Because of You: Just Because Series, Book 1, page 5
His brother laughed. “Just tell me it didn’t break.”
“It broke,” he said.
Jacob’s jaw dropped and Caleb watched the color slowly seep out of his brother’s face.
“It’s okay. Jessie assured me it was fine. She must be on the Pill or taking those birth control shots. I’m clean and she’s only ever been with her husband, so it’s not like STDs are an issue either.”
“Phew, that’s a relief. I almost made myself an uncle. Who’d have thought it? And at Gay Fest too.”
Caleb laughed and picked up the bag of garbage. “Shut up, you idiot. What’s left to clean up around here?”
Chapter Five
“Thank you, Officer,” Jessie said, closing the door behind the policeman and quickly throwing the deadbolt in place as well as sliding the chain into its notch. She turned and looked at the mess that was her apartment.
She’d driven to the grocery store after her conversation with Rex, then headed to the post office to pick up the mail that had accumulated while she was on vacation. She’d even treated herself to lunch at a new tapas bar, hoping that by forcing herself into normal activities, she could stop feeling so out of control, so helpless.
She didn’t realize as she left the restaurant that she was driving back to hell. Someone had broken into her apartment while she was out and the culprit had certainly done a number on the place. Nothing had been left untouched or undisturbed. It didn’t appear that anything had been stolen. Her television, stereo, even her big bowl of loose change were still in place.
On the plus side, the police were now admitting that she seemed to have attracted the unsavory attention of some criminal. They still didn’t think this break-in had anything to do with Tommy’s death, but at least they didn’t think she was blowing things out of proportion anymore when she mentioned the feeling of being watched.
Some consolation.
According to the police officer, either the person was a vandal trying to wreak havoc and scare her or he was someone looking for something. Regardless of the asshole’s intentions, she was immediately besieged with the same uneasy, fearful feelings she’d just spent the last two weeks on vacation trying to cure herself of.
Reaching for her cell, she started to dial Todd’s number. She’d only punched in a few digits when she stopped and considered calling Caleb. She felt certain he would know what to say, know how to help her. She wished she had extended her trip, stuck around a few more days. She felt a bit like a coward for leaving town without even saying goodbye to him.
“Shit,” she muttered to herself.
One night.
She’d spent one night talking to the man. They’d had sex once. It was over. The last thing she needed right now was to start thinking of Caleb as anything more than a one-night stand.
She finished dialing the phone.
“Hey, Jess,” Todd answered on the third ring. “What’s up?”
“Someone broke into my apartment. Trashed the place,” she said, her annoyance overshadowing her initial fear.
“Are you kidding me?” he asked.
“Am I laughing?” she answered.
“Shit, Stephen and I will pack up and head out this evening to—”
“No,” she said, interrupting him. “You aren’t driving all the way down here. Nothing was stolen. The police have come and gone and all I have to do now is clean up. I can do that on my own.”
“What do you need me to do?”
“I’ve got three more months on this lease and then I’m getting the hell out.”
“Screw the lease and come to Saratoga now,” Todd interjected.
She took a deep breath and bit her tongue. She was too damn tired to argue with her best friend, and if she told him of her plans to stay close to Denver to continue her investigation into Tommy’s death, the battle was likely to be epic. Evasion was her best bet. “No. I’m going to finish out the lease. I thought I’d use the time to do some major cleaning out. Do you mind if I send a few boxes your way to keep in your attic until I find a new place?”
“Of course I don’t mind. I’ve already got that box from Tommy’s office up there. You know there’s plenty of room. Send them on.”
“I’d forgotten about that box,” she said quietly, remembering the night her husband had died.
“Christ, I’m glad you’re moving here. Clearly Denver has gone mad if a woman gets mugged walking out of Starbucks and has her apartment trashed while she’s out.”
“Todd…” She paused, almost ready to dump all her concerns, her fears on him. She shook her head. She didn’t want to worry him. Whatever was going on, she would get to the bottom of it alone. “I’ll be fine. Goodbye.”
“Bye, kiddo.”
She hung up and crossed the room. Grabbing a cushion from the floor, she replaced it on the couch and dropped down heavily.
Her mind began to drift back to things she had purposely pushed away for months. Now as she looked around her destroyed living room, everything came back to her in a rush.
The last time she had spoken to Tommy had been lunchtime on the day he died. He’d called to tell her he’d be a bit later than usual getting home and that she shouldn’t wait for him to have dinner. She could tell by his voice he was anxious, upset. When she’d asked him about it, he merely said he’d found something interesting in his latest audit and that he was handling it. She remembered making some joke about an interesting audit being an oxymoron and Tommy laughing.
She’d spent the evening designing a web banner and had lost track of time. Coming up for air, she’d been surprised to discover it was after ten o’clock and Tommy still hadn’t come home…
After repeated calls to his office phone and cell phone, she given in to her anxiety and driven to his office. It was just before midnight and his car was the only one in the parking lot as she pulled in. She knew immediately that something was wrong because the light was on inside the car and although she was facing the passenger side, she could see the driver’s side door was open.
