Chapter 8: Driven


December, 2011

December got off to a slow and quiet start. Jackson and Lisa weren't avoiding one another, but they didn't go out of their way to be nice. Things were a little rigid in the house, and the chill of winter was cuddly and warm compared to the frostiness of their association. Most days had them sitting in a deafeningly silent dining room, staring at the wall as if a sudden epiphany would reveal itself. Their progress had come to a glorified standstill. There was nothing else that could possibly be recorded on the wall, as it was now completely full and had spilled over onto the two smaller side walls and the quarter of a wall bordering the kitchen. Whatever Lisa knew, whatever the key was to figuring out everything, it was there already. They just needed to decipher it and its ramifications.

Lisa could feel his dead eyes burrowing into her skull and attempting to infiltrate her thoughts. She jerked her head around to return his obtrusive gaze. "What?" she barked unnecessarily. She was frustrated at him and the wall with equal abhorrence. Since the wall was incapable of fighting back, she would take it out on Jackson.

He was unfazed by her irritability. "Have you looked up your family online?"

"What?"

"I'm sure they're on Facebook or Twitter or something. Myspace," he cheekily speculated as he mentally pictured Joe Reisert finger-pecking an old keyboard. "Have you considered checking up on them?"

"Stalking them?" she asked with more than a hint of suggestive irony.

Jackson pursed his lips and shrugged his shoulders. "Tomayto, tomahto," he enunciated. "You can't talk to them, but you can certainly be part of their lives. It might help you." It might help you to be of use to me was how she translated his language into hers.

"By easing my guilt," she completed for him. "Not for helping me reconnect with my lost loved ones."

"Perhaps. But maybe there's a third reason for my interest in your family life."

Lisa eyed him distrustfully. "And that is?"

Jackson slid off of the dining room table where he had sat perched on the edge for two hours. He noisily dragged the legs of a wooden chair across the hard floor several feet before straddling the backward-turned chair directly in front of her, obscuring her view of the wall. He propped his chin on his arms that were folded atop the back of the chair. "Daddy took almost a month to report you missing. Mommy hasn't said a word. Bro 1 and Bro 2 aren't stirring the pot on this week's episode of 48 Hours Mystery. I want to know why. You're the only Reisert who has ever made a bit of sense to me, so I need some help understanding the rest of your family."

"I told you, it's because of the note. They know how hard things have been for me and they're respecting my privacy—"

"Bullshit. That's bullshit and you know it."

"Is it so hard to believe that—"

"Yeah, yeah it is. Think about it. You are Lisa, the Great One, the daughter who walks on water in Daddy's eyes, yet none of your people are the least bit concerned about your wellbeing after being off the radar for five months."

"You're suggesting that my family is Company…?"

"No," he firmly insisted, his hand held out in front of him to prevent her from going further with that idea. "But I am saying that something doesn't add up here," he rationalized calmly.

Lisa leaned forward, planted her elbows onto her knees, and buried her forehead in her left palm. Her position brought her close enough to Jackson that he could smell her new green apple shampoo. She sat up straight, a look of determination dominating her features. "Okay, let's take it from there. What do you want to know?"

"What did Dad do for a living?" Jackson probed without hesitation.

"Corporate insurance. He negotiated terms of coverage for physical assets of companies as well as for their employees en masse."

"Mom?"

"Odd jobs over the years, but most recently as an industrial event planner. She organized Christmas parties, retirement parties, retreats, stuff like that for big companies."

"Why did they divorce?"

Lisa looked uncomfortable as her white pallor drained into an unearthly gray for a second. "A year before I was attacked…there was some tension. Dad had been obsessed with his job all his life and as a last ditch effort, she begged him to retire. He wasn't ready. He couldn't let go of his job because he felt like it defined him or something. Mom loved him, but she gave up and had to move on. She realized that she was tired of always being second to something else—second to a job, of all things." Lisa pondered her words for a moment before trying again. "It was more like she wasn't able to handle everything all at once and all alone. Something had to go and it wasn't going to be her life or me, so it was Dad. They loved each other, but they hadn't had time to be in love or even be together for years. When you live with a stranger that you see less than a college dorm mate, something is wrong and it's time to make a change."

"Mom's boyfriend?"

"Victor?" Lisa asked, surprised at his relevance in any of this. "He's an accountant for a law firm."

"Duke?"

"Gran's younger man," Lisa drawled coyly. "Middle-age is the new cradle to be robbed." She and Jackson shared a laugh at that one as they remembered some of Lisa's more adventurous tales of her lively grandmother. "He was retired military, a scary butch Marine who turned into a teddy bear with her."

Jackson exhaled disappointedly and scratched the back of his neck. "Do you recall any incident in your entire life that seemed off somehow—something that just didn't quite make sense to you?"

Lisa held her breath as she scanned her memory for oddities at any age, but trying to remember something like that was the proverbial needle in a haystack. "Not until I met you."

Jackson's lips parted to say something, but his cell rang and prevented further comment on the matter. He hurried to retrieve the phone off the kitchen counter. Lisa suspected he was going to bring up Josh and she was grateful for the interruption because he was someone that she didn't want to talk about anymore. He was nice and great and wonderful, and he was a good friend. Josh seemed to be more important to Jackson than he was to her. She picked up a blue marker and added the information she had just given Jackson to the wall. It was a tough fit, but she made it work.

"That was Frank. We need to go."

"Go where?"


Jackson drove them down a road that was big enough for two cars, but lacked lane stripes down the middle. There were small, young trees on either side that had been sensibly selected and planted with ties holding them down until they could take root properly. Their Explorer finally arrived at the end of the road and a giant flat, wall-free race track awaited them. The area was desolate and only a sparse row of large pine trees surrounded it. Lisa could hear the sound of the frigid winter wind gusting against her window even over the roar of the SUV's heater.

"Merry Christmas," Jackson said, his eyes sparkling mischievously.

"A giant parking lot. Thanks, Jackson. I've always wanted one," she responded in a perfectly droll monotone. "I have such fond memories from parking lots."

Jackson rolled his eyes. "It's a track, Leese," he explained, as if that made it all make sense.

"I've always wanted one of those, too." The irritated grimace on his face made her giggle. "I'm sorry, but I'm going to need a little more information before I get excited about my gift."

"I was actually referring to the black Mustang." Lisa searched over the expanse of raceway that she could see through the front windshield and on the total opposite side of the track was a small dark dot (next to a silver dot) that must have been the vehicle in question.

"We already have a car."

"We do, but you don't." Jackson moved his left hand to lazily dangle his wrist over the top of the wheel. He propped his right arm on the console that rested between their seats. "If something happens," he began, leaning in a little to make direct eye contact with her, "you need a car you can handle."

"I've handled a Jeep before. And a Lamborghini."

"Correction: you drove a Jeep into a wall and killed one of my favorite pets," he amended, reminding her of how she took out one of his preferred henchmen. "If you're in another situation like you were in Italy, you need something that won't easily flip and can get you out of trouble. You also need something that is inconspicuous and a Mustang is as ordinary as they come."

"Then what's so special about it?"

"Frank and I have been modifying it for months. It's fast and it's sturdy. It could save your life one day."

"Wait—you seriously bought Frank's Mustang?" she asked, just now realizing the bigger picture. "I thought you two were just doing…guy stuff. Hanging out. Tinkering with mechanical doohickeys. Talking about football and types of beer."

Jackson snickered at her sitcom-inspired perception of masculinity. "We did do guy stuff, but it was on a car that I happened to buy for you."

"With your own money," she gasped, suddenly feeling guilty. Jackson had bought a car for her out of his own personal allowance and he then dedicated months to making the car top-notch for her safety and protection.

