“I don’t like you missing any meals,” he replied with a growl. “I don’t like anything that causes you so much upset or worry that you can’t eat.”
His expression eased into one of relief when the waiter arrived with their food. Jenna had never eaten shrimp, and on the commercials she’d seen for various restaurants as well as on the menu she’d absentmindedly perused, it had looked delicious. After Isaac had patiently answered all of the hundred questions she had about the foods she saw on television, she’d wanted to try the seafood the first opportunity she had. And so she was having a delectable-looking pasta dish with shrimp sautéed in butter and Cajun seasoning.
Isaac and her mother had both chosen succulent-looking steaks, and Isaac cut a piece and offered it to Jenna to try. As they ate, the turmoil in her stomach only grew, but she distracted herself by listening and responding to her mother’s excited chatter.
Isaac and the others had expressed the need for Jenna not to disclose any of what had happened after her escape from the cult and certainly not that a dangerous threat existed. The only story Jenna could relate was that she had made her escape days before the unfortunate murder of the rest of the cult and that Isaac had found her and stepped in to protect her, and they’d fallen in love in the process.
Jenna’s mother seemed to think the story was wildly romantic, though her expression hardened at any mention of the cult. Her only remarks were that the bastards had deserved exactly what they’d gotten.
“But certainly no threat exists to her now,” her mother said to Isaac, prompting him to tense.
“I’m protecting Jenna from anyone whose intention is to hurt or exploit her in any way.”
“I’m glad she has you, then,” her mother responded.
Then her mother’s sharp glance honed in on Jenna and her expression became one of concern. “Is something wrong, darling?”
Isaac immediately turned, and Jenna wished her mother hadn’t called attention to her. But the truth was, her stomach was about to revolt despite her huge effort to get through lunch without causing a fuss.
“What’s wrong, baby? You’re pale and you’ve hardly eaten anything.”
“I feel sick,” she admitted. “I’m not sure the shrimp agreed with me at all.”
“I’ll take you to the bathroom,” her mother offered, rising swiftly from her chair.
“She goes nowhere without me,” Isaac said in a steely voice.
Her mother smiled. “Of course not. But you can’t go into the ladies’ room with her, so I’ll go in and make sure she’s okay and you can stand at the door and make sure no one else comes in.”
Jenna could tell Isaac was about to argue that he’d damn well go into the bathroom with her and no one would stop him, so she laid her hand on his arm and looked pleadingly at him.
“Please just wait for us at the door. I’ll just be on the other side of it. I really do think I’m going to be sick.”
As she spoke, perspiration broke out on her forehead and her stomach lurched. Even her hands felt clammy and the room was starring to blur around her.
She heard Isaac curse, and then his arm slipped around her and he guided her toward the bathroom. Once there, he opened the door and quickly did a scan, ensuring no one else was in it. It was a single-occupant bathroom, a fact that obviously eased some of Isaac’s worry, and he quickly motioned Jenna and her mother in.
“You come get me if she needs me,” Isaac told her mother tersely.
“Of course I will,” she said in a soothing voice.
Jenna was just grateful to be inside the bathroom and out of view of customers inside the restaurant. She felt faint, but most of all the contents of her stomach felt as though they were trying to claw their way up her throat.
She rushed to the toilet and violently heaved. She put one hand down on the toilet seat to brace herself and wrapped her other arm around her waist in an effort to calm her rioting stomach.
She continued to heave until there was nothing left to come up. She felt so weak that she knew she’d never be able to walk back without Isaac’s help. And right now she wanted Isaac. Wanted his strong arms around her because he’d never let her fall.
She tried to right herself but lacked the strength. Her mother’s surprisingly strong grip helped her get to her feet and then Jenna murmured, shocked at how weak she felt and the slurring of her words, “Please get Isaac for me.”
To her ultimate shock, she saw a gun appear in her mother’s hand and then felt the cold metal of the barrel press bruisingly hard into her side.
“It’s not Isaac you’ll be going to see, Jenna, dear,” her mother said coldly. “There’s someone right outside that window who wants very much to see you.”
Jenna stared in shock at her mother, unable to comprehend what was going on.
“You can’t fight me,” she said dispassionately. “The button I scratched you with? I drugged you. You’re as weak as a kitten and if you don’t move fast, not only will I shoot you, but I’ll shoot your precious Isaac too, so if you don’t want him to die, then you’re coming with me through that window and you’re going to do it fast before he gets worried and barges in. Because if that happens? I kill him, Jenna. So get moving.”
She shoved Jenna toward the blind-covered window even as she shouted loud enough for Isaac to hear, “She’s okay, Isaac! Just getting cleaned up now. We’ll be out in a minute. She just needs to wash her face and get her bearings back.”
“Are you all right, Jenna?” Isaac called back, concern evident in his tone.
“Answer him,” her mother hissed. “And you’d better be convincing or he’s dead.”
Fear nearly made speech impossible. Her mind was cluttered with a million things, memories, brief snippets and fragments of long-ago events all coalescing into place.
“I’m okay, Isaac. We’ll be out in a minute.”
Her mother made quick work of the blinds and getting the window open and then she shoved Jenna out, following behind her. Jenna stumbled when her feet made contact with the ground, the drug making her unsteady and dizzy.
“You killed him,” she whispered. She lifted her stare and looked right into the eyes of evil. “You killed my father and you were the one who sold me to the cult,” she said hysterically.
TWENTY-SEVEN
DANE was standing in front of the television, holding a cup of coffee in his hand, as he replayed the interview that had Jenna’s mother pleading for information about her long lost daughter. He didn’t know why he was so bothered by it. They’d checked her out, dug up every nonexistent skeleton from her past, and all they’d found was a woman who’d lost everything shortly after her daughter, Jenna, had turned four.
It wasn’t personal. It never was. Suspects were suspects until they weren’t. People were investigated and either found to be a source of use or not. So why did this woman stick in Dane’s craw so badly? What was it about her eyes that bothered him so damn much?