She saw Tommy lying on the pavement beside the car as she drove closer. She threw her car into park and rushed to him, slipping on the black ice at her feet and falling to her knees next to him. The instant she touched his face, she knew he was dead. Pulling his stiff, cold body to hers, she rocked him gently, calling his name, begging him to come back to her.
The rest of the night seemed a blur. She dialed 911. She followed the ambulance to the hospital and listened as the doctor told her he was dead. Head trauma—an accidental death. She answered a thousand questions for the police officer so he could type up his report. She called Todd in Saratoga and then drove straight back to Tommy’s office.
She wasn’t sure why she’d come to the office rather than returning home. It was nearly dawn and she had never felt so numb. A train could have run over her at that point and she was certain she wouldn’t have felt a drop of pain.
Todd found her there. “Oh, thank God, Jess,” he said from the doorway.
She glanced up, surprised to see him.
“Stephen and I have been all over the place looking for you. He’s back at your place right now, calling all your friends. What are you doing here?”
“Packing things up.” She needed to clean out Tommy’s office. He was dead. He wouldn’t be back, and someone new would be moving in.
“Christ, Jessie. Why are you doing that now? Have you even been home? Have you slept at all?”
She shrugged and continued throwing items from Tommy’s desk into the box she had found earlier in the filing room. “I need to get this stuff out of here, Todd. They need this space.” Her voice was shrill, distant and for a moment, she was struck by the fact that it sounded like someone else was speaking with her mouth.
“Oh, kiddo, please stop. Don’t do that anymore. This can wait until later.” Todd came over to her and gripped her hands in his, trying to halt her actions, but she pulled them back, overwhelmed with irrational anger.
“I have to do this now,” she said sharply.
She felt Todd studying her face for a long time, but she ignored him and continued throwing things in the box. A Rolodex, computer disks, a thumb drive, Tommy’s diplomas, the paperweight he’d received from Jordan when they’d signed him on as a client, the fancy pen set she had given him for Christmas. Her hand paused when she picked up the frame that held their wedding picture.
“Shit,” she whispered. Then louder, she repeated the word several more times. “Shit!” she screamed, throwing the frame across the room, against the wall where it shattered.
Todd reached for her as she crumpled, and together they huddled on the floor behind Tommy’s desk while her sobs erupted and the tears flowed.
It was at that point that time betrayed her, began its cursed slowness, taunting her with minutes that seemed to last for days. As the memory of that night faded again, Jessie remembered Todd picking her up, walking her to his car, and putting the box in his trunk.
Sighing, she looked around at the mess and stood up. This wasn’t a random act of destruction. She shivered as the sense of being watched returned.
“Damn you,” she whispered to the empty apartment. “What do you want from me?”
* * *
Jessie tried to concentrate on the movie, but her heart wasn’t into the story. In the past, the romantic comedy had never failed to lighten her heart, but tonight, her gloominess, her misery was just too heavy to penetrate. The phone rang beside her and for a moment her heart raced in fear. A quick glance at the clock showed her it was only nine-thirty and she shook herself for her irrational fear. Checking the number, her heart began to race again, but this time for an entirely different reason.
“Hello?”
“Jessie?”
“Yes.”
“Hey, Jess, this is Caleb James.”
“Caleb, hi,” she said, grinning widely at the sound of his friendly voice. She’d plugged his number into her cell the day after their one-night stand. It had taunted her for the past week as she considered calling him about a thousand times a day. She’d thought of her night with the sexy doctor more than she cared to admit.
“I’m not interrupting anything, am I?” he asked.
“Oh no, I’m just sitting here watching a movie.”
“Do you want me to let you go? I can call back later.”
Jessie laughed. “Don’t you dare hang up. Some brilliant person invented this marvelous thing. It’s called the pause button. Besides, I’m watching my favorite movie and I’ve seen it about a thousand times.”
“Favorite movie? What are you watching?” he asked.
“Overboard.”
She giggled at the long pause on the other end of the line as she mentioned the title of the ultimate chick flick.
“Overboard? Isn’t that the one with Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell?” he asked. She could almost picture the look of male distaste on his handsome face.
“Yep.”
“And this is your favorite movie?”
“Of all time,” she answered, laughing at his disbelief.
“Oh, Jess, I gotta tell you. That really isn’t a very good movie.”
“Are you kidding me? It’s awesome. Romance, comedy, a sexy hero. What more could you want?”
“A car chase, a few explosions, some aliens, maybe a shark,” he joked.
She shook her head. “Uh oh. So let me guess, your favorite movie has to be Die Hard, Alien or Jaws?”
“Or all of the above, plus the Terminator movies,” he added.
Jessie groaned and they laughed together.
“I hope you don’t mind me calling you out of the blue like this.”
“I don’t mind at all. Todd mentioned that you’d asked for my number. I was kind of wondering if you’d call.”
“Yeah, well. I should have called earlier. I’ve been worried about you and I wanted to make sure that, I wanted to see if—” He stumbled, but she knew what he was asking.
