Page 72 of Steel & Jenna
Finally, at the beginning of March, her mom had had it. “You win!” she shouted at Jenna. “If that boy means so much to you that you would start starving yourself just to get our attention, thenfine. Be with him. You can have it all back. The driver, the car, your allowance… Take it and fucking eat something! You turn your life around. If your grades do not improve, if you do not start taking care of yourself, then it all goes away again. Hell, the boy has probably moved on while you’re here pining over him like some pathetic lovesick puppy. Go see for yourself and then tell me if all this misery was worth it!”
Jenna didn’t have to be told twice. With her allowance back, she went out and bought herself a car. She was never going to rely on someone else to drive her back to Port Townsend again.
She was already driving north before the ink had dried on the sales contract.
1 YEAR, 2 MONTHS, 1 DAY
Jack pulled the collar of his jacket up as he got out of his truck. The brisk wind was exceptionally cold today and damn if it just didn’t add to the bleakness that was his life. It had been nearly three weeks since he’d spoken to Jenna and over four months since he’d seen her. He’d driven down to her school twice, only to be turned away at the gates. The security guards wouldn’t even tell her he was there.
They still had over a year away from her eighteenth birthday. At this rate, Jack wasn’t even sure if he’d see her before then. Her parents had done what they’d been threatening to do and officially separated them. They had no idea that the distance was only making his love for their daughter stronger. His determination to claim her never wavered.
There was no question if the pain of separation was worth it. He knew where he would be on May 5, 1987—and they would have no say then.
The snow was falling pretty heavily and it wasn’t even dusk yet. Mrs. Zarin’s car was already in the driveway, which was really good. That meant she and Lilly were already home from school and not out driving in this weather. Mr. Zarin would hopefully be home soon too.
He had his head down, hunched over against the icy wind. He heard something clatter. His head popped up and he looked behind him. The road was deserted, most residents already home in anticipation of the storm. He saw no sign of what had caused the noise and assumed someone was closing their shutters.
Head still down, he climbed the three stairs to the small landing leading up to the Zarins’ house. A wave of sadness hit him, remembering their first date and waiting on the stoop for Jenna to climb these very stairs. They never did get around to seeing that movie in theaters, but Jenna had gifted it to him on VHS when it came out last summer.
Christ, his ears felt empty. It was the oddest feeling, like they craved hearing her voice.
That clatter sounded again—only louder. Jack’s head snapped up to see the front door swinging backward from the force of being thrown against the frame. The storm door was no match for the harsh wind, pulling the front door each time it blew. The deadbolt was thrown on the front door, which was why it wouldn’t close properly.
Jack’s brows furrowed. Why hadn’t Mrs. Zarin or Lilly heard the clatter of the door? It had been noisy enough he’d heard it through the wind at the end of the driveway when he’d first gotten out of his truck.
Jack opened the storm door, pushing on the front door to enter the house. His eyes landed on the splintered wood of the doorframe.
The fuck?
He continued inside, his blood as cold as the snow outside. He didn’t need to call out to know he was alone. The house was eerilyquiet. Still. And he instinctively knew he was the only living being inside its walls.
Lilly wasn’t on the couch watching cartoons, eating her afternoon snack. Mrs. Zarin wasn’t humming to herself in the kitchen as she prepped dinner.
Jack didn’t hear anything. Though the heat was on, it was like the house was frozen in time.
He looked down at his feet. Small shards of wood lay in the carpeting beneath his boots. His eyes trailed up the thick, white door to the speckles of red on the inside panel. It was right at nose-height for an adult female.
His heart started to pound in his chest.
He looked around. Lilly’s backpack was by the couch, exactly where she always put it until it was time to do homework after dinner. No food or drink was in the living room, but a pillow was by the couch as if an eight-year-old girl had been sitting there and knocked it over when she stood up.
His eyes landed on the television. It was crooked in the large wooden stand. Though there was something off about… Jack’s eyes narrowed. Something was on it.
Jack walked over to it, not even sure he was breathing properly. A hand print was smeared across the glass of the television. It wasn’t bloody, thank God, but it was a defined smudge that said someone had tried to hold onto the stand and was forcibly pulled away from it, knocking into the television and their hand dragging along the screen.
He continued forward. The refrigerator door was left open, a jar of pickles broken on the linoleum beneath it. Lilly loved pickles. She usually had some with her afternoon snack. String cheese, usually, and maybe some carrots or crackers too.
An empty plate was on the counter next to the open fridge. A glass of milk sitting next to it. Lillylovedmilk, especially since she no longer was forced to drink the powdered kind. The nearly empty glass jug was still on the counter with the lid off.
Jack closed the fridge. Turned and froze.
Mr. Zarin’s bottle of whiskey was sitting empty on the kitchentable. A cigarette butt had scorched a mark into the wooden table but thankfully had not caught fire. A note written over Mrs. Zarin’s shopping list.
Bring me what’s owed to me, boy! My money for the bitches!
It tookJack a solid minute of staring at the note to snap out of his shock. He knewexactlywho had taken Mrs. Zarin and Lilly.
Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!