"It's my money," he reiterated. "I bought what I wanted with it."

"I don't know what to say," was the cliché that escaped her lips, but it was the truth. She was truly stunned into speechlessness by Jackson's act of kindness. For the longest time, it appeared that he had only wanted to maintain her health and sanity just for his own purposes, but using his own time, effort, and finances to prepare a present for her benefit was truly something she would have never deemed him capable of doing.

"You never have to say anything," Jackson whispered, his eyes cast downward and concealed under dark lashes. He felt a small chill on his neck when he saw Lisa's timid, pale hand cautiously extend to take his right hand and squeeze it affectionately. Jackson redirected his gaze to their joined hands. He spread his fingers and laced his through hers so that the two of them jointly formed a silent prayer for all the things that continued to go unspoken and unacknowledged.

A moment, thick and substantial, filled the world around them. Things seemed so easy and ordinary during times like these, times when their chemistry, their mutual understanding, their alikeness made everything seem real and possible. Then, as always, the moment passed.

"Frank and Anna are waiting," Jackson mumbled, slipping his hand free from hers so he could drive them across the track.

"What are they doing here?" It wasn't that Lisa was ungrateful to see her new friends, but she couldn't imagine what they had to do with any of this.

"This is the track the local law enforcement officers use for training purposes. Frank still has access, so we're going to take a free ride."

"There's a lot of irony going around lately," Lisa commented with barely contained amusement.

The irony of a fugitive and his hostage using police facilities with their retired police friend aiding them was not lost to Jackson. "Irony is highly contagious. I wonder if there's a pill for that."

"Next question," Lisa transitioned, prepping Jackson for yet another inquiry. "What are we doing here? You couldn't give me the car at the house?" They never called it "home." It was always "the house."

"Of course, but then you wouldn't learn how to drive."

"I know how to drive," Lisa replied indignantly.

"I'm not talking about driving a Camry down the freeway. The only time you've ever actually driven a car was Italy and I was talking you through it. I want to know that you can handle yourself if you ever have to drive on your own."

"Careful, Jackson. You're losing that male-driven, fact-based logic you're so fond of."

Jackson stopped the SUV and shut off the ignition. Lisa awaited his retort, but it never came. Jackson's sarcasm and threats were comforting. His logic and condescension were predictable. His silence, however, was unnerving.

When they got out of the car, Anna and Frank offered their greetings and asked Lisa how she liked her present. "Jack put so much into this for you," Frank told Lisa as he wrapped his arm around his wife. Anna snuggled into his slightly warmer embrace, using his larger body to help shield the wind off of her.

Lisa didn't know what to say, so she looked to Jackson. His eyes were always so calculating and reserved, so inhuman, yet there he stood looking at her almost like a little boy humbly fishing for praise regarding his latest refrigerator-posted artistic masterpiece. It was charming and endearing, and definitely disarming.

"I think it's sweet that he wants to share this with you," Anna contributed. Her words were cryptic to Lisa, but she, Frank, and Jackson all seemed to know what she meant. Jackson's attention lingered downward again. This time he was acutely interested in his black sneakers. Lisa stared at him, but he continued playing oblivious. Lisa inched in close enough to him that she could stand beside him, her body fully touching his from shoulder to foot. She bent over so she could peer up at him from under his attempt at hiding.

"I don't think I was supposed to say that," Anna guiltily remarked as she tried not to notice the awkward interaction between the couple.

"I don't think I was supposed to tell you," Frank uttered to her as he, too, attempted to give Jackson and Lisa some semblance of privacy.

"I shouldn't have told anyone," Jackson declared with a forced smile that was anything but happy as he faced everyone. He ignored their audience and spoke only to Lisa. "My father taught me to drive using a Mustang and a track not unlike this one."

Lisa wasn't sure what the big deal was or why everyone was acting so sheepishly. Jackson came up with stories all the time to flesh out his current alias. That was when Lisa realized that just like going by the name "Jack," the father revelation was no story. His current identity was one built on truth, how much truth, she didn't know, but truth regardless. To Frank and Anna, it was a vague reference to what was most likely a painful past. To Lisa, it was a truth to a past that she knew ended in bloodshed.

The poignancy in his eyes, the manifestation that was distinctively mortal for the moment, was not a guise of one seeking approval. It was an expression of loss and remorse, of one seeking something that was not allowed: family.


As Frank and Jackson raced one another, Frank's Corvette against the Mustang, Lisa and Anna shuffled and swayed in place in an attempt to stay warm. Both had their arms crossed and Lisa was pretty sure her frozen nose was going to slide off of her face like an ice cube on a slanted surface. They spectated with moderate interest as the men tested the speeds of the vehicles and the capabilities of the brakes. Frank was conservative in how he drove. He raced like a cop who was determined to catch his man, but he was not about to allow himself to become a public safety threat. Jackson, however, raced like he had nothing to lose. When he tested the brakes, he waited until the last possible second, coming close to skidding off the track and onto the grass on more than one occasion. The cars accelerated back to the women and Lisa was nervous when she saw them both going at full speed. As expected, Frank braked first, pulled the car into a spin that brought the vehicle toward them backward. It came to a halt a mere second before Jackson, who had done the same maneuver, brought his to a stop. Jackson got out of the car and walked around to the passenger's door. He opened it and waited expectantly.

Lisa innocently glanced around, wondering who or what Jackson was waiting for, before he finally addressed her. "You. Let's go," he ordered. Lisa saw Frank and Anna standing at the hood of the Corvette, both smiling and completely naïve to the true purpose for Jackson's fun race day. Lisa sighed and felt herself grow colder because of it. She sat down in the seat as instructed and Jackson slammed the door. He was inside and putting on his safety belt just as she was connecting hers. "You've been paying attention," he said rather than asked.

"Yeah."

"You've seen how it looks on the outside. Now, watch me do it," he instructed. He floored the pedal and Lisa had to grab onto the door to brace herself against the forces of gravity and inertia working against her. It seemed like they had only started moving an instant before, but they were already nearing the end of the straight-line segment of the track. She followed Jackson's hands and feet as they moved in a type of harmony that could only come from memorization and years of practice. He braked and pulled the emergency brake as he simultaneously inched the wheel. They turned a half-circle and it amazed her considering how little pressure he had applied in directing the wheel to the left. He undid the process and floored the gas, pushing them forward toward the way they had just come. When they were halfway through the track, Jackson performed the same maneuver that Lisa had done in Italy, except he did it with imaginary obstacles in his way and with far more precision than she could have ever demonstrated. When he reached the side of the track, he slammed on brakes and coasted the car sideways into an imaginary parallel parking spot.

Lisa breathed for what she thought may have been the first time since the car was shifted into "drive." She slowly looked to Jackson, her fingers still white-knuckled and wrapped around the door handle. Her bangs, now too long to be referred to as such, had fallen out of her sloppy bun and into her face. He was already staring her down, waiting for a response. An arrogant smirk held his lips tightly together. "I don't think I can do that," she sluggishly stated.

"That's okay," he returned supportively. "Because we're not leaving here until you get it right," he concluded not-so-supportively.


Lisa was having trouble standing up when she limped into the house that evening around 8 p.m. Jackson was typical Jackson as he went through his nightly ritual of locking the door and securing the already fortified downstairs windows and doors. She gradually hobbled her way to the stairs. She had done nothing more difficult than merely sit behind the wheel of a car all day as she practiced maneuvers and weaved around orange cones, and she could have never guessed that such driving would be so painful.

"It'll pass in a few days," Jackson assured her, apparently reading her mind. "I was sore for about a week when I learned."