“I’m fine, Caleb.”
“No regrets?”
“Not a single one,” she assured him.
“Good.”
“How about you?” she asked. She’d relived their night together so many times in her head, she’d cemented every minute of the evening in her brain in perfect clarity. She worried that perhaps she’d built the moment up to mean a hell of a lot more than it had. No doubt a handsome, successful doctor like Caleb had women throwing themselves at him on a daily basis. She’d be a fool to think that night had been as special for him as it had been for her.
“Not a single regret,” he said. “Well, except…” He paused again and her heart started to pound again.
“Except?” she prodded.
“Except that you seem to have ruined me for other women. I haven’t had as much fun on a date since the night you and I spent together.”
Jessie laughed and shook her head. “Oh yeah, right.”
“I’m serious. You would not believe what passes for conversation with a couple of the women I’ve taken out lately,” he said.
She winced at the image of Caleb out on a date with another woman, and then shook herself for her foolish jealousy.
“You make it sound like dating is a new concept to you,” she said, pulling the blanket more firmly around her and settling down in her comfortable couch. It felt so good to have a real conversation with a nice man. For the first time since her return home, she felt her entire body relax.
“Well, I have to confess, it sort of is.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m a doctor. I don’t have a lot of time for dating. Or I should say I never made a lot of time for dating.”
“And you are now?”
“Jacob pointed out to me the day after his party that I have a tendency to let work dictate my life. I had such a good time with you that I thought I’d try to cut back on my hours at the hospital and start going out more.”
“And it’s not going well?” She tried to brush away the slight tinge of irrational jealousy that surfaced when she pictured him going out to dinner and the movies with another woman.
“That would be an understatement.” For several moments, Caleb related his two dating horror stories while she laughed. She was sure he didn’t realize it, but she had to admit that ironically he was just what the doctor ordered. She’d been feeling unusually tired lately as her investigation into Tommy’s death seemed to occupy all of her spare time.
“Clearly you aren’t asking out the right sort of women,” she added.
Caleb sighed on the other end of the line. “Tell Jacob. He’s the one who made the list.”
“List?” she asked.
“When I admitted that I might be interested in dating, Jake pulled out a list of available women he thought I should ask out.”
Jessie laughed long and loud, tears streaming down her face at Caleb’s admission. “Jacob made a list? For you? Oh, Caleb, no wonder it’s not going well.”
“Don’t get me wrong. The women are straight. Well, I mean, I think most of them are.”
They both dissolved into laughter together. “Do me a favor, Doc,” she said, adopting the nickname she’d heard his brother use the night of the party. “Make your own list. You might have better luck.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right. Todd says you’re looking to move here in a couple of months.”
Her heart missed a beat at his segue, and she silently chastised herself for foolishly hoping he’d asked the question because he wanted to see her again. Then she dismissed the thought. She wasn’t in any better shape now than she’d been a week ago and unbeknownst to Todd, she wasn’t so sure a move to Saratoga was in her immediate plans any longer. Her thoughts were still consumed by the past and Tommy’s death. Until she settled that, she couldn’t even consider planning for the future.
“I have a few more months on my lease, but yeah, I hope to eventually move to Saratoga.”
“Good,” he said softly. “You sure you’re doing okay? You sound tired.”
She closed her eyes and felt the words she’d intended to hold back falling from her lips. “The phone calls haven’t stopped.”
She thought for a moment he’d actually growled. “Have you called the police?”
“Oh, the police and I have gotten quite chummy. Someone broke into my apartment last week.” While her words were light, her tone betrayed her anxiety.
“Shit. To hell with the lease, Jess. Pack your stuff and move up here now.”
She smiled, touched by his concern. “You sound like Todd again. Unfortunately, I have some unfinished business I need to take care of first.”
“What sort of business?” he asked, and she took a deep breath, wondering what he would say about her suspicions concerning Tommy’s death.
“I think these phone calls, the mugging and the break-in are all connected to my husband’s death.”
“I thought his death was an accident.”
“The police ruled it as one,” she said. Her breathing accelerated as she feared his response to her words. She’d been scoffed at, laughed at, her feelings dismissed by strangers for months, but the idea of receiving the same treatment from Caleb terrified her. She desperately wanted him to believe her.
“But you don’t think it was?”
“No,” she admitted. “At first it started as a feeling. Tommy was acting strangely when he called me the afternoon he died. Then all these strange things started happening. I guess I really became convinced when an arsonist burned down the accounting firm where Tommy worked.”
“Someone set fire to his office?” he asked.
“They don’t know who did it, but I’m starting to think that Tommy stumbled onto some shady dealings, perhaps an embezzler.”
“What is this unfinished business you have in Denver?” His voice throughout her recitation of events had been monotone, devoid of emotion. With this question, she heard his concern, perhaps even a bit of anger.
“I want to find out the truth,” she said defensively.
“Let me see if I’ve got this right. You believe your husband uncovered some sort of embezzlement scheme and was murdered for it. Since his death you’ve been mugged, robbed, tormented by phone calls and his office has been burned down.”
