Page 38 of Jackson's Redemption
KATE.
It stung. A lot. “You once dated another woman named Kate,” I said, stating the obvious.
Had he loved her? I wanted to ask, but I didn’t think it was my place. Whatever we were was so new. So temporary. It certainly didn’t compete with a relationship that had resulted in a tattoo.
I had a strong suspicion he would tell me it was his business anyway. Still, it was hard enough to see another woman’s name on the arm of the man you’d been fucking for a week. Harder still when it was your own name.
My eyes then drifted to the letters above it. It was a capital P and an upside-down V. Framed with a line above and line below it. I knew that mark.
“Why do I know this mark?”
He said nothing, and I let it run through my head. P with an upside-down V.
There was a negative connotation with it. I knew that. The mark meant something bad.
“Wait, that’s a common tat for the inmates in Perryville. You were imprisoned in Perryville?”
He nodded.
“You’re from Arizona. Where?” I asked suddenly not liking the feeling that was swirling in my gut.
“Marana.”
I took a step away from him even as I tried to force my brain to think. “You’re from Marana. You know that’s where I’m from, it would have been on my profile.”
“I knew you were from there, yes.”
I shook my head. This wasn’t happening. “Do I know you? No, of course I don’t know you. I would have recognized you.”
“We met once. You wouldn’t have recognized me. I was a kid then, now I’m a man. Last name isn’t Young, either. It’s Warner.”
Jackson Warner. Warner? I went to school with a Marco Warner and there was Jack Warner, a few years younger than me, who I met that one time when I hurt my ankle. And told me he…
Wanted to be a geologist.
“Jack?”
He flinched at the name. Like it hurt him for me to call him by that name.
The panic inside me blossomed. My perfect, idyllic fantasy world, where pain had been suspended for a time, was suddenly folding in on itself.
“What the fuck is happening right now?” I shouted at him. “Why wouldn’t you have just told me? How the fuck am I here? Don’t tell me this is some kind of twisted coincidence?”
“No. I ran the Facebook ad for the contest. There are ways you can target people. Just ask the Russians. Anyway, I knew enough about you to know how to get that ad to appear in your feed every day. Whether or not you clicked it…that was the unknown. Thought you might. That getting away would appeal to you.”
That made no sense. “You thought I might? My whole world had just imploded, and you targeted an ad toward me about free tickets to Alaska!” Of course I had clicked on it. Of course I had jumped at the chance to escape. “Wait. Did you know that? Did you know what happened to my father?”
Another slow nod.
“Why would you…” The pieces started falling into place.
He’d been to prison in Perryville.
He was from Marana.
“Would you believe me if I said I didn’t do it? That I was set up?”
His words crashed into me so hard I fell to my knees. My hand over my mouth because I was certain I was going to vomit, but I couldn’t. Not now. I needed to hear him say it. I needed him to tell me that’s why I was here.