Lisa clutched the railing and lifted her left leg to conquer the first step, but she moaned and instead settled for standing on the ground level until she could brace herself for the trip up to the second floor. "Your father taught you to drive with a Mustang," she dared to bring up again. Jackson had evaded it the first time and she had let him off the hook with his anonymity intact, but not this time.

He tossed his jacket onto the seldom used sofa by the door. "Not my real father, of course."

Jackson stood next to her at the stairs with the intention of seeing her take every aching stride upward and mocking her mercilessly as she did so. Any kind of basic driving could cause pain and discomfort if someone held his or her muscles in a tighter or more alert posture. Lisa had done that and then some because of the type of driving she had learned. When she relaxed, she could feel the discomfort of using her muscles in a way she never had on any prior occasion. The tension and stress were even making their presence known in the form of an incoming headache.

"Of course," Lisa sarcastically agreed. She became somber and serious, and tried again. "But what I saw in your eyes was real. I saw emotion," she accused.

Jackson shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. "I did kill my father," he reminded her.

"And is that why this bothers you? You killed the man who taught you—"

"My biological father didn't teach me a damn thing," he screamed so unexpectedly that Lisa actually flinched. "Well, maybe one thing," he added with abrupt calmness that completely contradicted his outburst. He seemed to remember that Lisa was standing before him with uncertainty haunting her washed-out complexion like a ghost. "I'm sorry," he uncharacteristically offered in apparent concern for alarming her. "You don't know anything about this—"

"Because you won't tell me!" she yelled back, not bothering to savor the fact that she made Jackson flinch just as she had flinched moments earlier.

"My mentor at the Company was the closest thing I've ever had to a father," he admitted, volunteering the information before Lisa could nag him for it. "Samuel watched out for me for almost all my life. He could be an ass, but he was loyal. I don't think I ever trusted or appreciated him when he was alive…" Jackson trailed off and a distant light that had sadly flickered in his eye seemed to darken. "…as much as I do now," he finished, observing Lisa with a burdened heart.

"Samuel?" Jackson mutely nodded. "Samuel was your friend?"

"I think we've established that already."

"The same Samuel who masqueraded as a Federal agent so he could play Twenty Questions with me and then popped up every now and then to intimidate me. That Samuel?"

"Most likely."

Lisa cackled manically and put her hands on her hips. She turned from Jackson and the soreness throbbing throughout her body was long forgotten. Samuel. His mentor was "Agent Samuel West." She was going to let it go. That was the plan—to march up the stairs and forget what she had just learned.

Nope. That was not going to happen. She lurched back around to face him. "You had Samuel stalk me for six years. He was the one who did your dirty work for you when you couldn't do it yourself!" she ranted, her finger waving accusingly in his face.

"He kept an eye on you for six years," Jackson coolly justified. "He didn't want to because he respected your experience with me and your privacy, but I asked him to do it for me regardless. And he did it. For me. He knew how I felt—" Jackson's words skidded to a halt not unlike the Mustang when he slammed on the brakes. "He understood my obsessive nature better than anyone and he knew that an incomplete job would destroy my mind when I was sentenced to that cage for thirty years." Lisa's mouth gaped open in shock, her head automatically shaking in disgust. "Consider it a favor for both of our sakes."

"A favor?" she shrieked. "A favor! You had the man you claim was like a father to you do your stalking like some sick pervert—"

"Who's the pervert: me or him?" Jackson interrupted, knowing that his nitpicking of her grammar would make her even more irate.

"Both of you!" she howled, tears of anger streaming down her reddening face. "You act like he was family to you and you used him and manipulated him just like everyone you supposedly care about! You people have a really fucked up view of friendship and love."

"I care about no one," was all Jackson could say as Lisa forced herself up the stairs. When she reached the landing between the two levels, Jackson seized her from behind and roughly threw her into the wall. Déjà vu drowned out her vision and all she could see was the man from six years ago pushing her around as if she were a rag doll. He pinned both of her wrists to the wall above her head when she attempted to hit him and he pushed his knee between her legs to keep her off balance and unable to kick him.

"Samuel saved your life. He didn't want to watch you. He only did the bare minimum and I think most of the time, he left a lot of the best parts out of his report."

"Josh."

"Josh," he bitterly concurred as he spit the name out like spoiled fish. "Among other matters. But he knew you were in danger. Somehow, I don't know how, he figured it out. He figured out what we can't seem to put together for ourselves after months of scribbling on that damn wall. He told me you were in danger and that I needed to get to you. He warned me, Leese. He set off an explosion to break me out. He died telling me that your life was in jeopardy. That's not a pervert. That's not a monster. That's my father and he told me someone I favored was at risk." Lisa reacted to his testimony and tears now of panic, fear, and misery slipped out of her eyes without a sound. "Don't look so surprised. He figured out how necessary you were for me long before either of us knew. So don't you dare take the high road. He wasn't some sick son of a bitch. He was your hero. I just do the dirty work."

Jackson released his hold on her in the blink of an eye and marched up to his room.


Lisa stared at the Google main page for what seemed like hours. She wasn't thinking. Her mind was pleasantly numb and empty of all conscious thought. Jackson had changed her perspective of him twice in one day and now nothing made sense to her. Her stalker's henchman/sidekick/mentor/father figure saved her life. Her stalker, the assailant who had tried to kill her, was now her roommate and was giving her gifts that would save her life.

Freed from desire, then you can see the hidden mystery.

Lisa had avoided Chinese food since getting that fortune and Jackson had respected her wishes. He would smuggle in some dumplings when he could, but he made sure it was never a full meal with an accompanying cookie. Her fortunes always came true and for the longest time, she believed that this fortune was about her growing interest, for lack of a better word, in Jackson as a person, a man. Now, however, the term "desire" had taken on a broader definition, one that might help her see more clearly the mystery on the wall as well as the mystery in her heart.

Lisa typed her mother's name in the search box and pulled up her Facebook page. Her desire was to reconnect with her family, the family she had been separated from for over six years, or since she was raped several years before that, to be honest. Jackson had proven something without even realizing it: when one is not a part of this world and cannot love like a normal person, the only form of love available is from afar. Stalking was considered malicious and self-serving. Loving from afar—watching, protecting, serving—was the only option for those who were incapable of sharing emotions freely.

She spent the rest of the night reading and participating in her family from a distance. Perhaps after that, she would be free to see the hidden mystery.


Jackson grunted as he deposited the heavily weighted bar back onto the sturdy hooks of the bench above his head. He got up and took a few steps before he plunged down face first and caught himself with his hands, initiating a series of intense push-ups.

He had revealed too much. He had walked too fine a line. He had dared to connect with people in a way that he thought he could manage, but the truth of the matter was that it was too much for any of them to handle. After everything that had happened in the course of the day, the only image that he retained from it was the look of revulsion on Lisa's face as they addressed the Samuel matter. The anger, the resentment, the pity, the terror, the repulsion—they all repeatedly flashed through his thoughts.

Jackson shoved himself up to his feet. He was breathing heavily, but he couldn't stop. He savored the searing pain of oxygen deprivation. He relished the burn in his muscles. He craved the moment when he would start to feel weak and on the border of collapsing into unconsciousness as stars flashed in his vision, but he wasn't quite there yet. He glanced at his watch, his sight requiring a few extra seconds to adjust to the dim light of the workout room. It was only a little shy of 11 p.m. Jackson retrieved his hoody from his bedroom and left the house for another run to or from something. He still didn't know which.


Jackson returned to the house about 1 a.m. He locked the door and double checked it as always. When he turned to go upstairs, he saw a dark blob sitting on the bottom stair.

