Chapter 46

Wednesday rolled around with Vallea landing in Vegas for her two days off, staying in a hotel. She hadn't gotten a place of her own yet because everything had happened so fast. Hotels didn't bother her, and she had more than enough money to set her for life. Seth had been a grand slam champion in the WWE and did well for himself financially, every dime going to his wife upon his death. She had just gotten into her room when she received a text from Jon, asking her to come to the house. He had something he wanted to show her. Jon wasn't due back on the road until next Monday for Raw, so he had 5 days left on his 'downtime'.

I just got in, let me freshen up and I'll be over. Give me an hour. She texted back, after thinking it over and tossed her phone on the bed, desperately needing a shower to wash away the travel grime.

Jon then texted her back, asking her to bring any keys she might've gotten from Colby, figuring he really did not want this to be a waste of their time. She was probably thinking he was booty-texting her and that was actually nowhere near the truth. Vallea was seriously damaged goods right now with a lot of issues she didn't need him compounding. He figured once they got the evidence thing sorted out, maybe they could start over, or at least try to be friends. That left a bitter, weird taste in his mouth. Jon had pulled the house from the market, and since he was too cheap to own it and not live in it, he had been tearing it apart and completely redoing it. He had hated this house, it had too many memories that made things hurt. Now he had a body in the backyard that tied him down here.

He wondered if Colby's corpse was feeding the worms yet. Three months, decomposition started when?

Not knowing what Jon wanted from her, but unable to deny him, Vallea showered and slipped on regular clothes. Light blue jean shorts and a dark red spaghetti-strapped tank top since it was over 100 degrees outside. July was one of the HOTTEST months of the year for Vegas, and she was shocked the plane had actually flown due to the excessive heat. Some of them were grounded not to fly out, but not to Vegas. It was a morning flight, which was probably why.

Pulling her hair up in a messy bun on top of her head, Vallea grabbed her keys and purse before heading out. She had a rental car since she currently didn't have one of her own. When she left Jon for Seth, unwillingly, she left everything at the house and never went back for anything. Twenty-five minutes later, she pulled up to the house and cut the ignition, stepped out to admire the home she shared with Jon for 6 glorious months, and put one foot in front of the other until she stood in front of the door. Feeling weird doing this, Vallea raised her hand up and knocked a few times, waiting for Jon to answer.

Jon had been working all day with the AC on, but he had been in and out. The damn safe was out in the backyard, in the dirt area he had been tearing up to lay out that 'roll out' heat and drought resistant grass sod stuff. He opened the door, blinking because while he had been expecting her, her knocking was just weird. Jon held it open, raising an eyebrow, and wore denim shorts, no shirt, his shoes and a bandanna wrapped around his head to keep sweat out of his eyes.

"Why did you knock? That's weird."

"Why wouldn't I? This isn't my house anymore, and it'd be rude to think otherwise or walk in without knocking." Vallea remarked and had to do everything in her power to look everywhere except at him. This man was sex on legs…all sweaty and naked from the waist up, exposing that delicious muscular chest of his and arms. Jon was out to kill her; she simply knew it. "These are the keys I got from Seth's bag he carried with him. I don't know why you need them, but here…" She handed them over, walking past him, and noticed a few things he had done to the house since she last lived here.

He had demolished the kitchen and replaced those countertops with something entirely new…something that didn't make his heart twinge whenever he came in from a morning workout. Jon could still see her, there in her robe, sipping coffee and waiting on him. "Yeah…let's see…come on." He led the way out the patio and into the backyard, hoping she was able to come out here knowing her dead husband wasn't buried far off. "Like the safe? It's technically yours." He crouched down by it.

The black granite countertops she had loved were gone, and Vallea felt a twinge in her own heart, managing to push that hurt to the side. This was his house, and he didn't like the granite countertops, so he had every right to change it. This was his house, not hers, and she got the message loud and clear.

"I'm sorry, what? I don't have a…safe…" Vallea's voice trailed off, staring at the small black safe and frowned, folding her arms in front of her chest. "What do you mean this is technically mine?"

What did Jon do? Did she even want to know? She crouched down beside him, not bothered by Seth being buried in the backyard because he was dead and could never hurt, rape or blackmail her again. He was gone, never to be seen again.

"Jon…"

"So, that house you're trying to sell in Davenport…" Jon spit a stream of tobacco juice off to the side, away from her, before patting the safe. "Yeah, I broke into it." He glanced at her, trying to decipher the look on her face. "The guy who gave Seth the details, and the evidence he had, his name is Gary and he lives somewhere in Nati, but finding him was turning out to be a bitch. So…I decided to try something else, and this was what I found behind some weird wooden panel in his closet."

Was Jon in Davenport, in the house, when he called her on Monday? "You could've just asked for the key, and I would've given it to you." She sounded amused, shaking her head, and saw him shrug with such a nonchalance, it made her smile. She couldn't help it. Vallea should've been furious with him, but all she felt was a weird amusement at the situation. "So, you think one of these keys will open this bad boy? And if the key isn't here, are you going to bust it open somehow?" Was the evidence in here? It had to be if Jon took it out of the house and brought it here. "How the hell did you get this thing on a plane?"

"First, I did ask for the key. Why do you think I wanted you to bring them? Second, I hope so, third…I drove with the damn thing because you can't get this on a plane without security issues." 9/11 had made it damn near impossible to bring some of the most basic of necessities with to travel. Jon was not about to attempt flying with a safe. It would have been checked in the cargo hold, and he really didn't need anyone asking him any questions he couldn't answer. "If there's no key," He was now working through the ring. "Then yeah, I'm going to use explosives to take off the door. Not a lot, though." He didn't need major holes in the yard.

