Chapter 2

Lisa cleaned up the mess of her plate and then both niece and aunt climbed into Lisa's car and headed towards the central part of town. Cove Springs was a small town in northern Florida and was the sort that could either drive you crazy or make you laugh, because everyone knew everyone else's business. That was the reason Lisa had stopped visiting after the rape. But as she looked out the window and saw the curious glances her unrecognized car got, Lisa had a feeling that this time the closeness would be endearing.

For the first hour, Lisa and Annie walked around and looked in shops, Annie re-introducing her niece to everyone in general and Lisa feeling a bit like a bug under a magnifying glass. She pushed this feeling away though. Loner Lisa was gone. Finally they stopped in front of Sam's ice cream and Lisa collapsed down in a booth. She stared out the window while she waited for her aunt to come back with the ice cream cones. It was their tradition. Annie always surprised her with a different ice cream flavor.

Lisa pressed her forehead against the cool glass. Her aunt appeared with the cones and she sat up straighter and smiled. "Oh, I forgot!" Annie exclaimed around a mouth full of ice cream. "I've got to go to the grocery store, get some more food for you. Can't expect you to live on pancakes."

- - - -

Jackson Rippner really didn't like his life right now. His company had pulled him from the hospital, made him hope that he would be forgiven for the catastrophic mistake he had made. And then he had been fired.

He supposed he should be grateful for not being killed. The imminent threat of death if he said anything was there, though. It would take about a year for them to finally forget about him. The only reason he had been taken from the hospital was to keep the authorities from getting information from him. Briefly, he considered getting another job with one of his connections, but he knew that he probably was blacklisted by now. Good work ethic… Had his ass kicked by a woman with a pen… He could see his references already.

Never had Jackson been more aware of his own inconsequentiality.

All thoughts of his missing job had driven Lisa Reisart to the very back of his mind. Jackson had bought a house in northern Florida with the money saved from his old job, Florida just popping into his head from some unconscious source. Maybe the back of his mind. He had wallowed for a day, feeling lost and powerless, wandering around his new two-bedroom, one bathroom house. Tiny. And then the threat of what was soon to be a penniless Jackson came crashing down and he realized he needed to get a job. He had gotten a scholarship to college and a degree in law, amazingly, before he became an assassin. But Jackson really had no interest in being a lawyer. The twisting of words was the only attraction in that job.

Jackson had gone to get groceries with the last twenty he had, being afraid to draw anything else from his sorely depleted bank account. When did houses get so damn expensive? Then he saw the 'Help wanted' sign at the grocery store.

He was now a proud cashier of Mark's Grocery, location 137 Avenue Northeast, Cove Springs, Florida. Whoopee.

- - - -

Lisa wandered around the bread aisle of Mark's Grocery. Her aunt had told her to get the store brand, but for the life of her, she couldn't find it. Finally giving up, she sighed and went to one of the checkout counters. "Can you tell me where the store brand kind of bread is?" A tall, tanned man with blond curly hair stood behind the counter. He walked out and towards the bread aisle and then stopped.

"Lisa?"

Oh great. Another person who knows me. "Er… Hello." Wait a minute… "Jake?"

"Where have you been all this time?" Jake grinned and gave her an impulsive hug. Lisa stepped back and laughed, shocked. Jake was her old friend from summers she had spent with her aunt. They had been neighbors and close friends, and Lisa had wondered what happened to Jake after she stopped coming to Cove Springs.

"I've been in Miami! I work as office-manager of the Luxe Atlantic. What're you doing working here?"

He made a fake insulted face. "You've gotten snobby, Miss Lisa Reisart. This is a perfect place to work." He started walking down the bread aisle and Lisa followed him.

Jackson stared across the grocery store. That couldn't be—There was no way. Lisa Reisart? What was she doing here? In his eight weeks of stalker duty, Jackson had noticed Lisa barely even leave Miami. He felt a queer little flip in his stomach. He narrowed his eyes and watched her exchange with Jake, the express checkout guy. Jackson decided that Jake was a pushy annoying bastard. Why was he hugging her? And why did she seem so happy? He watched them walk off down the aisle.

Well, maybe it wasn't Lisa. It probably wasn't. Whatever.