"Where the hell were you?"

Jackson struggled to catch his breath. She wasn't worth an answer. He didn't owe her anything. He walked to the stairs and was about to take the step where she sat when she grabbed his leg and pulled it out from under him. He plummeted to the floor and instantly leapt to his feet to confront her. "You don't want to do this," he warned.

"I don't want to fight you. I just want to know where the hell you were. Anything could have happened to you, to me, to both of us. We're never apart. Remember that rule?" Lisa's hair was down and her green flannel pajama pants and fitted pink nerd-style Hello Kitty t-shirt were far from intimidating.

"I had to get out," he indirectly excused himself.

"This isn't the first time this has happened, is it?" she asked quietly. She stood and took a step toward him. He shuffled and took a step back. He pushed his hair out of his face, but it just fell forward again. She remembered catching him jogging in the middle of the night during one of their first nights in the house, but that had been a seemingly isolated event. Now Lisa was able to see a pattern based off of secrets and a self-centered need for solitude. "Is it?"

"No."

"It seems we have something else in common." At Jackson's baffled expression, she continued. "We both act out on our internal conflicts. We know what mine are, but what's yours?"

"The only conflict I have was sitting on the stairs when I walked in. We're only pretend married, Leese. You don't get to play the bitchy nag with me." When he moved to go up the stairs, Lisa grabbed him by the arm. He reacted and attempted to elbow her, but she ducked it and kicked the backs of his knees, dropping him flat to the floor. He permitted himself the luxury of surrendering as he willingly stayed on his back, still striving to steady his breathing from his run. Lisa sat on the floor beside him, but she hovered over his torso with her arms draped upon him almost protectively as if to comfort him while subtly holding him down.

"You're running from me," she guessed.

"Wouldn't you feel more comfortable if you asked it instead?"

She laughed dryly. "Nah, because you are running from me. I can see that."

Jackson closed his eyes and covered them with his limp, heavy arm. "I'm not running from you," he replied in his most bored voice. There were so many variations on the running theme. He was running from Lisa; to Lisa; from commitment; to commitment; from humanity; to humanity. The list never ended. "We understand each other in so many ways. We're so much alike. But there are some things that I don't want you to understand. I don't want you to know what I really am. I'd rather be the atrocity your mind created based on your limited data."

Lisa leaned forward, her head resting on her arms that lingered protectively over his heart. "I can handle it, whatever it is," she promised.

"I couldn't do that to you. You may not believe this, but you're still innocent and pure. You're untouchable." She was Beatrice and he was Dante, and this was definitely part of The Inferno.

She was insulted by his praise of her. The woman he saw clearly existed only in his mind. "I've killed people," she croaked, and he could hear the unshed tears in her voice. He left his arm over his eyes, not wanting to see her cry again. "I was…" She sniffed, the action making her red and puffy face look even worse. "I've done horrific things…the things I've done, said, thought…"

"And yet you're still…" Jackson didn't know what to say. He sat up, forcing Lisa to sit up straight with him. He cupped her cheek, the contact making her tears finally rain from her eyes. He chased down a few of them, tackling and destroying them with the power of his touch. "I'm going to burn in hell and that's okay. I don't deserve you, but I'm too selfish to ignore you."

There was no clear objective or agenda in their words, and neither had a clue as to what they expected from the other. They wanted, yet refused, ignored, battled, and avoided everything that ate away at them from the inside out. They could look but not touch, and even the look was too far beyond the guidelines that they had established for themselves long ago and reestablished for themselves after they started playing house.

Their game had come to a stalemate and the only solution that they had was to rewrite the rules, to bend the laws of their lives to accommodate their own selfish needs and desires, but those rules were the only structure that they could rely upon. They were the guidelines that kept them company in the solitude of their own minds and beds. Violating the rules would not be easy and rewriting them would be virtually impossible.

Jackson's confession was as near to step one as they would permit themselves at this point, but they had a long way to go. They couldn't say any of the things they knew or wanted to say. Shame was still in the lead for the most commonly felt emotion in the house.

Lisa traced his jaw with guileless curiosity and she felt the muscles become tense under her feather light caress. She was being drawn to him as helplessly as a moon trapped by the orbit of a dominate planet. Her heartbeat slowed but pounded, and her eyelids became heavy. She saw him close his eyes, his head moving forward in magnetic response to her. Their lips brushed against one another accidentally as Jackson avoided her, his head tightly turned away to completely shut her out. Her chest heaved as she attempted to catch her long-forgotten breath.

"This is wrong," he reminded them both as he pulled back from her, but failed to relinquish his physical contact with her. He sounded like an automated recording. "We have a job to do." He tangled his fingers in her hair, absently playing with the messy auburn curls that he so seldom saw.

"Maybe this is the job. Maybe Samuel was just giving you what he knew you wanted."

"Maybe Samuel was giving you your life back and putting mine in line."

"Maybe this is inevitable."

"Maybe you'll wake up in bed next to me and realize that you never knew what shame really was until you gave yourself to me."

"Maybe if we're freed from desire, then we can see the hidden mystery."

"Maybe."


They tried to avoid it, but unfortunately there was no way around it. The Christmas season had officially arrived and of course Frank and Anna had their annual Christmas party. All of their family and friends were in attendance, including some of Frank's police buddies. Sadly, "Jack and Elise" had to go out of town on the evening of the Christmas party. When Frank and Anna left their house to do some last minute preparations for the gathering, Jackson and Lisa put both vehicles in the garage and closed the door rather than leaving their customary travel vehicle, the Explorer, parked in the driveway as usual. If they were going to leave town, it would be in the SUV and it was the one they needed to hide inside next to the Mustang's regular spot. It was a tight fit in the carport that was made for one vehicle with some side storage space, but they made it work. They put extra cloth over the windows to add an additional level of privacy that their already thick curtains couldn't provide alone. They made sure to keep all the lights down to the lowest settings and avoided turning on lamps that didn't have brightness options.

They didn't have a tree. Neither one of them seemed particularly keen on having one for their own respective reasons that weren't worth sharing. There were no blinking lights or plastic decorations. There were no gaudy, obnoxious inflatables in the front yard depicting obese home invaders in red or religious icons who couldn't check into a hotel or kleptomaniacal men made of precipitation that had tobacco addictions. Jackson and Lisa made the Grinch seem as happy-go-lucky as Barney.

Just like they did at Thanksgiving, the two of them made their own meal. Things seemed to be a little less edgy after their near whatever-that-was-the-other-night-that-neither-wanted-to-talk-about encounter. Instead of eating at the table like civilized people, they filled their plates full and piled into the rarely used living room. They spent the holiest day of the year viewing True Blood, a gift from Frank and Anna. It wasn't the easiest thing to watch given the tension in their own house, but they had nothing better to do and Jackson's repeated threats during his running commentary to turn the predictable "plot" into a drinking game kept Lisa in stitches.

Sex had only been referenced fleetingly three or four times in six months. Lisa avoided it because Jackson avoided it. She was not an overtly sexual person by nature and had been in very few sexual relationships in her life. Her assault had ended all possibilities for a future relationship because she didn't trust a potential partner or herself enough to let go.

For Jackson, sex was a weakness or a strength that could make or break a man. When it came to things that fell under the title of "matters of the heart," he avoided sex because it was nothing more than a sentimental trap that would destroy all involved. He had learned years ago how to shut down his mind and body, how to trade his lust for flesh in for passion for work. His mind was in command, or it was until Lisa decided to…exist. He was compelled toward her, attracted to her in a distinctively primal way that he tried to subdue. Although his experiences with her, his bruises and scars alike, proved to the contrary, he still viewed her as a delicate creature to be admired. Her sexually violent past made him even more careful with her because he needed her for the job. A lesser reason, a reason he would never openly admit, was that he didn't want to see her hurt. Even on the plane, he had felt ill upon discovery of her assault. He had changed his tactics immediately for both their sakes.

