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"I'm sorry, Jessie, but you know we can't do that. She's using a burner, but you're not. There's too great a risk that Pierce could track your call somehow. If you want to get a message to her, I can pass it along, although I know that won't have the reassuring effect you're looking for."
“Just have Rufus let her know I love her and that everyone is doing all they can to bring this to an end,” Jessie said, unable to keep the resignation out of her voice.
“Of course,” Grover replied, “and if it’s any consolation, with her current attitude, you might be better off avoiding direct communication.”
“It’s no consolation,” she told him.
He nodded and silently went to the kitchen to give her some alone time.
It was a nice gesture, but it didn’t have the desired effect. In fact, all it did was leave her to fight off the crushing guilt that came with the knowledge that everything the people she loved were dealing with was ultimately because of her.
The fight wasn’t going well.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Jessie heard the door creak open ever so slightly.
She had only been half-sleeping anyway, so when she heard the sound in the middle of the night, she popped straight up in bed. Glancing to her left, she noted that Ryan wasn't in his normal spot beside her. She looked over at the bathroom door, which was open and dark, suggesting he wasn't there either. The bedside clock read 2:41 a.m.
She was about to call out when something made her stop. A figure emerged in the doorway. From his build, she immediately knew it wasn’t her husband. Nor was it Grover, who had left for the night when Ryan got home from work. She squinted, trying to make sure that she was really seeing who she thought she was.
It was dark in the bedroom, and it had been a long time since she'd seen Mark Haddonfield in person. Even then, it had been a brief interaction, maybe two minutes at the most. But it was definitely him.
She remembered the tall, gangly frame, the curly blond hair, and the wire-rimmed glasses. Only now, as he came toward her, he moved with the limp, sustained when he attacked Hannah at the Santa Monica Pier and she dived at his knee.
How did he get in here?
She pushed the thought out of her head. That wasn’t important right now. She wanted to reach into her bedside drawer for her gun but knew that even with the limp, Haddonfield would get to her before she could pull it out.
She tried to stay calm as another question popped into her head: where was Ryan? Had he heard a sound earlier and gone out to investigate? Was he in the living room, hurt or worse?
She tried to keep her anxiety in check as she slid her legs up toward her, preparing to leap off the bed at the man if he got closer. But he stayed in the doorway, just staring at her. He had to know she was awake. He must see that she was sitting up. Or maybe his eyes hadn’t adjusted to the darkness of the room yet. Should she make her move now? In his right hand, she saw a large knife. That’s when he spoke.
“I’m not here for you,” he whispered, tossing something at her.
She flinched, then realized that he'd thrown her a phone. She picked it up and saw a photo of a nice suburban house.
“I wanted you to see what I did,” he told her. “Scroll through the photos.”
Jessie picked up the phone, hoping that she could stall him long enough to get to her gun. But as soon as she saw the first photo, everything else became secondary. It was a picture of the inside of a house at the foot of the stairs. Lying there in a pool of blood was Rufus Harrington.
“Keep scrolling,” Haddonfield said quietly.
Her finger trembling, Jessie did as he said. The next photo was of a closed door. She continued to scroll. The one after that showed Hannah asleep in bed. In the next one, she was awake, tied to a chair, looking terrified. Unable to breathe, Jessie swiped to the next image. The sight made her gasp in horror.
Hannah was still sitting in the chair, but now her head and shoulders were slumped. A river of blood extended from her neck down onto her t-shirt.
Jessie felt a mixture of anguish and fury. She looked up at Haddonfield, who flashed a nasty grin back her way.
“It had to be done,” he told her.
But even before he had finished speaking, she leaped off the bed, flinging the phone at his face. As he moved to block it with his empty hand, she charged him. He raised the knife above his head, but she ignored it, diving toward him, her eyes fixed on the kneecap that her now-dead sister had already mangled.
Jessie sat bolt upright in bed.
Gasping for air, she realized that her arms were flailing wildly at the empty air in front of her. She stared at the closed bedroom door as if it was a living thing.
Other than her heavy breathing, the bedroom was silent. Her body, drenched in sweat, was trembling uncontrollably. She looked to her left in bed to find Ryan’s spot empty. Then she remembered—he was still at work, where he’d decided to crash because of a late-night shooting at a local bar. The bedside clock read 4:33 a.m. The sun wouldn’t be up for another two hours.
