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For over twenty years, she had been cleaning up Martin Whitly’s messes. Jessica sank onto the hotel bed, still trembling. She had insisted Gil drive her to Vermont and if he wouldn’t, Adolpho would. No one was keeping her away from that man’s latest mess. She wasn’t under arrest for aiding and abetting Vivian Capshaw’s kidnapping of her damned ex. Frankly she had hoped Vivian would kill him but of course Martin hadn’t died.
Her son nearly had been killed and learning that left her shaking. Gil too. Neither of them had spoken much on the maniac drive. Once outside of the city, Gil had hammered the accelerator. He’d promised in the past to show her what his muscle car could do. Neither of them had imagined it would be for this purpose. The only reason they were flying on the highway instead of the sky was that it was going to take too long to arrange a flight to nowhere Vermont. Five hours later they were there.
Jessica had wanted to be strong. She needed to be with her children and she was going to be until the marshals said no, she wasn’t. Malcolm had been transferred to the hospital under arrest. Ainsley had been detained for questioning. Even Gil’s detectives were being questioned by the marshals. Malcolm, you didn’t… she thought over and over. That he stabbed Martin wasn’t in question. Had he been helping him escape, that’s what the marshals wanted to know. Gil told her to stay in the hotel, to not cloud the issue, to do what she needed to.
Clean up the mess is exactly what he meant. She had already called her lawyers and they had contacted their Vermont buddies. They assured her a heavy hitter was on the way to Malcolm’s side. Be smart enough to stay quiet until he gets there, baby.
Jessica cast a glance at the suite’s mini-bar. She desperately wanted something. Hell, she could drink the vodka straight from the little bottle. No you will not. She had meant what she’d said about seeing things more clearly, staying sober. If she had done that earlier, she would have made better choices. She would have reported Vivian immediately. Her son wouldn’t have stabbed his father…again. Martin would probably choose this time to die, to make sure he could do the most damage.
Damage got him off. She knew that now. She hadn’t realized what he was when she fell so hard in love with him. Even removed from her life, he continued to do damage. She protected Ainsley, or so she thought. She had missed all the signs. Malcolm’s trauma blinded her and it compounded every time she tried to keep him from his father. She hadn’t wanted to let him see his father when he was young. She begged him, forbade him and it went wrong every time. He sank so far he lost his own voice. The mutism had killed something inside her worsening her own damage.
Thanks to Martin the party girl in her, relegated to weekends and various events, took over. Watching her children suffer drove her to numb herself once they were asleep and wouldn’t see her. The tapestry of her life unraveled, Martin pulling all the threads free. All the hostility she had to endure, the threats from strangers, the threats from victim’s families, all of it was too much for her. She’d started drinking more. When Malcolm and Ainsley were older, didn’t need her as much, it got worse and now, thanks to her, her son had been kidnapped by three serial killers in a row and was hospitalized. He can’t go to prison. I have to help him. Jessica shuddered, dragging a hand through her hair.
Her phone buzzed and she looked at the text from Gil. Malcolm wasn’t doing well but she still couldn’t come see him. He’d gone mute again, completely non-responsive. That was not a text she could ever unsee.
“Fuck you, Martin,” she snarled. “This is all your fault.”
Of course it was. He didn’t care about anyone but himself, his control, his perfect façade. He had lured Ainsley in. There had been no way of her stopping Ainsley from going to Claremont to do that damn interview. God knows she had tried. How had he gotten his hooks into her? How could Jessica have missed it entirely? Ainsley had helped him. Jessica would not forget Gil and Malcolm bringing her in to question her. Why hadn’t she walled that damn office back up? Why hadn’t she burned everything inside it? How could she not know Ainsley had been down there so much, drinking in her father’s venom?
Why couldn’t he have died at the hands at one of the monsters in Claremont? Cancer, heart attack, pneumonia, anything. She didn’t care what killed him. She would have happily taken anything but it never came and he was able to claim her children again and again. Malcolm would never have thought to cover up Endicott’s death if Martin hadn’t been right there walking him through it. He would have realized he had the evidence that Endicott had framed him, had had Eve murdered, had his man stab Gil all the while trying to blackmail her into helping him. Ainsley and Malcolm had been at risk of imminent harm and that was grounds for taking a life to save ones’ self. She had researched it.
If only he had died before that. She should never have let Malcolm take the ice pick from her. She would have buried it in his neck. She would have kept stabbing. You would have failed. You were so afraid. She dabbed at her watering eyes. Part of her had been afraid, unable to take a life. Part of her remembered loving him and it stopped her. Jessica had never regretted anything more. If he had died then maybe everything would be different.
Why couldn’t the assassin who killed Eve had managed to kill Martin? She had never wanted something more. It would have been the perfect way for things to end. Her children could have moved on that way. But of course he lived.
“And now you need to live, Martin. Can you hear me? You don’t die now. Malcolm cannot live with this. You are not taking our son with you,” she whispered, her whole body quivering.
She curled up on the mattress. Helpless, she was utterly helpless. All she wanted was to hold Malcolm, to hug Ainsley tight, to protect them both. Malcolm would not be able to handle killing his father. Deep down she knew that. How would Ainsley react to this? She loved her brother but in spite of everything, she loved her father too. Ainsley would keep all the secrets. Jessica had no doubt of it but Malcolm in this state? Maybe having lost his voice at the moment wasn’t the worst thing. He was broken and she didn’t know if she could help fix him.
The phone buzzed again. This time Gil had better news. Martin was alive and talking. Gil was on his way to interrogate him with that woman from the marshals. She drew in a long breath. Old spouses never die, a thought she had every time Malcolm had gone to see Martin, every time she had seen him herself once she had forced herself to go to Claremont to make the monster she married let their son go. This was the first time she was grateful for it. Malcolm wouldn’t have to live with killing the bastard.
Their troubles weren’t over. There would be other times when Martin could do them the favor of dying. Jessica rolled off the bed and ran a brush through her hair. She was going to the hospital. She’d keep out of the way but someone needed to talk to the lawyer when they got there. Gil would probably be annoyed with her but there was nothing new in that. He’d be shocked if she actually listened to him. She needed to be there when Malcolm was allowed a visitor. Ainsley would go there too to see him. Jessica knew that much. She was here in Vermont to help her brother after all. And her father the little voice in her head said.
Ignoring it, Jessica called for a cab. She would be there for her children. She knew no one could promise her Malcolm would be all right but Jessica had hope. That was the only thing left to her: hope and the knowledge Martin Whitly wasn’t going to die, at least not this time. There would be other times for her to get a chance to flush his ashes down the toilet, a time when it wasn’t her baby as the root cause of his demise.
Composing herself, Jessica called her lawyers, got the name of the lawyer they were sending and prepared herself for battle. No one in her family was safe yet. She wasn’t going to stop until they were.