Sorry it's been awhile between updates! I had a disastrous hair-dying and eyebrow tinting experience and I was in hiding for a few days but it has all been sorted out so that delayed me. I had my hair dyed blonde and then I asked for my eyebrows to be tinted light brown and waxed but I ended up with teeny tiny really defined, black eyebrows. They did just not go with the hair.
Anyway. Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed-I just hope none of you hate me after you find out who the person is…
Kirsten sat staring at the person in front of her for a good minute as he looked in her eyes waiting for a response.
"Jimmy?" Kirsten croaked when she finally found her voice. The terror was increasing in her body by the second.
"You can leave now," Jimmy directed at Richard, standing up and handing him and envelope. "You'll get the other half of your payment in a few days-providing you don't tell anyone."
Richard nodded and left, throwing Kirsten one final haunting glance. Kirsten closed her eyes to avoid having to see the man she once trusted; once loved.
"Jimmy," Kirsten whispered in disbelief.
"Richard didn't rape you, did he?" Jimmy asked.
Kirsten shook her head and opened her eyes. She'd have to face reality sooner or later, and the reality was that Jimmy was standing right in front of her.
"Good," Jimmy stated. "I told him not to."
Kirsten stared at him. Was that supposed to make it better? Make her feel privileged that he 'respected' her enough to get someone else to abduct her but not rape her?
"Drink? Snack?" Jimmy offered, as casually as though she'd just popped over for a visit.
Kirsten shook her head, food and drink being the last things on her mind at that moment.
"You paid Richard to abduct me?" Kirsten whispered.
"I guess I owe you an explanation, don't I?" Jimmy said in a friendly voice, sitting down next to Kirsten.
"Jimmy?" Sandy stuttered in shock from the couch. "Jimbo-James Cooper?"
"Please," Charlotte begged. "Don't speak so loudly. If he finds out I told you…"
"I don't give a shit how loudly I'm talking!" Sandy exclaimed. "The only one with any knowledge of this around here is you-and you're going to tell me what the fuck's going on!"
"He…came to me when he visited Kirsten in rehab," Charlotte admitted quietly. "Asked if I wanted to make some money. I mean, of course I did! The amount he offered me was ridiculous-five thousand. Think of all of the clothes I could buy with that! I mean, you know that journalists can have trouble with money-"
"Charlotte," Sandy broke her off, frustrated.
"Anyway, so the he asked if I knew Kirsten Cohen," Charlotte continued. "How could I not? She was, like, the model patient at Suriak. So Jimmy told me that to get that money I had to befriend her. And…plant doubts in her mind as to whether or not she was ready to come home."
"You did that!" Sandy exploded, aghast.
"Wait," Charlotte begged. "The thing was, the more I got to know Kirsten the more guilty I felt. She was-is-so nice, but I had to keep going. I really needed that money and I didn't know what Jimmy planned to do. So, before I left I gave her my address and I told her to call me if they tried to release her before she was ready; she could come stay with me. And, well, Jimmy's plan worked."
"I don't believe this," Sandy muttered, an anger like he'd never experienced rising up in him towards Charlotte and Jimmy.
"I didn't know he'd send Richard around, honest," Charlotte protested. "That was why I freaked out and moved to Canada. I didn't realize Jimmy was so dangerous."
"And you didn't tell us, even though you knew Kirsten was in danger?" Sandy raged.
"I was scared, I wasn't thinking straight!" Charlotte said defensively. "Why do you think I sent Kirsten my new address? I knew that then, if anything happened, you could reach me and I could come and tell you… Where is Kirsten?"
Sandy's face turned blank and Charlotte's mouth opened in surprise.
"She's late from work and isn't answering her phone," Sandy said painfully. "Where do you think she is? And, to make matters worse, she's pregnant."
"Oh, shit," Charlotte whispered, holding her head in her hands.
"'Shit' is right," Sandy told her dryly. "Come on. We're going to the cops and you're telling them exactly what you told me."
Kirsten tried to process the information: Jimmy had paid Charlotte to be her friend, introduce doubts into her mind, prevent her from coming home and then he paid Richard to stalk her and learn her daily routine off by heart. Jimmy had paid Charlotte. Jimmy had paid Charlotte. There are another two people to strike off my list off people to trust, Kirsten thought bitterly, nausea rising in her at the shock she was enduring.
Sandy was the only adult now left for her to trust, Kirsten realized, tears springing to her eyes. But how could he ever find her now? How would she ever get out of this?
