call without saying good-bye.
"You know, for someone who can be so charming, you really can be a total twat, sometimes," I said.
"Did you just call me charming?" Jake laughed. Off course, that would be the thing that got his attention, not being called a twat. Even in the dim light of the back porch, Jake’s smile was brilliant. Being able to see him smile on a daily basis and or laugh on occasion was worth every single second of time we'd spent apart.
I ignored his question. "If you needed help with the boat, why didn't we just do it earlier?" I asked. We'd had a great day as a family. Jake worked on the boat a bit. Georgia ran through the sprinklers in the back yard, and I sat in my favorite chair on the patio, reading a book, glancing over the pages every so often to make sure my family was still there, and that it was all still real.
And it was.
It was getting late, and it was already dark. It would be hard to check the boat for anything under these conditions.
"Shhhhh, baby. You'll see. You said I couldn't make it better for you. I think there is a way I can," Jake said, pressing a finger over my partially opened mouth. I glared at him and bit the