Finding Tessa by Jaime Hendricks (best ereader for comics .TXT) 📗

with him. He wanted to take Candy on a run, but he couldn’t risk her barking and giving him away while he completed his mission. While she explored the yard, he changed into a T-shirt and sweatpants, and grabbed his armband to strap his phone into. His headphones were on the kitchen counter, and when he plugged them into the phone, he blasted Linkin Park in his ears to drown out the swirls of accusation in his head. With one last peek out the front door, his head swiveled left to right. No one was there. No one was waiting for him.

He let Candy in and refilled her water, and before he left for his run in the park, he duct-taped the gun to his lower back. Not the most perfect—or comfortable—way to handle it, but he certainly couldn’t brandish it while waving to neighbors.

It was a perfect afternoon, the onset of fall, and the fresh cut grass smell was still thick in the air. The smell reminded him of simpler times, when all he needed to do to earn a few bucks was clip the neighbor’s grass. He started a slow jog on his way out of the neighborhood. While he normally stopped to talk to neighbors weeding their lawns or to pet dogs being walked, this time he kept his head down as he exited the cul-de-sac onto the main street.

Jace ran cross country all through high school and college, and even ran the New York Marathon once in his late twenties, when he was in peak shape. Running was the one thing that put his mind at ease, pushed everything else bad out of his brain. When he was so focused on his pace and his heart rate and pushing himself to the brink, it was impossible to think about anything else except how to survive long enough to get home without passing out.

This time, Jace had a mission.

He ran three and a half miles to the park. It was one of those parks that had set up paved trails, a hockey rink, basketball and tennis courts, and, in the summer, a water spray park for the kids. He and Tessa often walked the grounds with Candy over the summer.

He knew exactly where to go.

Candy, being a herding dog, liked to go off leash and explore. She was a good girl and always stayed next to either Jace or Tessa on their walks. One time, a squirrel ran out in front of her and she zigzagged into the adjacent woods, making chase. The squirrel was faster, of course, and quickly climbed up a huge tree. When Jace and Tessa found Candy at the foot, barking like a dog possessed, they laughed, then marveled at the tree. It didn’t look like it belonged in New Jersey, with a trunk ten feet wide, sturdy branches billowing out from every angle and taking root in the ground. It looked like one of the trees near downtown St. Petersburg, where his parents lived in Florida.

The gigantic hole in the middle of the multiple trunks and branches looked like a nature-made fort. Like the Keebler elves lived inside. An actual tree house.

So Jace ran the trail he and Tessa and Candy were on that day. Passed other joggers enjoying the end-of-September weather. People walking dogs, kids riding bikes. When he got near the turnoff into the woods that Candy had taken, he paused, his hands on his knees, huffing and puffing in an exaggerated manner as he looked for other people. He turned off the anger music that pounded in his ears. The silence of the park, save for a few bees that buzzed by, shocked him on such a nice day.

When the coast was clear, he turned right, crunching deep into the foliage, and found the tree. The majestic beauty was perfection, and the ideal hiding spot. He winced as he ripped the duct tape off his chest, then removed the tape from the small revolver. It was a .38 caliber, and he had the six bullets it came with in his pants pocket. He wiped the fingerprints from the gun with his sweat-covered T-shirt and placed it in the center hole of the tree—the Keebler elves would just have to deal with it. He scattered the bullets in the same place and covered everything with fallen leaves.

Again, he looked left to right. Nothing. No one. No random dogs chasing animals through the woods. Even the bees weren’t buzzing in there.

Back at the edge of the woods, near the concrete trail, he looked both ways again, like a child crossing the street, and no one was there. Just in case there was someone in the distance that he didn’t see, Jace stopped and did some calisthenics and stretches, so any passersby would think he just stopped to give his aching muscles a rest.

Not that he was hiding an illegal gun.

His feet hit the pavement for a fast walk, and he turned the anger music back on before he picked up speed again. Another half mile or so on the trail, then another three and a half miles back from the park to his house.

Mission accomplished.

17

TESSA

I spent the entire Sunday lying in my hotel room, and only went out once to walk to the McDonald’s down the block, because I needed to eat something. Now it’s Monday morning, and I can’t even look for a job. Not with my face looking the way it does, thanks to Damon. As per usual, the lumps on my head have settled into the shape they’ll take for the next few days, and the purple and blue marks I’m used to are taking hold. My split lip can’t be covered with lipstick. In fact, it makes it look reptilian.

I stare at Maribel’s text. It’s done. Now we wait. For how long? I decide to call her. My anxiety bubbles in my subconscious as the line trills. She says she wants to help,