The Bodyguard (58)

“On the night of my eighth birthday,” I said, taking a big, shaky breath, “he hit her.”

Jack kept his gaze steady.

“Those words are so tiny, when you say them. Three quick syllables, and it’s over. But I think, in a way, for me, it’s never been over.” I looked down, and more tears spilled over. “She was protecting me that night. We’d been supposed to go out for pizza and cake, but Travis decided at the last minute that we weren’t going. I was so outraged at the injustice that I slammed my bedroom door. He started to come after me. I’ll never forget the sound of his footsteps knocking the floor. But my mom blocked him. She stood in front of the door and wouldn’t move until he went after her instead. I hid in my closet, clamped down tight into a ball, but I could hear it. The scariest thing about the punches was how quiet they were. But her crying was loud. When she slammed back against the door, it was loud. When she hit the floor, it was loud.

“I stayed awake all night, curled as small as I could get in the closet, listening, at attention, trying to decide if my mother had lived. I never fell asleep. When the sun was up, she came to find me—and she had a split lip and a cracked tooth. As soon as I saw her face, I wanted to get us both out of there. Every atom in my body wanted to escape.

“But as I started to stand, she shook her head. She climbed into the closet with me and put her arms around me.

“‘We’re leaving, right?’ I asked.

“But she shook her head.

“‘Why?’ I asked. ‘Why aren’t we?’

“‘Because he doesn’t want us to,’ she said.

“Then she put her arms around me and rocked me back and forth, in a way that always, before then, had made me feel safe. But I didn’t feel safe anymore. I don’t think I ever felt safe again after that, to be honest—not really. But guess what I still do even now when I feel scared?”

“What?” Jack asked.

“I sleep in the closet.”

Jack kept his eyes on mine.

“Remember my little safety pin with the beads on it? I’d made that pin for her that very same day. I never got a chance to give it to her. By the time that night was over, I’d lost it—or, I thought I had. After my mom died—not that long ago—I found it in her jewelry box. She’d kept it all those years. Finding it again felt like finding some little lost part of myself. I was going to wear it every day forever before I lost it on the beach that day. As a talisman for being okay.”

“But you’re okay, anyway.”

I looked down. “Am I? I don’t know. Up until I came out here, I’d been sleeping on the floor of my closet every night since my mom died.”

Jack lifted a nonsweaty part of his T-shirt to wipe my face. Had I just cried? Again? What was with me? Then Jack said, in a tender voice, “So sleeping on my floor is an improvement.”

I gave him a little shove and started walking again.

He fell into step beside me.

“Anyway,” I said, regrouping. “That’s the story of that song. I never heard my mom sing it again after that night. I forgot about it entirely.”

“Not entirely, though,” Jack said.

And then—even though there was nobody around to see—he pulled me into a hug.





Twenty


WE WERE JUST starting to think we’d dodged getting caught at the hospital when a photo of Jack showed up on a gossip site.

And then ten minutes later? It was everywhere.

Sure enough, it was taken in the waiting room of the ER. And though it was from a distance, and it was more the side of his face than the front, it did look a lot like him.

The internet wasn’t sure, though. Articles started popping up like, “What’s World Famous Jack Stapleton Doing in Katy, Texas?” and “Stapleton Sighted in Nowheresville” and “Reclusive Superstar Takes Obscurity to a New Level.”

Enthusiastic internet sleuths found pictures of Jack taken at similar angles and posted them side by side, parsing each detail with Oliver Stone–like precision. Was this the true shape of Jack Stapleton’s earlobe? Was the dot on his neck a shadow or a freckle? Was this the same T-shirt he’d worn in a paparazzi shot two New Year’s Eves ago?

It was impressive work, actually. Glenn should recruit some of those people.

In the end, the internet broadly agreed: Yes, The Destroyer had been spotted in a random little hospital in a tiny Texas town. The question nobody seemed to have an answer to was why.

All to say: Jack being sort-of exposed bumped us up to threat level orange at last.

Maybe a light orange—more like a sherbet—but orange all the same.

The team had to evaluate more internet chatter and track a new explosion of “fans” who looked like they could cause trouble. I started putting on leggings and sneakers every day for “an afternoon run” to jog off the property for surveillance updates at headquarters.

It was just down the road, but it might as well have been a whole other world.

I didn’t love going.

And I loved it even less the day I found Glenn there, mid rant.

Doghouse was there, too, as were Taylor and Robby.

“I don’t care what your feelings are. Feelings have no place in this room!” Glenn was shouting. He banged his hand on the desk at those words.