By the time they reached season 2 of their DVD gift set, they had already abandoned their plates in the kitchen sink and left all of the mess for clean-up at another time. He had been stretched out on the couch for a while when Lisa joined him, complaining that she, too, wished to lie down. He wanted to tell her to go away, but his body shifted position to let her recline beside him. He wanted to tell her to leave more room between them, but his body curled around hers, spooning her as he let her use his arm as a pillow. He wanted to tell her he needed to get up and sit somewhere else, but he buried his face in her neck and inhaled deeply.

She wanted to tell him that she wasn't sure if she was comfortable with their close contact, but she felt a wave of contentment satisfy her as his cool hand slipped under her shirt and absently traced pleasantly ticklish patterns on the smooth skin of her lower abdomen.


On Christmas night, Jackson retreated to his bedroom and took a cold shower. He needed to focus, to get his head back in charge of his other head, and to stop allowing frivolous fantasies of impossibilities to dictate his actions.

He left the bathroom dripping wet, his towel wrapped around his waist. He was about to plunder through his dresser drawers in search of clothing when he spotted a hand-size wrapped package on top of the dresser. His room was very Spartan, and there were few pieces of furniture and even fewer colors. The bright, multicolored wrapping and silver and gold thread bow shined out like a beacon. He stared at the box as if waiting for it to sprout legs and do a jig. He could never remember a time in his life when he had received a gift, much less a wrapped gift. Jackson picked up the parcel and reverently carried it over to the bed where he sat down and resumed his observation of it.

Virginia Woolf would have had many guesses as to the nature of the gift. Just like the mark on the wall, she would have analyzed the gift for hours without opening it because the nature of the gift, the impact it made on the recipient, would be far more vital to the recipient than the gift itself.

Jackson held his mysterious prize and vowed to treasure it forever.


Lisa played a video of her brother's Christmas party on his YouTube channel. His wife was pregnant again and was just starting to show. The kids had gotten so big that Lisa wasn't sure if they were indeed her nieces and nephews at first. Her dad was in the background of the video, but he put up his hand to block the camera when it came near him. Her mother was there with Victor and he blocked the camera as well. Lisa laughed at their typical grumpy old man behavior. When the video was over, Lisa visited their Facebook pages. No one had anything terribly interesting to report except her mother. Her mother had written an open letter to Lisa, begging her to come home. The only thing that bothered Lisa about her mother's plea was that she wasn't bothered by it one way or another. These people all seemed like strangers to her. She loved them, but that life was over and it wasn't coming back. They could try to pretend and fake it for a while, but Lisa knew there was no place for her at the family table anymore. There didn't seem to be a place for her at Jackson's table either, but it was the only free seat left for her at all these days.

Lisa tip-toed downstairs and sat cross-legged in the middle of the dining room. The table had been pushed back to block the large open entrance to the room, leaving them a small person-size space to walk through on one side. The walls were soaked in ink, particularly black ink. Notes of lesser importance were scribbled in with multiple colors and pictures occasionally took up space, but for the most part, the wall was a dark force that lassoed them to it and then drove them into madness.

She cast her eyes over to the part on Jackson's branch of the knowledge tree. The unexplainable letter "S" now had a story behind it. Samuel, the man who had changed everything, knew something. Lisa recounted all of her experiences with Samuel, but nothing caught her attention.

"What kind of stuff did you two talk about?"

Lisa jumped when she heard Jackson's voice. She clutched at her chest, startled by his sudden appearance. "I hate it when you do that," she grumbled. He smiled, pleased with himself for still having a light step. "What are you talking about?" she asked, briefly forgetting her train of thought.

Jackson slumped onto the floor next to her. He crossed his arms, a typical mannerism he adopted when he was in serious contemplation mode before the wall. "Samuel," he said. "You were thinking about Samuel."

She was flabbergasted and a little perturbed. "How do you do that?" she demanded.

"Do what?"

"Read my mind like that? And don't say it's because my mind is so feminine and simple."

"Hardly," he exhaled through a laugh.

"So how do you do it?" she pressed.

Jackson shrugged. "Parlor trick. Step one, know your target. Step two, plant seeds in the target's mind. Step three, wait for the predominant seed to grow in the target's mind. I know you. The most recent thing on this wall that we discussed was Samuel. After telling you about him, I knew you wouldn't let it go because you are too obsessive about things you can't rationalize."

He was one to talk about being obsessive.

"Jerk," she insulted.

"Woman," he retaliated.

They exchanged a vicious glare, but started snickering instead. Things appeared to be returning to normal.

"Well?" he prompted, reminding her to answer his question.

"Well what?"

"What did he talk about with you? If he's our missing link, so to speak, then we need to figure out what's actually missing from all of this," Jackson explained, nodding at the wall.

"Nothing really. He misrepresented himself as a Fed and he asked me case related stuff."

"…About…?"

Lisa stiffened. "You."

"My ability to color coordinate my wardrobe or my articulate mastery of the English language?"

Lisa didn't want to talk about her first conversation with Samuel. It had been at a rapid-fire pace and left her feeling uncomfortable and out of sorts. He had twisted the facts to make it seem like she wasn't as much a victim as she was a less than reluctant participant.

"He asked a lot about you and your intentions, about why you wanted to kill Keefe, what your plans were, how you felt about it."

"How did you answer him?"

"I told him that you didn't tell me much, that I figured out most of it, and that you didn't seem intent on killing Keefe, but you wouldn't avoid doing your job."

Jackson didn't visibly react, but she could read his neutral expressions almost as well as she could read someone who in fact had expressions. He didn't seem pleased with her answer, as if she had presented him to his employers in a bad light. "He was checking up on me. That's a standard follow-up to any assignment that gets screwed as royally as ours was." He said "ours" when he meant to say "his," but he never realized his error. Lisa did and she said nothing. "He interviewed you for the Company, not for me. When was this?"

"About an hour after they took you in the ambulance."

Jackson nodded comprehendingly. "What else did you talk about?"

"He wanted to know about your state of mind, if you were distracted or on task. I said you were definitely focused on your work because you tried to kill me."

Jackson's eyes grew wide in disbelief. "He didn't leave it at that," he automatically insisted.

Lisa shuffled and rearranged her legs straight in front of her. She leaned back and propped up on her elbows. "He wanted to know if you were distracted…by me."

"And? Was I?" He found it interesting that Lisa was lying down like a cheerleader working on her tan as she talked about being a distraction for him. She was not strong at connecting A to B in their relationship, so Jackson hoped she was better at doing so on the wall.

"I told him you were obsessed with your job and you'd do the same to anyone." They were quiet for a few seconds before Lisa continued. "He asked about how you attacked me—if you hurt me, how you held the knife, if you—"

"How I held the knife?" Jackson interrupted.

"Yeah. What's so special about that?"

"He suspected that I didn't want to hurt you."

"How do you know?"

"Do you remember how I held the knife?" Lisa shot him a nasty look. "Okay, you remember," he concluded, clearly aware of the ignorance of his question. He posed his hand as if holding the knife as he had six years prior. "This way wouldn't hurt anyone given my size and strength. I'd have to be almost another foot taller for it to do anything and even then, I'd have to pack some serious strength and do some major maneuvering with it. This way looks scarier because it's the famous Psycho pose, but it's not really lethal. But this way," he elaborated as he turned his hand to up-thrust the imaginary example knife forward from next to his thumb, "or this way," he said, holding it downward again, but altering his hand position to be horizontal rather than vertical, "would have inflicted severe damage and probably would have killed you."