"Wait…explosives?" Her eyes grew wide as they moved to what looked to be sticks of dynamite a few feet away from her. "Oh god…oh my god…"

Did Jon even know how to USE those?! He was going to blow the damn house up trying to get this damn thing opened! Wouldn't it be easier to take it to a locksmith or something to get it open the SAFE way? No, no, that was a dumb idea, and Vallea mentally slapped herself for even having that thought. If the evidence was in here, it had to be destroyed once and for all, and then Jon would be 100% safe. Sure enough, there was no key that matched the safe, and Jon immediately began setting up the dynamite, only using two sticks, just enough to blow the safe open. Vallea swallowed hard, wondering where he had learned how to do something like this, and went back into the house, clamping her hands over her ears to wait for the explosion.

The dynamite was not real, it was meant to be a joke or something. He had a horrible sense of humor. Jon, if he had been intending on using dynamite, wouldn't have left something like that out to bake in this heat. The sun itself would have set it off. He tossed the sticks right through the open door, hearing her scream, and tried not to laugh.

"Doll, come back, it was a joke!" Jon let out a curse of pain a few seconds later when one of those sticks came flying right back out, a hand flying to his forehead. "Vallea! OW!" The second one nailed him in his undefended nuts. "Okay…point made." He wheezed out, dropping to one knee. Next time, he'd just use the explosive gel that he could line the seams with, set off and got out of the way for, WITHOUT the joke.

"YOU STUPID SON OF A BITCH! YOU SCARED THE SHIT OUT OF ME WITH THAT!" Vallea didn't know how much more her heart could take after everything she'd been through over the past year.

She would definitely need a heart transplant before age 50, due to how FAST it pumped and thudded against her chest. She actually thought he'd thrown sticks of dynamite in here and tossed the first one out accidentally. The second one…was intentional. Jon deserved that shot to the nuts after scaring the living hell out of her. She screamed out, clamping her hands over her ears again when the actual explosion went off and the safe door blew from its hinges.

"JESUS CHRIST!"

"That wasn't THAT loud." He grunted, staring at the torn-up dirt. It had been a weird noise yet not overly loud. And that door had gone flying off, the force driving it, but the ground catching it. Jon had like a foot of shredded grass and a row about an inch deep now. "Damn…" Crouching down and trying to ignore the ache in his poor nuts, he began pulling things out of the safe. "Vallea, come here." She'd know what they were looking for better than him. "Just don't nail me again…" Considering what she had done to her worm farm dead husband, he was probably lucky it had been a toy to the junk.

"Sure you don't wanna scare me to death by making me think you're gonna blow me sky high?" She retorted in a mutter, rolling her eyes the same time he did, and walked over to crouch down by the safe, coughing.

There was still some smoke and residue left over and she waved her hand to try to clear it. Reaching inside, she pulled out a slew of documents and set them on the grass before going back in. When all was said and done, there was a videotape, an actual VHS videotape, a DVD, and a folder FULL of pictures from that night, along with the camera that'd been used. Seth did NOT pull any punches when retrieving every DROP of evidence from Gary. Sitting down on the grass, Vallea began sifting through the documents and pictures, handing them over to Jon to show him. They were vivid and…brutal to look at, especially when Ryan was tossed into the vat of acid and then Nick. She couldn't imagine what was on the VHS and DVD, not sure if she wanted to know at this point.

"Build a fire, we have to destroy all of it."

"Oh, I don't know, I kind of like this one." Jon admired the look on his face as he stared at the picture of him tossing Ryan over that scaffolding. "Look at how badass I look!" He was committing a murder. Shaking his head, he looked at Vallea, starting to frown. "What kind of fucking homeless guy has a camera with THIS good of quality? Seriously?" Did he have a stalker he wasn't aware of or something? "Not the homeless people with the Nikes and Calvin Klein jeans, those aren't homeless people," Those were hustlers. "But the bagging it and sleeping under fucking bridges people, where do they get that kind of shit?"

"Why are you asking me? I have no idea…maybe he wasn't a homeless guy. Maybe you and Nick were followed that night, and you just didn't know it. Or maybe someone was there undercover?" No, why wouldn't they have gone to the police with this evidence then? "Whatever the case, we have the evidence now." What she'd been raped and blackmailed for by her deceased husband. "I say we build a fire and burn all of it, every scrap, every picture." She plucked the one out of his hand and put it with the rest, not finding any of this amusing. "Unless you want to keep it for some odd fucked up reason?"

"Well, the look on my face is pretty badass; that's a movie shot right there."

Jon was aware he might have slight sociopath issues or something. It wasn't that he didn't feel or emphasize, because he did. He also had no qualms or doubts; he didn't lose any sleep over killing Ryan. The man had it coming for abusing her the way he had all because she had said NO. Sighing, he pushed himself upright.

"We'll put everything in a bag and burn it tonight when it's cooled off. I can't have a fire right now."

It was too hot. Jon would soak the ground until a puddle formed later in the day - that'd last an hour - and build a fire then. A paper shredder wouldn't be enough because the pieces weren't completely 100% destroyed, or else she would've suggested it. The tape and DVD could easily be destroyed without the fire, but again, they couldn't be too cautious. Vallea suddenly realized she would be staying there for the rest of the day and most of the night, refusing to leave until all of the evidence was destroyed. She trusted Jon, but wanted to watch it all burn with her own eyes…unless he wanted her to leave. Not that she would blame him.

"Good point." She put everything back in the folder neatly and handed it to him, their eyes locked.