Separation (2 page)

A pounding noise brought Jameson out of unconsciousness. Just blackness. He squinted and stared up at the ceiling. Where the fuck was he? It took him a second to realize he was in his library. It started to come back to him. He had passed out on the leather sofa that was tucked against a wall. He couldn't remember the last time he had even used the sofa, let alone slept on it. Then he remembered that a little over a month ago, he had put the sofa to very good use.

Tatum
.

He groaned and sat up. There was more banging and he pressed a hand to his head. He couldn't remember how much he'd had to drink. It had been a lot. A glance at his liquor cabinet showed it to be wide open and completely empty.

There was more pounding.

“Sanders!” Jameson yelled, rubbing his face. There was no answer and he lifted his eyes to the ceiling. “
Sanders!
Get the goddamn door!”

Silence, followed by
bang bang bang
.

He growled and stood up, started marching across the room. There was a crunching sound, and before he could fully realize what was happening, something sliced through his heel. He hissed and lifted his foot. A chunk of glass was imbedded in his heel. He yanked it out and glared at it. Then he looked down and lost his glare.

Glass was everywhere. No, not glass. Crystal. Broken crystal, scattered all over the ground. A wide swath of floor, from the liquor cabinet to the wall across from it, was coated in broken tumblers and bottles and decanters. It all came back to Jameson. He had broken every piece of glassware in the room, after Sanders had left.

After
she
had left.

The pounding wasn't going away, and now that he knew why Sanders wasn't answering the door –
because he wasn't there
– Jameson made his way to the front of the house. Someone was knocking, over and over. Jameson stomped up and yanked open the door.

“What?” he barked.

A police officer blinked at him. Jameson was surprised, but he didn't show it. He kept his glare in place. The officer was young and tall. Taller than Jameson. He looked gangly and nervous, like it was his first day at basketball camp. Jameson raised his eyebrows, glancing between the cop and the police cruiser that was parked in the driveway.

“Um, is this the residence of ...,” the cop checked a notepad. “Jameson Kane? Or Sanders Dash ..., Dashke ...,”

“
Yes,
” Jameson cut him off.

“Are you -,”

“I'm Jameson. This is my home. What do you want?” he demanded. The cop swallowed nervously.

“Uh, we wanted to let you know, we found your car,” he answered. Jameson's eyebrows went back up.

“My car?” he asked, not having a clue what was going on. The cop looked down at the notepad he was holding.

“Uh, a Bentley, registered to a Jameson Kane and a Sanders Dashke ..., uh, yeah. License plate WXC1-,” the cop started to prattle off. Jameson held up a hand.

“Yes, I know my own license plate. What about the car?” he pressed. Now the cop looked surprised.

“Um, it was reported stolen,” the cop explained.

“
Stolen?
”

“Yes. Mr. ..., Mr. Sanders reported it stolen, last night. It's being towed here, right now. I just had some questions,” the cop told him.

“Sanders reported our car stolen?” Jameson clarified.

Someone had stolen the Bentley? He hadn't even known it was gone, and if he had, he would've just assumed Sanders had taken it. He was practically the only one who ever drove it; it was more his than Jameson's.

Who would want to steal the Bentley? After Sanders had put in his “notice”, Jameson had kicked everyone out. Just walked into the main lounge and yelled at everyone to get the hell out of his house. Petrushka Ivanovic, his ex girlfriend, had argued to stay, but he had practically thrown her out onto the porch and then slammed the door in her face.

Then Jameson had locked himself in the library and drank himself stupid, cursing both Tate and Sanders while he destroyed all his crystal. Was it possible that one of his disgruntled party guests had stolen his car? Most of them were wealthy in their own right; they could buy their own Bentleys.

“Yes, last evening,” the cop continued. “We found it soon afterwards. There's some minor damage to the vehicle, but it was like that when we found it. We took pictures, but you'll want to contact your insurance company.”

At that moment, a tow truck started rumbling up the drive. Jameson stared in shock as his car was pulled around, right in front of the porch. The entire passenger side of the Bentley was scratched up, as if it had side swiped something and then dragged along it. The sideview had been ripped clean off.

“What the fuck happened? Did you find the person who stole it?” Jameson demanded, stepping out onto the porch. The cop flipped through some paperwork.

“Yes. Actually, that's how we found the car. An officer who had responded to a 9-1-1 call noticed the car idling in the middle of the road, he called in the plates,” the cop read off the notes.

“Did you arrest the thief?” Jameson asked.

“Not yet. From what I understand, it was a woman. She was found unconscious in a pool in the Beacon Hill Athletic Club,” the officer explained.

Tatum.

“Unconscious?” Jameson repeated, his voice soft. More pages flipped in the notepad.

“Um, that's how she was found, that's what the officer at the scene reported. Uhhh, let's see ..., okay, the report says that when paramedics arrived, she was having generalized seizures. A man on the scene said she had vomited prior to -,”

Jameson didn't hear any more. He turned around and walked back into the house without saying a word. Walked straight back in to his kitchen and opened a cupboard next to the fridge. Pulled out a bottle of Jack Daniel's. Twisted off the wrapper and cap, chugging as much as he could before he had to breathe again. There was a creaking noise behind him and he became aware that the cop had followed him. Jameson took one more drink before leaning against the counter.

“Is she okay?”

“Do you know the -,”

“
Is she okay?
”

“Uh, um,” the cop stuttered, and Jameson heard notepaper rustling. “I-I don't know. The last report I received was that she was checked in to an emergency room, still having seizures, and with an irregular, slow, heart beat and low oxygen levels. I haven't heard anything else, Mr. Kane.”

Mr. Kane. Someone should've told him my real name is Satan.

“Leave,” Jameson whispered, staring at his granite counter tops.