"I can't believe it," Kirsten said shakily, a tear slipping from her eye.
"There, there," Jimmy consoled, wrapping an arm around her and wiping the tear away as she recoiled at the touch that wasn't Sandy's. "It won't be so bad. Remember all the fun we used to have? It will be like old times."
"I thought you were having money problems," Kirsten remembered, releasing herself from Jimmy's grasp. "How could you afford to pay…them?"
"It would explain my sudden departure a few days ago more if I appeared to be in debt and trouble," Jimmy informed Kirsten. "It would also make it more realistic if I was in debt with a person or two. The family believed I was torn and in trouble."
A sudden tiredness rested in Kirsten's body, and all she wanted to do was curl up in her bed at home and sleep. Or just sleep, end of story, to try to forget about what had happened this evening. Looking up at Jimmy's face, Kirsten knew that she had to hear the rest of the story. Maybe it would let her know what to expect and how much danger she was in.
"This house…" Kirsten begun, noticing her tiny, derelict surroundings.
"Is a little investment of mine," Jimmy continued. "A temporary residence for you and me."
"But why did you do this to me?" Kirsten asked the question that had been echoing in her head since she'd seen Jimmy.
"You don't know?" Jimmy asked in surprise. "You don't know!"
Seth and Ryan jumped back from their eavesdropping corner about a second too late-probably due to the shock from what they'd heard-as Sandy walked in.
Ryan understood why Kirsten had left Charlotte's now-this Richard guy must have tried to attack her.
Sandy stared at the boys, not bothering for once to admonish them. The look they gave him showed that they had heard it all; there was nothing left to explain.
"Try your mother on her cell phone as often as you can," Sandy instructed them, before turning around and leaving the house with Charlotte.
"For God's sake, Kirsten!" Jimmy cried in exasperation. "Twenty years-over twenty fucking years and you never twigged on?"
Kirsten watched on in fright as Jimmy paced the room, running his hands through his hair. His eyes rested on her, and in them Kirsten saw two decades of suppressed anger that looked to be out of control now. Of course it was out of control: Jimmy had lied, hired people and bought this house because of her.
"All of this time, all of the hints I've dropped and you still haven't seen it," Jimmy muttered, staring Kirsten straight in the eye. "How damn naïve can you be?"
Jimmy let his gaze rest on Kirsten for several more moments before resuming his pacing.
"Why don't I give you some recent examples?" Jimmy begun in a dangerously low voice. "That time I kissed you after Julie filed for a divorce, telling Sandy about that kiss, going into the restaurant business with Sandy, dating Hailey, leaving Newport and then returning when Caleb died-do you think that they were meaningless? That I didn't have the same motive?"
Jimmy stopped and crouched in front of Kirsten as the past twenty years of her friendship with Jimmy came crashing down around her. Everything had all been a lie.
"You mean…" Kirsten whispered, unable to carry on.
"They were all done for you!" Jimmy yelled, as Kirsten flinched in horror at the blatant anger in his voice. "I did everything I could think of to bring that marriage of yours down, but nothing worked! I 'accidentally' tell Sandy about our kiss, pissed off that you'd pulled back, and the next time I see you, you're still sickeningly in love! Then, I bought that restaurant with him to try to find a way to break you up but that fell through.
"I dated your sister-shit, I even asked her to marry me hoping that you'd realize you're still in love with me but you just sat back and took it! Then I left, thinking that absence would make the heart grow fonder or some similar crap but it made it grow colder for you. How many times did you get in contact with me-three? Four?
"So then Caleb dies and I come back only to find that you've turned to alcohol. I thought that was fantastic-the weaker the state you were in the, the more chance I'd have of winning you over. But Sandy, being the overzealous martyr that he is, shipped you off to rehab! I couldn't win, no matter what I did. You left me no other choice, can't you see that?"
"I love Sandy," Kirsten whispered, managing to string three words together while trying to absorb the shock.
"Twenty years," Jimmy whispered, ignoring what Kirsten said. "That's how long I have waited for you. But I won't wait any longer, Kirsten. I can't. That's why I did this. I'm still in love with you and now, I'll never let you go."
I have nothing against Jimmy-or rather, I had nothing against him until he left Julie on their wedding day-but I just thought it would sort of fit the storyline. And I know I've changed Charlotte's character from how she really is, but that's just how I imagined she'd be.
Please let me know what you think of this chapter and if you have any suggestions-I love reading your reviews! And the name of the story should make sense now.