Part 18

                                    

                                          
L
"Where were you?" Jennie asks before the front door is even closed. Her voice is filled with accusations that make my body freeze.
Her eyes are bloodshot as she peeks up at me above her knees on the sofa. It's not too late yet. Past dinnertime, but it's not so late that she should be coming at me like this. Unless she knew something.
What the fuck happened? It's all I can think. My movements are slow as I toss the keys on the table and kick off my boots, taking her in as she watches me. My heart's hammering and I'm fucking confused. This isn't my Jennie.
"I was with Mashiho, they don't get good reception out there," I tell her and hope she accepts it as the truth. "What's wrong?" She can't be mad that I left her alone all day. There's no fucking way that's it when I know for a fact she was going to leave me last night.
"Someone texted me," she says in a quick breath and then closes her eyes to swallow. "I'm being stupid," she says while shaking her head, her eyes closed tightly.
"What'd they say?" I ask her, trying to hide the adrenaline and rage that mixes in a deadly concoction. I walk carefully to her, watching as she rubs her eyes. Sitting close to her and pulling her into me, I try to calm her down so she'll just talk to me. And she lets me, which is already a relief. "Just tell me what happened," I say, and the words come out even and calm. Deadly calm.
"I feel like... Lisa." Her words are choked as she buries her head in her knees, pulling away from me.
The only thing I focus on is keeping my hands on her. She's here with me. My Jennie is right here, and I've got her.
"Whoever it was just wanted to freak me out, but I don't know how they know about the list unless they overheard at the butcher shop. But I didn't say the names out loud, did I?" Her words come one after the other, stumbling over each other, but the second she's done, she breathes in deep and rubs her eyes. "I know I didn't." She answers her own question before I can say anything. My blood is hot with rage, wanting to know exactly who messaged her and why the fuck they'd get in my way.
Still not looking at me, she apologizes. "I'm sorry."
Frozen and struggling to push the command through clenched teeth, I repeat my question, "Who texted you?" If they're fucking with her, they're fucking with me.
"They said Jeff Adler's dead. I don't know who it is. I don't..." She doesn't finish. Instead, she shakes out her hands and grabs onto her knees, burying her head so she doesn't have to look at me.
My blood runs cold. He's next on the list. She knows it. I know it. Only two left.
With a deep exhalation, she finally looks up at me and she apologizes again. "I'm sorry," she says, and her voice is soft. "I feel like I'm being crazy, but I'm scared."
She has no idea how ridiculous those words are coming from her mouth.
"I saw," I tell her, knowing she needs to be told enough so she thinks it's okay. That everything is okay. "On my way back from Mashiho's, there's a bunch of people around the site. Looks like a car hit him." Her mouth drops slowly as I give her the partial truth.
"What? No." Her first reaction is denial and she reaches for her phone, but I take it from her, hellbent on finding the number and who it belongs to. "I looked, no one was saying anything."
I don't respond to her and she stays stiff at my side as I look up the number and put it in my own phone. Nothing. Reading the texts, I know who sent it. I just don't know why and every thought that comes up makes my knuckles turn white as I try not to break the fucking phone in my hand.