JACOB (5 page)

“I was hoping you could actually tell me that.”

“What do you mean?”

I pointed to the stack of papers. “I wasn’t trying to snoop, but I noticed they all had one person’s name on them. Then I did decide to snoop and …” I held up my computer as I tried to figure out what I was going to say. ‘You’re going to try to kill him, aren’t you?”

“No,” he said flatly as he strode to the fridge. He pulled out leftovers from the last time I was there. “I am going to kill him.” I tried to say something, but my voice caught in my throat. “There is no more trying.”

I stammered, trying to piece together a sentence. “Do you know how crazy that is?”

“It doesn’t matter to me if you think I’m crazy.”

“Well, I do!” I could see that his last words had been a lie. “You can’t just go around killing people! I’m going to have to call the cops. I can’t … I …” I let out a deep breath, choking on air. “I can’t let you,” I whispered.

“Ashley, you don’t even know …” He paused and took a deep breath. “You can call them if you need to, but please, just let me have this day first? I have things I need to wrap up, things I didn’t think I would need to take care of yet.”

I felt guilt tug at me. I shouldn’t feel guilty for this! I was saving someone’s life.
Are you really?
What would Jacob do if he were sent back to jail? I didn’t know anything about this sort of stuff, but I had to assume they wouldn’t let him out in another ten years if they thought he was just going to try and do it again. I bit my lip as I turned away from him.

Even if I were going to call the cops, I could ask him one more question.
 

***
 

She refused to look at me. I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath. She was going to call the cops on me, and I shouldn’t have expected any less of her. Anyone in their right mind would have, but I couldn’t help but wonder if things would be turning out this way if I’d told her everything myself.

Dom, Priest, and Luke were going to be pissed. They’d have to be careful. They might have to put it off for a while, but I could give them the info I had on him, and they could do whatever they felt was right. If I convinced her to give me a couple more days, I could give them time to do it. And I could spend a little more time with her before all this was done.

“Do you love me?”

I stared at her blankly as I processed her words.
 

***
 

Crap, that hadn’t come out right.

“I mean, do you care about me at all?” I’d thought there was something, something more than just sex. Was I wrong?

“Of course, I do! Ashley, I never thought I could say this, but I do love you.”

And he stilled planned on doing this?

“Then I deserve the truth. The full story.”

Jacob looked around nervously. After a few moments, as if realizing that he didn’t have another option, he nodded and made his way over to the couch.

“Alright fine.”

I sat down beside him, waiting. I wanted to understand.

“As you’ve probably figured out by now, this is about Becky.”

“Yes. I clued into that.”

“I told you already that she died. She was killed by the man I’ve been trying to find. He stalked her for six months before he killed her. My friends and I, we tried to do everything we could to keep her safe. We made up every excuse in the books to tell our parents so we could all be together, and it was working for the most part. We’d see him hanging around every now and then, but he wouldn’t approach her if we were there. We tried to get her to go to the police, but she wouldn’t. She … she never had luck with cops before, and she was sure they wouldn’t be any help to her.”

I reached out and took his arm. He glanced at me and smiled.

“We did everything we could.”

“Of course, you did.” It sounded more like he was trying to convince himself than me to be honest.

He stared off into space for a long time. “So … what happens if I don’t call the cops on you?” I still had a few more things to figure out, but I wasn’t so sure this man deserved to live.

“I can’t say for sure.” He shrugged. “We kill him, and we either get caught or we kill ourselves.”

My heart dropped into my stomach. That had not been what I was expecting to hear. I stared at him unable to believe that he might actually kill himself.

“Oh.”

He looked at me, reached out and covered my hand with his then smiled softly. It wasn’t a happy smile. “Ashley, no matter what happens; from now on I’m going to tell you everything.”

“Everything? You promise?”

“I promise Ashley. From now on we are in this together if you will have me.”

“Of course.”

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