A fake-baked, overly made-up woman came up to Jackson's checkout counter. "Honey, can you tell me where the ice cream aisle is? I just can't find it anywhere." She drawled out her A's so that they sounded like 'aaah'.

"My name's Jackson."

"Oh. Aaahl-right, sure, Jaaahck-son."

Jackson closed his eyes. Grocery cashiers did not give customers dirty looks. Why was he always getting hit on by older women? Was there something wrong with him? Stupid Jake never had that happen to him… Jackson's eyes snapped open. "Ice cream's to your right," he said curtly. Fake-bake woman looked slightly annoyed but went off.

Before she knew it, Lisa had spent thirty minutes talking to Jake, while he bounced the loaf of bread up and down in his hands and she leaned against the shelves. Finally, when her laughter had subsided and they had begun that staring into the distance thing that happens when you have just learned about a past you weren't apart of, and it's time to talk about the present, Lisa jumped. "My aunt! I've gotta go; she's probably waiting for me." Jake looked ruefully at the squished loaf of bread in his hands.

"You still want it?" He held it out to her. Lisa laughed.

"Call me, okay? I'm at my aunt's house. Hey, do you know who moved into your old house?"

Jake shrugged. "Nope. Hey," He reached out and held Lisa's shoulder, looking earnestly down into her eyes. She felt an odd pang when she realized that they weren't blue. "If you ever get tired of Miami, you know, all that hustle and bustle and new cars, come back up here, okay?"

Lisa smiled and fought back the need for Jake to remove his hand. "I'll remember that. It was nice seeing you again."

Jake stood for awhile in the middle of the bread aisle, watching Lisa's retreating back, a sort of dreamy smile on his face.

Lisa ran back to her car, where her aunt was sitting inside and talking on her cell phone. "Sorry I took so long," she mouthed. Annie smiled and nodded and went on talking. Something about a recipe for strawberry banana pancakes. Lisa fumbled for her keys and had the odd sense of eyes on her. She looked up and through the store window in front of her.

With a tingle of something in her stomach, Lisa's breath caught. A man was watching her from behind the counter of a checkout, a man with brown hair that sort of flipped out at the ends and the bluest eyes Lisa had ever seen. Jackson… And then he jerked his head away and the connection was broken. Shaken, Lisa started the car and headed home.

Jackson yanked his 'Mark's Grocery' apron over his head and balled it up and threw into the back seat of his car. It was nine o'clock and he wanted to go to bed. He drove down the street and towards his new house. Something caught his eye and he slowed. Lisa's car was parked in front of a Victorian-style house.

No, that wasn't Lisa's car.

Jackson's eyes darted to her license plate. He closed his eyes and opened them again. And then he stepped on the gas pedal and floored it to his house, only three homes away from the house Lisa Reisart was staying in. He leapt from his car and ran into his house, slamming the door behind him.

He should kill her, that's what he should do. She had ruined his career, sent him to the hospital, nearly killed him. He would kill her. Cold fury began to surge and then was washed out by logic.

No, no, he couldn't kill her. His company would only kill him if he drew attention to his identity. But that didn't stop him wanting to kill her.

A little uncomfortable voice of the logic that Jackson prided himself on said, "Well, it was kind of your fault."

But how? When did it stop being her fault that his life had become so fucked up and start being his? The little voice pointed out that this whole thing could've been avoided if Jackson hadn't started killing people for money in the first place. But Jackson thought of why he had started that life and stopped. God, he thought he had killed the part of him that still held the ability to feel. It should be dead, dead beside the others he had killed. But now it looked like Jackson had been deceived. The gift of humanity was still in him, only had been lying dormant for five years. Jackson shut his eyes tightly. She would be so disappointed in him if she knew what he had become.

But she was dead. And she couldn't see him.

Emotions were so much safer abandoned. Lisa Reisart had somehow brought them back. How? Jackson would never have followed someone to their house and tried to kill them normally. That could be arranged later, along with a redo of the Keefe assassination.

How did she do it? And why did he feel an odd admiration for her?

With an escape from the harsh climate that was Jackson's old job, old life, the seed began to crack open. Jackson sank down to the carpet and buried his face in his hands. He dug his nails into his skin until he could feel something wet. But physical pain wouldn't save him now.

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