"You didn't try to kill me," Lisa resolved.

Jackson shook his head. "I've told you plenty of times, I wasn't thinking clearly then. The point is that Samuel figured out the two of us when he was closing the case for the Company. Given the information you provided him with, it's a wonder you weren't killed then." Lisa was unnerved by his revelation, but she swallowed it like the bitter pill it was and moved on. "He must have lied to protect you. To protect us."

Lisa knew what he was saying. Samuel had figured out the nature of the pseudo-relationship between the two of them, and he knew that Lisa would be off limits and under Jackson's jurisdiction probably before Jackson even realized it. His friendship with Jackson was what kept Lisa alive. If someone other than Samuel had been assigned the post-job interview, Lisa would have been killed in a car accident or a parking lot robbery before that week had ended. Samuel hadn't wanted to spy on Lisa because he was already her guardian angel without intending to be one.

"He asked one more thing." Jackson felt his neck muscles tighten in anxiety. He knew where this was going. "He asked if you attempted to make an emotional connection with me. He claimed he asked because I was apparently defending you with my answers."

Jackson was almost flattered, but his disbelief in such a possibility grounded him. "Were you?"

"I answered honestly." Both of them knew she was avoiding the direct answer, but it was a truth, if not the truth, regardless. Jackson was proud of her. She was learning to speak his language, to say what needed to be said instead of what she wanted to say. Perhaps there was hope for her yet.


New Year's Eve came and "Jack and Elise" once again had to make their excuses to avoid Anna and Frank's annual party. Just like last time, they hid out in the house and refrained from doing anything that would reveal their concealed presence.

The duo sat in front of the television, channel surfing to catch five different countdown specials hosted by irrelevant Reality TV icons and has-been celebrities, and filled with auto-tuned pop stars performing stripteases, bouncing movements to background explosions, and jolting around under the guise of dance choreography. Jackson finally got his chance to see what, exactly, a Lady Gaga was and he actually admitted to liking her, claiming that if they eliminated all the spooky theatricality, there was a talented vocalist underneath. Lisa took the opposite stance, claiming that she was doing fine until she saw the meat dress and the egg hatching performance. He could only hypothesize that Lisa was disturbed by the unethical treatment of the eggs, her favorite pre-dawn companions. She slapped him.

They provided a wildly inappropriate commentary along with everything they viewed, and their lewd remarks were fueled by the alcohol they were downing like cold water on a hot day. They had remained sober, save an odd dinner drink here or there, in their months together. After all they had been through in their half-year as partners, they felt they had earned a night of foolish release.

Jackson entered the living room with a big bowl of chips, a smaller bowl of salsa, and two mixed drinks. "You're the master of balance," Lisa complimented him with a uniquely intoxicated giggle. He snickered too, more than a little drunk himself. He wasn't used to giving up control, but after everything, he selfishly wanted a break.

"I try."

He knelt down so Lisa could help unload the essential food groups from his hands and then he joined her on the floor. Beer bottles, empty and full, surrounded them, along with miscellaneous glasses that once contained other beverages. A whiskey bottle lay forgotten on its side, the first victim of their binge. Leftover cake from dinner with Frank and Anna several nights ago sat on the floor, two forks stabbed into it and awaiting their interest once more. A plate of sugar cookies that they had received as a Christmas present from a neighbor they had met once at Halloween (and whose name they hadn't the slightest memory of) were next to the whiskey bottle, but most of the cookies had fallen onto the floor. A bowl of green grapes were near Lisa's knee as part of an experiment with the red wine earlier. They sat propped up against the couch, watching television with the wide-eyed enthusiasm of two children on Saturday morning.

"I just realized that we could have saved several thousand if we had skipped the furniture. We never use it. We always sit on the floor for some reason." Even when he was drunk, Jackson's computer of a mind was only capable of spewing out logical drunken gibberish as opposed to nonsensical drunken gibberish like most normal people when their brains were soggy and drowning in a pool of booze.

Lisa choked on a chip that she had overloaded with spicy salsa. She coughed and laughed at the same time with the expert precision seen only in sorority girls at a frat party. "I know, right!" She wiped her runny nose and eyes with the back of her hand. "My therapist would have had a ball with this one. Two grown adults who always sit like kids. There's something seriously screwed up with us."

Jackson bit his lip. "Ball?" Both of them snickered juvenilely, not minding the fact that they were leaning onto the other, flailing all over one another with total disregard for personal space or issues with touching. "I hope your therapist is of the Freudian school of thought because that was definitely a slip if I've ever heard one."

Lisa slapped at him yet again, causing him to drip his drink down his chin, and that made them laugh even harder. "You're so wasted," she proclaimed as she parentally wiped his chin with her shirt sleeve.

"And you're the picture of sobriety. I want to be just like you, Lisa Reisert, the epitome of propriety."

Lisa sat up a little more formally, pride beaming from her alcohol-inflamed rosy cheeks. "Damn straight." She started giggling, and her giggles grew into laughter, and the laughter converted into a hard chuckle that featured an unexpected snort. Jackson caught her contagious laughter and found himself going along with her on it.

"What?" he asked, enjoying the spirit of laughing but having no clue why he was even doing it. She shook her head, her face morphing from rosy to painfully red. Jackson dipped his finger in the cake icing and tapped it on her nose, making her yelp. "What?" he repeated. She removed the creamy sugar off her nose, adding it to the collection of stains on the sleeve of her beige sweater.

Lisa threw a grape at him, but instead of hitting him, the grape was snatched from the air by his expert mouth. Lisa gasped in awe and threw another grape. With proficient moves, he swooped toward it and nabbed it just as confidently as he had the first grape. "Ah ha," she said, going for a third attempt. As with the first two times, Jackson rapidly caught the grape from midflight.

"So that sexy mouth of yours is for more than just condescension and misogyny." First of all, she was thrilled beyond reason that she could say such big words in her condition. The minimal slurring in her pronunciation was a bonus. Secondly, that was one secret she had never intended on revealing. His lips were beautiful, just like his lashes, his cheekbones, and those penetrating eyes…

"It's for much, much more," he assured her as he closed in, their foreheads touching as his eyes dominantly burrowed into hers. She could smell his aggression and desire, and he could feel her longing vibrating through her skin. Desperation for consummation was the driving force in the air.

Without breaking contact, Lisa blindly reached into the bowl. She positioned a grape between her lips, half in her mouth, half out. Jackson's full lips stretched out and plucked it from her mouth with only the faintest of touches occurring between them. He made a show of chewing it slowly and intentionally. Lisa snaked her arm around him, brushing her nails against his neck as her hands climbed toward his hair. She lost her fingers amid the darkness as she attempted to pull him across the less than an inch that still separated them. He resisted at first, his body tense and aware of the usual protests that he had trapped in the back of his mind for the night, but she felt him starting to surrender.

A loud boom made them both jump apart and go on alert. Lisa felt around under the couch cushion for the gun hidden in the living room. When she found it, she wasted no time in removing the safety, cocking it, and holding it at the ready as she stood against the wall on the opening side of the door while Jackson waited behind the door. Lisa peeked through the window and saw nothing, and Jackson peered through the peep hole of the door. The loud boom sounded again and Lisa saw colors at the top of the window.

"Fireworks," Lisa sighed. Judging by the hard expression on his chiseled cheeks, Jackson had figured it out at the same time she had. She secured the gun and returned it to the couch. Jackson ran his hand over his face roughly, as if to sober up himself. He flipped on the lamp beside the couch.