“Excuse me?”

“I said
leave
. Get out of my house,” Jameson snapped, finally turning around. The cop looked stunned.

“We have some paperwork, I need you to -,” he started to stammer. Jameson strode forward and pushed past the officer.

“The car belongs to Sanders, track him down,” he grumbled.

“But you -,
sir!
Sir, did you know you're bleeding!?” the cop exclaimed, hurrying after Jameson and pointing out the bloody footprints he was leaving behind him.

“Yes,” Jameson snapped back. A large man in coveralls was hovering in the open doorway, holding a piece of paper.

“Hey! Who gunnah pay for dis tow job? I need fiddy bucks,” the guy drawled in a thick Boston accent. Jameson growled again and stomped up to an end table that flanked the front door. He yanked open a drawer and pulled out a stack of money. Both the cop and the tow truck driver gaped at him.

“All of this is yours, just be off my property within the next five minutes,” Jameson said as he led them out onto the porch, all the while flinging hundred dollar bills to the ground.

“Ay, ay, no problem, buddy,” the guy said, quickly dipping down and picking up what had to be $800. He was a large guy, but he ran back to the car and had the Bentley unloaded and was driving off in his tow truck, well under the five minute time limit.

“We still have to -,” the cop started. Jameson glared at him and stepped back into his doorway.

“Call Sanders. He reported it stolen, not me. He can deal with this mess,” he snapped, then slammed the door shut.

The cop banged on the door for a while, but Jameson was very good at ignoring things. He took his stairs two at a time, his heart thumping louder than his footsteps pounding down the hall. He felt like he was going to explode. Like his heart was going to pound right out of his chest. Or rather, whatever organ it was he had in place of a heart.

Tatum
.

He didn't know why he thought he'd find answers there, but Jameson went straight into Sanders' bedroom. A large walk-in closet stood open, all clothing gone from it. Sanders didn't mess around. Something had been left behind, though, and Jameson sighed as he walked up to the foot of the bed. Sitting there, stacked neatly and packed in even bundles, was $32,000 in cash. Jameson knew it was exactly $32,000 because the night before, he had taken the cash out of a safe in his own room and brought it in to Sanders' room. Brought it to
her
.

A note sat on top of the money. Only one word was written on it, in Sanders' neat script:

“
Satan
.”

At least he spelled my name right.

A light was on in the bathroom and Jameson walked towards it. Very little actually disturbed him, but the sight he took in kind of made him want to vomit. Not because it was too ugly, but because it showed him what a terrible person he really was deep down. Through and through, to his core.

Sometimes, he forgot.

All the drawers on the vanity had been pulled open, stuff hanging out of them. The mirror had a large spider-web crack on the right hand side, closest to the door. One crack shot off all the way down to the sink, and some blood and strands of hair were in the very center of the spider-web. Long, black hair. Bloodstains were smattered across the vanity top and what looked like bloody fingerprints were smeared down the whole length. Jameson closed his eyes. Took deep breaths through his nose. Went back in time.

Petrushka had cornered him in the kitchen. Said unkind things about Tate. Jameson had been angry at Tate at the beginning of the night – angry at her for over two weeks before that, but after confronting her, after seeing her reaction, his anger had started to fade away. Started to turn in to something else. Something unfamiliar. Something he hadn't felt in a
long
time
.

Guilt
.

Pet was a massive bitch who didn't even know Tate. She had come along with Jameson just to watch the fireworks. Petrushka was almost a bigger sociopath than he was; Tate didn't deserve it. Not from Pet. Jameson had treated Tatum poorly enough.

She had been so upset. Maybe, just maybe, there was the tiniest possibility that he had been wrong about her. Wrong about her relationship with the baseball player. It happened on occasion, sometimes even Jameson Kane was capable of making a mistake. He hadn't wanted to wait till the end of the night to find out; he'd sought Tate out the minute he shook Pet loose.

Jameson hadn't seen how it had started, just how it had ended. When he'd walked into Sanders' room and saw a man in a suit bent over Tate, he had thought it was actually Sanders, at first. Talk about upsetting. Sanders was like a son to Jameson, he didn't want to have to kill him.

But it wasn't Sanders. It was Wenseworth Dunn, Jameson's business partner. A man Jameson had gone to school with, a man he had known for a long time. Dunn knew that Tate was off limits. Tate knew that Jameson didn't want her to sleep with any of his friends or colleagues. Breaking rules was apparently par for the course that night. Jameson had wanted to murder them both, but he'd settled for beating the shit out of Dunn, and then kicking Tatum out of the house. He hadn't bothered to look in the bathroom. He never bothered to look at anything,
ever
. He didn't have to – he didn't care. Right?
Right?

She had bled. How could I not notice that she was bleeding? Even I never made her bleed.

Jameson pressed his back against the door, then slid in to a sitting position. Put his head in his hands. He was a Yale graduate. He owned multiple businesses, in multiple countries. He played the stock market like he'd invented it, and owned real estate so pricey, even Donald Trump was interested. He was considered by many to be a very smart, calculating man.

But suddenly he felt very stupid. Brought down by a woman with black hair and dark eyes.  A sexy wit and a sexier body. A bartender, coupon clipper, temp worker. A college drop out turned party girl, with loose morals and legs that rarely closed.

So much better than him, in every way, shape, and form.

Her only downside was thinking she could use sex as a weapon. She'd always been too naive to realize that sometimes, weapons can backfire.

It had certainly backfired on him.

*

It took him a lot longer to find her than he would've thought. Sanders wasn't answering his phones calls, which was actually a surprise, even after everything that had happened. Jameson left several very angry, hostile voicemails. Regardless of his “work” position, Sanders was still family and this was an emergency.