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“No, I do. Everything we've talked about, with my childhood and my illness? It all kind of ties back to this. Thinking about it now, I feel like I should almost be thanking Harmony for finding this out.” I took a deep breath while he waited patiently for me to continue. “I had a sister. Eve. When she was two and I was five, I got into Mom's pills. We both overdosed, only she . . . she died, and I didn't.” Alex's jaw dropped. For the first time ever, he was speechless. He shook his head and reached for my hand. “I went to see Mom, who confirmed everything.”
“Holy shit, Rose. I don't even know what to say to that.”
I nodded. “Yeah, that was my reaction, too. Mom basically admitted she blamed—or, blames me for Eve's death.”
“You don't believe that, do you?” Alex asked.
I shook my head. “Harmony actually got ahold of the coroner’s report. Mom left some pills on her bedside table, and Eve and I got into them.” I blinked back tears. “Apparently I was in foster care for a couple of months. I don’t get it, Alex!” The shock and confusion I’d felt about all this had been replaced with anger. “I have no memory of her. My earliest memory is at age seven. Which actually made a lot of sense. But why would I block all that out?” My voice shook as the machines monitoring my vitals began to beep faster as my heart began to pound.
“Shh, Rose. That's irrational thinking. You were five. You’d suffered a huge tragedy, one that triggered something in you. Of course your mind would want to block all that out. But that doesn't make what happened your fault. How could anyone blame a five-year-old for that?” he demanded. I stared at his fingers, entwined in mine. He felt so warm. Having his hands on me made me feel safe. But more than that, I found myself imagining it was Jack who was holding my hand.
“Rose, your attempts at suicide? I want you to talk to someone who specializes in Post-Traumatic Stress. Will you do that for me? I think talking about Eve and what happened will really help you. There are lots of therapies these days to treat it.”
I nodded. Right now I’d agree to anything if it meant I could go back to sleep. “I'm tired,” I mumbled, wiping my eyes. I burrowed down further into the blankets. I felt surprisingly comfortable, considering I was lying on a hospital bed.
“Alex?” I said, just before I dozed off. “Please don’t tell Jack.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Jack
Reaching over to my ringing phone, I turned into a side street and pulled over.
“Hello?” I snapped. Standing in line for over an hour at the bank had not been a great start to the day.
“Jack, its Nick.”
“Hey man. You're at the bar? I'm just around the corner.” Nick was the delivery driver for the alcohol company I used.
“No, I mean I'm here . . . shit Jack, the place is on fire. I called 911. The firies are here now, and so are the cops . . .”
“Fucking hell. I'm almost there.” I gripped the steering wheel and turned the car around, the wheels screeching as the car kicked into gear. What the hell had happened? I'd left home no less than two hours ago. Running a sweaty palm through my hair, I began to panic. Shit. Mr. Jefferies. Everything I owned was in that bar.
As the building came into view I spotted three fire trucks and several cop cars. I parked my car illegally and raced over. Some guy almost twice my size put his hand out to stop me.
“Sorry man, you can't go in there.”
“It's my fucking place,” I said, my hands balled into fists beside me. His eyes dropped as he retracted his hand.
“Sorry man,” he mumbled, letting me past. Inside was a swarm of cops.
Holy fuck. I felt as though the wind had been knocked out of me.
With my knees slightly bent, I rested my hands on them, trying to catch my breath. The walls were black with soot, parts of the floor had melted under the intense heat, and the entire bar was completely trashed. A cop approached me.
“Are you Jack Falcon?” he asked. I nodded in shock. “Looks like the place was ransacked and then set alight. All the damage seems to be downstairs, but you might want to see if there is anything missing upstairs.” He glanced back at the charred remains of what used to be the steps. “Not that you can get up there right now. Your cat is fine. He's been taken to the vet, just for observation.”
I breathed out a sigh of relief. The bar could be fixed. Losing Mr. Jefferies would have devastated me.
The officer stood there, uncomfortably shuffling from one foot to the other. “Can you think of anyone who might want to hurt you?”
I shook my head. “Not to this extent.”
They must have been watching me. There had been such a short window that they had to have known my routine.
He handed me his card.
“If you think of anything, let me know. Do you have somewhere to stay? It will be a few days before you can come back here.”