"At least our reaction time didn't suffer," he muttered as he realized what a mess they had made on the floor. "We were foolish. We let our guard down."

In the background, the countdown on television changed from five, to four, to three, to two, and lastly to one.

"Happy New Year, Leese."

"Happy New Year, Jackson."


January, 2012

Several days later, Lisa sat in the dining room at 3:32 a.m. with her elbow on the table and her fist supporting her cheek. Her mother's blog filled her laptop screen. Her mother was still summoning Lisa home, but today she shared another set of news with the internet world: she was engaged to Victor.

Lisa didn't know Victor aside from their one meeting at Thanksgiving a few years ago. He had seemed alright to her, not standing out in her mind one way or another. Her mother had been happy and things appeared to be perfect for both of them. For as far back as Lisa could remember, her mother had been the backbone of the family, tending to their needs without hesitation or complaint. She had been supportive of Lisa's father as well, but after years of being second to everything else in his life, she had longed for freedom, and that freedom had driven her into the arms of Victor. As long as her mother was happy, Lisa was happy, figuratively speaking, of course.

It was incredible that her mother could find joy later in life when Lisa couldn't find it at any time in hers. She wasn't jealous of her mother, but she was certainly troubled by the idea that contentment was actually possible for everyone but her, even her mother. Lisa took her empty tea mug to the kitchen sink and washed it. She felt like one of the soap bubbles: normal looking, perhaps even pretty on the outside, but she was thin and breakable, and it was only a matter of time before she completely popped and ceased to exist. She dried the mug and placed it in the cabinet. The newly installed street lights made the neighborhood brighter than before, so she stared out the window in fascination at the inexplicable shadows that haunted the night world. One day, she might turn into one of them—a shadow. She would only be visible to the world when someone as lost as she was gazed upon her direction in the dark, but she would inevitably disappear upon the rise of day.

"Good morning," she said to the window.

"Good morning," the dark and transparent reflection of Jackson said to her, his image in the window, but his voice behind her. She turned around and propped up against the sink. "I figured you'd be up."

"Yeah. Do you ever get a gut feeling?" she asked enigmatically. Jackson tilted his head robotically as he analyzed her. "Probably not," she answered for him.

"Something feels wrong to you." It was a statement, not a question.

"My mom's getting married."

"I see."

Lisa narrowed her eyes at him and inadvertently mimicked him by tilting her head not unlike how he had done seconds earlier. "What do you see?"

"You're upset that your mother is getting married before you."

"Such a chauvinistic response."

"It's true."

"It's not," she swore to him. "I just feel like it's yet another reminder that I'm not welcome in this world. I see people getting married, having kids, living in homes, laughing, dancing, drinking, vacationing, having normal relationships, and I can see it, but I can't have it." On many occasions, she had looked at Jackson as if he were an alien among humans, but now she wondered if he was genuinely as foreign as he seemed or if it was all part of the job, the character he assumed to maintain distance for clarity of vision. "Do you ever feel that way?" she wondered aloud as she mentally prepared herself for the condescension she knew he would direct toward her for her sentimental inquiry.

"Not anymore. I've accepted my fate. I accepted it a long time ago," was his neutral answer.

"Jackson, I don't know if I can accept it."

He retrieved a bottle of water from the refrigerator and took a measured sip as he leaned against the counter a few feet away. "You don't want to accept it because you're you and you're not a lost cause. This is just a phase, Leese, and one day you won't even remember finding something in common with me. You'll outgrow this." It was funny that he said "outgrow" because she recalled thinking how she had outgrown her family.

"Do you see the rest of the world as this superficial collective of insincere individuals, people who say things and express feelings that don't exist because they are too selfish for those things to be real? Do you feel like you're superior because you've moved past all those human clichés? Do you feel like you're the first of a new type of person and there's no one else like you yet? Because I do," she definitively stated. "At first I thought I was left behind and alone, and now I look at it like they are the ones living the lie, not me."

Jackson took another swig of water before putting the cap back on it and returning it to the fridge. He briskly rubbed the cold exposed skin of his arms that his short sleeve gray shirt didn't cover. "I'm not so philosophical. I just know that I'm with them, but I'm not one of them." He effectively ended the conversation by strolling into the dining room and sitting down at the table so he could stare uselessly at the overwhelming wall.


"Let's go over it again," Lisa said around noon. They had changed out of their pajamas around 7 a.m. and had been lounging out in the dining room since then. They had stood, paced, sat on the floor, sat on the table, sat in the chairs, reclined on the floor, and done everything else in an attempt to jumpstart the cognitive process, to ignite the one clue that would set the Company aflame.

"Okay" Jackson resumed. "We were drinking at the bar. The phone rang. It was the Liaison for the assignment."

"Name?"

"Unknown. Managers use their first names. Liaisons use regularly changed codenames. Superiors use fictional names."

"Character names or just names they make up?"

"It depends on the rank of the individual."

Lisa nodded. "Okay, so you got the call…"

"…And I was told we were on schedule after all."

"And the call on the plane?"

Jackson exhaled. "It was a Superior. The Piper." Lisa scribbled down some notes on the wall with the Piper's name. "He used a voice modulator, so there's no way I can recognize him if I ever hear his real voice. He was just checking up on me himself to make sure I didn't fuck up."

"Which you did," Lisa gloated proudly.

"Which I did," he imitated her in a higher-pitched, mock-feminine voice.

"And the Piper followed-up in prison."

"He did."

"Why did he want you dead? Aside from the fact that you screwed up."

Jackson ran his hands through his hair and pulled at it temperamentally. He puffed his cheeks blew out dejectedly. "I screwed up. That was enough."

"But it seems so personal," Lisa pressed. "If he wanted you dead, he wouldn't have sent so many people to confront you. He would have bribed a guard into poisoning your food or slitting your throat while you slept. Guards could have ganged up on you and shot you dead with the story that you attacked them. Any number of men would have made you their bitch and then snapped your neck like a twig."

Jackson blinked hard. "You're scary."

Lisa put her hand on her hip. "I'm serious."

"I know, and the fact that you came up with that is scary. You're absolutely right, though. There were plenty of non-confrontational ways he could have killed me, but he wanted to make a point to me. He wanted it to be a man's death. It was a matter of honor." Jackson hopped off the table and walked to the wall, looking at the Piper's name as if he had experienced an epiphany. "It was personal," he said deliberately, repeating Lisa's assumption. He wheeled around to face her. "It was about you. Shit…the Piper knew about you too!" He commenced a troubled march, his arms slinging at his sides and his fingers flexing into fists.

Lisa approached him and put a hand on his shoulder to calm his jittery pacing. "The Piper knew…?"

"What Samuel knew. Samuel didn't tell him, so he must have figured it out. I don't know how. He knew you were a sensitive issue for me." It was amazing to Lisa how many different ways Jackson could say he cared about her without making it sound affectionate or loving. At first, she resented his vocabulary and how he referenced her, but now she felt oddly flattered and special. "The Piper wanted me dead because I failed the assignment, but he wanted me killed hand-to-hand as a matter of honor." At Lisa's confusion, he elaborated. "I became emotional about my target and as punishment for feeling, he gave me some more feelings to experience, such as fear, distrust, paranoia, anxiety. If I never knew when my next assault was coming or who it was coming from, I'd feel things. It would mess with my mind. He was doing to me what I had done to botch the job."

"So the Piper knew how you felt." She intentionally avoided saying "about me" as to keep Jackson on track. "My question is this: why didn't he kill me immediately? Or why didn't he do it at some point over the course of six years? There were more than enough opportunities."

