Rich Blood (Jason Rich #1)(18)

Four rings.

Five.

Six.

Jason set the drink down and answered the phone.

“This is Jason Rich,” he said, hearing the quiver in his voice as he walked away from the table and the still undrunk bottle of Corona. As his feet touched the sand and his eyes fixated on the ocean, he heard the voice that haunted his dreams.

“J. J., it’s me. Where’ve you been?” Jana’s voice sounded breathy and desperate.

Jason said nothing, cringing at her use of the pet name J. J., which she’d done since they were kids. While his investigator, Harry Davenport, sometimes referred to Jason as J. R., which he rather liked, he couldn’t stand J. J. He wasn’t sure if it was the nickname itself or the fact that his sister used it that made him hate J. J., but hate it he did. Memories flooded his mind, and he envisioned the lone photograph that he’d brought to the PAC, which was now tucked away in his suitcase. The one from Space Camp when they were kids. Jana with her thousand-megawatt smile and Jason with his bowl cut and braces, perpetually inadequate in his older sister’s presence. A mere accoutrement to her life.

“What is it, Jana?”

“I-I-I need your help.”





15


“Jason, have you ever heard of ‘gaslighting’?”

Three weeks into his therapy, after he’d been through detox and enough sessions for his counselor to get a feel for him, Jason’s therapist brought up this phenomenon.

“No,” he said.

“It’s a situation where a person manipulates another person by psychological means into questioning his or her sanity.” Michal studied Jason from across the small circular table that separated them. “Sound like anyone you know?”

Jason squinted back at her. He’d begun to get used to being sober, and the last week or so of therapy had focused on his family relationships, particularly with his father and sister. “What are you talking about?”

“Do you remember the story you told me yesterday?”

Jason shrugged but said nothing. Talking about Jana always made him uncomfortable, even in the quiet space of Michal’s office.

“You caught her having sex in high school. Her boyfriend was dropping her off. Your parents were asleep. You had walked to a friend’s house and were on your way back. You go past the vehicle and see her naked in the cab. She’s in his lap thrusting back and—”

“Stop,” he interrupted.

“I’m only retelling what you told me.”

“I know. I just . . .”

“You said that she saw you watching her.”

Jason looked away, not wanting to meet his counselor’s gaze. He nodded.

“And what did she do when she came inside the house?”

Jason tried to marshal his courage as he spoke. “She acted like nothing had happened. Fixed herself a bowl of cereal and asked me if Mom and Dad were still up.”

“Did you say anything to her?”

“I asked how she could do that with her boyfriend in our driveway, and she acted like I was crazy. She said she’d been dropped off by her friend Susan. Then she told me I needed to quit it with all of my teenage fantasies. Called me a Peeping Tom. She said that if I told Mom and Dad what I thought I saw, she’d tell them about how I watched her in the shower and that she’d caught me masturbating to a Playboy magazine.”

“And how did that make you feel?”

“Crazy,” Jason admitted. “And scared.”

“Scared of what?”

“That she might tell my parents what I’d done.”

“What you had done?”

“Yes.”

Jason hadn’t liked being cross-examined. And even in the comfortable and confidential confines of the PAC, Jason’s heart rate sped up every time Jana’s name was mentioned. Sharing with Michal about his sister’s behavior was liberating. But it was also terrifying. Jason wondered what Jana would say if she found out what he’d told his therapist.

“You’re crazy, Jason. You’re a drunk. A druggie. A weak-ass loser who can’t handle his life.” That’s what she had told him when he had suggested that she might want to seek treatment for her drinking problem over three years ago. Or that she and Braxton should go to marital counseling. She insisted that he was the one with the problem. Not her. Him. He was the one whose marriage was in shambles, who needed to drink to get through the day.

“Take care of the log in your own eye, baby brother.”

She’d said it then, and it was no doubt what she would have told him if she could have been a fly on the wall during his therapy. The perpetual devil on his shoulder.

And now she needs my help . . .



The sound of a honking horn pulled Jason from his reverie, and he looked in the rearview mirror. A man in a pickup truck was giving him the middle finger. Jason was in the left lane and had slowed his speed to sixty-three, seven miles under the speed limit. There was an eighteen-wheeler in the right lane, and the person driving the vehicle behind Jason couldn’t get around.

He gave the man a thumbs-up, and the pissed-off gentleman laid on his horn again. Jason pressed his foot to the accelerator and moved his vehicle over into the right lane. As a parting shot, the pickup driver flipped him the bird again as he drove by. Jason waved. He saw a green sign indicating that Montgomery was ten miles away, and he needed to make a quick stop in the state capital.