TABOO: THE COMPLETE SERIES(47)

“Do what?”

“Did you… are you going to make it look like Weldon’s father is dead… are you trying to hurt him? Is that it?”

“Jake…”

“You told me you lied about the poison so Weldon would think his father is in danger.”

“Jake, what happened?”

“They… the doctors… they said he’s dead. How’s that possible? They said it was some weird organism… Pseudo-nitzschia… which is what you said you gave him…”

“Jake, just come back and let’s talk about this…”

“You… you lied to me.”

It took a while for this to sink in.

No one could be trusted.

No one.

Not even the one man I had truly loved and cared for in all this time, the one man who promised me he wouldn’t betray me…

“Jake…??? Answer me!”

But I just ended the call and tossed the phone back in my pocket. I made my way to Trey’s car standing in the distance and when I got in, I couldn’t get myself to move.

There was so much going on.

So much I didn’t want to understand or wrap my head around, including the fact that Trey was a murderer. Weldon said he murdered Ryan for him, so maybe Trey is so used to all this that he doesn’t even see what’s wrong with it.

Colton.

He needed me.

The only person I could actually trust, blindly.

There was a knock on my door and it startled me. There was a face beyond the see-through glass of the SUV looking at me through damp eyes. She smiled but there was no life in it. There was nothing there, it was just muscle movement that came off as oddly heartbreaking. There’s darkness and then there’s numbness. Detached coldness. The opposite of hope. And no matter how much you get tired of it, you’re stuck when it comes for you. I knew that feeling, I knew it well. I wiped the stray tears off my face and tried to smile back and it was just as cold and detached. “What’re you doing here, Jake?”

At first the question disturbed me. But then I realized she wasn’t saying it as an accusation but because she thought it was something to ask, nothing more.

"Are you okay?" I asked because I honestly wanted to know and I guess she needed something familiar and trustworthy. She needed safety in the world that had suddenly become chaotic.

"My father's gone Jake," she said and this time she broke into tears. I opened the door and got out and hugged her as hard as I could. I let her feel the safety that I was dying to feel. I let her cry while I held her there, vulnerable and on the verge of a breakdown.

"I'm sorry, Jackie."

She continued to cry and hold on to me like her life depended on it. It broke my heart. I knew who did this to her and there was nothing I could do.

"It's a good thing the kids are with their father," she sobbed. "I don't think I could have handled them."

"Jackie, I wish there was something I could do to help."

She finally broke away. "Actually, there is one thing that you can do."

"Anything. Just say the word."

"I don't want to be alone right now," she said. “Will you take me home and give me some company?"

Her grief wasn't bigger than mine. I knew if it came down to it, I would poison a hundred fathers to save Colton. It was a side of me that I never truly understood before but I did now. I had to push aside a lot of things in order to get to a place where I could feel sympathy for her.

"It's okay if you have plans..." she started to say but I didn't let her finish the thought. "No, I'd be happy to give you a lift home."

When she was in the passenger seat, I turned to her. “Do you mind if we make a little stop?"

"Sure. What for?"

"I need to pick up my prescription," I lied.

"What kind of medicine? Is everything okay?" I could tell her concern for me was genuine. "It's just Valium."

She nodded. "Then you can pick it up some other time because my medicine cabinet is full of every antidepressant and sleep aid known to mankind."

"Thanks, Jackie."

Yes.

Thank you, Jackie.

You don’t know what you've given me tonight.





TREY


"You realize there's a ticking clock on this," Weldon had to be the most impulsive super villain I've seen. I could almost hear the wheels turning in his head, in a constant cycle.

"Ticking clock?" I inquire, knowing that he was setting me up for something but curious to know what it was regardless.

He looked up at me from the floor. “If Jake doesn’t get me what I need," Weldon said. “Stoll is going to kill his little bitch brother."

I felt angry but I had to keep calm. Weldon could never find out about his dead father. It wasn't just leverage for him, the old man was our leverage as well. I was going to figure it out, the second Jake started to respond to my hundreds of texts and calls.

God only knew why he was ignoring me. I hoped that he would come out of the anger long enough to see the light. Some things were more important than the life and death of random people.

"If your henchmen hurt Colton I swear to God, I'm going to do the most unimaginable things that you can't even imagine!!!!"