"Samuel reported you as someone of no consequence, so you weren't a liability. Killing you would only draw attention."

"Do you really believe that?" she asked, vocalizing the side of the argument that usually belonged to Jackson and his dubious logic.

Jackson gave legitimate consideration to her suspicion. "Maybe he wanted me to live and he was saving you to use against me after he was bored with his psychological warfare."

"How?" Jackson wasn't sure if she was asking for the purpose of perhaps understanding something that was beyond their comprehension for the time being or if she was morbidly curious. He pondered the question and all its possible answers.

"Maybe they tried to influence Samuel…to turn him against me."

"Did he ever suggest that?"

Jackson shook his head. "Maybe we're looking at this wrong. Maybe they were going to use you against me and let Samuel continue to feed me the information. If the Company reached you somehow without Samuel knowing, he would tell me everything and I would…react to it."

"Josh," she supplied for him. "It always goes back to him for you, doesn't it? I'm starting to think you have some sort of man crush on him," Lisa noted with the casual ease of a therapist.

She tried not to grin as she heard Jackson make a noise that sounded like a growl. "No, I don't have a 'man crush,'" he said, and she could practically hear the air quotes. "Like I've said before, don't you think it's odd that he just happened to enter your life about that time?"

"No." Lisa didn't like the determined expression set in stone on Jackson's face. Josh was a real issue for him and she initially thought it was just him ridiculing her, reminding her that she was too lost to be in a relationship with any sweet, normal guy. Now, however, she finally saw the truth. She tugged Jackson's shoulder back, turning him around to face her. "You don't have to be jealous. There was never anything with Josh. At all," she maintained, keeping deep, unwavering eye contact with him.

"I'm not jealous," he denied with an awkward laugh. It was perhaps Jackson's most human moment yet and Lisa found it as startling as she found it almost…cute.

"He was a friend to me when I needed one, nothing more. I'm just sorry I couldn't have been a better friend to him. Don't let him bother you."

"He doesn't bother me," Jackson maintained.

"You've never met the guy, yet you carry him with you right here," she said, gently touching her fingertips to his temple. Her hand softly trailed down his cheek to his jaw, past his neck, and landed on his chest. After she said the words, she remembered having that conversation with Josh about Jackson, ironically enough.

Recognition sparked in Jackson's blue eyes. "If you inaccurately believe that I'm jealous, then the Company must have believed I was jealous as well. If they sent Josh to trigger my jealousy, he could have drawn me out and forced me into a public scene and—"

Lisa's index finger pressed firmly against his lips, shushing him. "You think too much."


Agent King still hadn't progressed very far on the Rippner case. He took a sip of his black coffee and made a face when he realized how cold it had become. He licked the bitter taste off his thin lips.

Since receiving that picture of Rippner and Reisert at the fair in Connecticut, about two dozen more sightings, complete with pictures and occasionally even witness statements, had been reported. The two had been spotted in suburbs around the nation, from Alaska to Maine, Washington to Florida, and everywhere in between. His gut argued that they were in Connecticut, as it had been the point of origin in this game of "No, I'm Spartacus!" confessions, but some of the witnesses in other places made him doubt any and all of it. When he followed-up on the Connecticut theory by interviewing local store employees and dropping by random neighborhoods, no one recognized them. Even the surveillance footage that he pulled from several grocery stores came up empty. He would not have the full support of his department and its resources until he came up with some solid evidence. Two dozen manipulated images weren't going to cut it.

Someone was aware of his role in all of this and they were playing with him. He didn't like playing games.

"King, line four," one of the junior agents in the bullpen called out to him as she stood up and peered over her cubicle wall a few units away.

He waved his thanks. The dark blond agent picked up the phone from where it sat next to the framed photo of himself with his girlfriend at his thirty-fifth birthday party last year. "King," he answered.

"Don't attempt to trace this call," a voice disguised with a modulator ordered.

"Who is this?"

"A friend, to you and to Jackson Rippner. You are dealing with people out of your league. They will kill you, your pretty little girlfriend Stacy." King felt a twinge of dread trickle down his spine, but he compartmentalized it and focused on the call. "Your mom, your dad, your siblings, and even the family pets. You'd probably frown upon that. Me, I don't care about you one way or another, but I do care about Jackson Rippner and Lisa Reisert. They are victims of some untouchable people and you are chasing them down like common criminals."

A dry laugh sneaked out before Jim King could stop it. "They are criminals, well, Rippner at least. As for Reisert, I think he has her and I'm going to find her."

"You're trying to save her?"

"I am."

"You'll just lead them to her and get her killed. Rippner has her, but he's keeping her safe. If you go after them, you kill them, your family, your friends, and yourself. Drop the case. Back off. Pretend none of this ever happened."

"I can't do that. Whoever you are, I think you know that. That's why you're trying to scare me."

"I'm not trying to scare you. I'm trying to tell you what you already know because sometimes people need to hear what they already know so they can make the right decision."

"And if I don't back off?"

"I won't hurt you," the voice seemed to surrender. "But I definitely won't stop them when they come after you. My only concern is for Rippner and Reisert. Now back off."

The caller disconnected and Agent King was left holding the phone with a dial tone blaring in his ear. He put the receiver on the cradle and looked at his picture of Stacy again. His eyes then roamed over to the next picture, a family portrait from when he was a kid, a few years after his mom and late stepdad had gotten married. He opened his desk drawer, pulled out the Rippner file, and stared down at the individual pictures of Jackson Rippner and Lisa Reisert. He then flipped to the first piece of evidence, the picture from the fair. A new version had been edited to single out the two of them and enhance the details in the image. To the common eye, they seemed like two happy lovers, but that was not the case and King would make sure this charade ended as peacefully as possible. There was no way he was backing off or giving up, not when justice, the truth, and an innocent woman needed him.

He had felt the drive to do the right thing all his life and this situation was no different. His family would understand.


Lisa closed the lid to her laptop and sat motionless on her bed. Tears wouldn't come, but she could feel her eyes become painfully dry and red. They itched and burned. Her breathing was shallow and her throat slammed shut. Somehow she managed to slip off the bed and stand, her body violently shaking as if she were having convulsive spasms. She clutched the doorknob and forced her mind to communicate to her hand how to operate the door. The most basic motor skills had become overwhelmingly impossible obstacles that she couldn't master.

She took a few steps to the room next door and tried to knock on it, but her loose, trembling fist was as useful as an asphyxiating fish seizing violently. When her body completely gave out, she buckled against the door with a thud and she couldn't stop herself as she slid down it. A wail escaped her lips and she sounded like a wounded baby animal, scared, in pain, and alone. The door opened and Jackson's quick reflexes allowed him to drop to the floor and catch her before she completely collapsed and hurt herself. He lowered them to the floor together. Tears still wouldn't come, but her face was contorted in agony and all she could do was audibly cry the most gut-wrenching sound Jackson had ever heard in his life.

He pulled her into his lap as they remained on the floor in the threshold to his bedroom. He completely engulfed her with his arms, making her feel small and protected by his all-encompassing hold.

"Shhh, shhh," he pleaded, trying to help her compose herself. She was the most broken he had ever seen, and this was a level of distress that was so intense that it actually frightened him. He was terrified that she was going to give herself a stroke. He rocked her back and forth in his arms with nurturing devotion as he repeated his gentle shushing mantra and stroked her hair out of her face.

"Lisa, sweetheart, what's wrong? What happened?" If her mind had been clear, she would have heard her father's voice coming from Jackson's lips. He never called her tender names like "sweetheart"—that was her father's routine.

"My mom. They killed my mom!" she bawled as her salty tears broke the levee and drowned them both in the flood.


TBC…