Taking Connor (31 page)

When I wake the next morning, Connor is beside me, lying on his back staring up at the ceiling. “What’s wrong?” I ask, my voice hoarse.

When he turns his head to look at me, his dark stare is riddled with worry. “What happened?”

I turn on my back and stare at the ceiling as well. Taking a deep breath, I do my best to tell him everything I can remember.

After I had left Mary-Anne, I ran across the street, afraid McKenzie was acting terribly to Mr. Jenson. After the way she behaved to him that weekend we kept all of the kids, I thought maybe she got into it with him. The Jenson’s house is on a bit of a hill, so I hiked it up the driveway. I could hear McKenzie shouting and some clinking, like tools being dropped on the floor, but I couldn’t see them because the Jenson’s garage doesn’t face the front of the house. So I ran around the side, and the bay door was open. Neither of them noticed me when I entered. Mr. Jenson had some kind of metal poker . . . like a fire poker . . . and he was jabbing it at McKenzie. She was screaming at him to let her go, but every time she made a move for the door, he tried to stab her. He’d always seemed so feeble and slow, but when he was going after her, he moved like a young man.

“What was McKenzie yelling at him?” he asks as he takes my hand and squeezes it.

“She was calling him a sicko.”

Connor’s brows furrow and then he says, “What happened next?”

He went ballistic and was swinging the poker around trying to hit her. I tried to grab him and pull him off, but he shoved me. He turned and swung at me, and I fell trying to dodge it. He raised the poker above me, and I was scrambling to get away, but he fell . . . right on top of me. McKenzie had hit him over the head with a wrench, and his head was gushing blood everywhere. I shoved him off of me and got to my feet; I was a wreck. He was lying there, bleeding out, gasping like a fish out of water.

McKenzie and I stood on either side of him, facing one another, the wrench still in her hand, hanging limply at her side. “I was eleven when he raped me,” she said, calmly. “Told me never to tell anyone or he’d kill you and my parents.”

My gaze shot to hers, my heart in my stomach. “Mary-Anne snuck over here while I was in the shower. When I came downstairs, your front door was open, and I knew exactly where she went. I came to get her. She was eating a damn candy bar while he had his hand up her dress.”

I collapsed to the ground right beside him. This man had violated both of these young girls on my watch. I trusted him. I thought he was a good man. I even scolded McKenzie for being so rude to him.

“I swear, Demi,” she cried, a sob breaking loose from her chest. “I’m not lying.”

Tears trickle down my face as I speak, my voice raspy with emotion. “He hurt them, and it’s all my fault.”

“No, it isn’t,” Connor speaks softly, rolling to his side and wiping my wet cheeks with the bed sheet. “These fucking creeps are good; they’re sociopaths. They know how to act and make everyone think they’re trustworthy. The feeble old man act was probably part of it. How could anyone think a man who can barely walk be capable of abusing a child like that?”

“I should have known, though.”

Demi,” he whispers. “This wasn’t your fault. Tell me what happened next.”

“Wipe that wrench off,” I instructed her, my calmness surprising even me.

“I’m going to go to jail, aren’t I?” she cried as she wiped at her nose.

“That’s not going to happen,” I told her. “Wipe that down good and go.”

“What are you going to do?” she asked, panicked.

“Go, McKenzie,” I ordered.

She finished wiping down the wrench and put it back on the table. She looked down at him one last time, then to me. “Should I—”

“Go.”

When she left, I was still kneeling beside him, his mouth still moving as if he was trying to call for help. If I had just left him, he probably would have died from his head injury, but I wasn’t taking any chances.

My gaze meets Connor’s, and his expression is stoic. “I pinched his nose and covered his mouth with my hand.”

I remember feeling something snap inside of me as I suffocated Mr. Jenson; the realization that I was taking a life, killing a man. It changed me, rightfully so. Before I was me, Demi Stevens, regular everyday person. At that moment, I was a soon-to-be murderer. But right now, reliving it, sharing the play by play with Connor, I feel no regret.

“And that’s when I came in,” Connor says.

Mr. Jenson, even with his head injury in his subdued state, began to struggle as he fought for oxygen. I laid half of my body over him in an attempt to hold him down but holding his mouth and nose were difficult in my position. After a few minutes, he stopped struggling and stilled. Collapsing against him, my head thunked against his chest, exhausted by the task. When I managed to look up, his mouth hung open, and his eyes were fixed on the ceiling.

He was dead.

I had killed him.

“Over there,” I heard McKenzie yell just before Connor and Dusty rushed in through the bay door, stopping dead in their tracks. They looked at me, then at each another, both wearing a ‘what the fuck?’ expression.

“Go back to the house with Mary-Anne,” Connor yelled over his shoulder. I knew they were there, but I couldn’t speak as I pushed myself off of the corpse in front of me. His head injury was so severe, there was blood everywhere, and I slipped in it as I attempted to stand, only to fall and cover myself in it, which panicked me even more.

“You fell hard,” Connor notes. “It scared the shit out of me.”

“I hit my head on something,” I state it more than ask it as I touch the sore spot on the back of my crown.

“Tool bench,” he states.

“The next thing I remember is waking up on the gurney.”

“We have to see Wendy and Jeff. Obviously the girls haven’t come forward with what that old fuck did to them, or we would have been questioned about it by now.”

McKenzie was frantic after she hit Mr. Jenson over the head. I have no doubt she’s lied about everything, terrified she’ll go to prison for murder. No matter what happens, I’ll take the heat for all of this—after all, I did kill him. But the most important thing is that the girls get help, counseling to help them cope and understand the feelings something so horrendous might make them feel. My heart aches as I think of McKenzie; the years of carrying the pain around must have been unbearable.

Tears fill my eyes. “I can’t believe that I didn’t know; that I was so blind.”

“You’re so good, Demi,” he murmurs as he kisses my temple, “you only want to see the good in people.” He rubs gentle circles on my back before lying back, pulling me with him. I rest my head on his chest and let my fingers dance over the quote tattooed on his chest.

‘Return good for good; return evil with justice.’

“Is it bad I don’t regret killing him?” I ask my voice monotone.

“I’m the wrong person to ask that question,” he replies.

“Looks like we’re not so different after all,” I sigh.

A loud knock on the door startles us, and Connor climbs out of bed, quickly tugging on his boxers and a pair of jeans that were crumpled on the floor.

“Police. Open up,” a deep voice yells as they knock loudly once more.

Grabbing my white robe, he tosses it to me, and I quickly slip it on, my heart hammering in my chest a mile a minute. They’re going to arrest him. Shit. This is happening.

“Say nothing,” Connor tells me, his stare direct. Then he opens the door, but only halfway so the officers can’t see inside the apartment.

“Mr. Stevens, we’re looking for Demi Stevens,” the officer says.

“And why is that?” Connor asks, closing the door more.

“We have a warrant for her arrest for the murder of Ned Jenson. Is she here?”

“She’s been charged?” Connor asks as if it’s the most ridiculous thing he’s ever heard. “On what grounds?” Connor’s shoulders are pulled back, his chest is out, his stance tense. He’s getting upset. I need him to calm down before he gets himself in trouble.

“Is she here Mr. Stevens?”

“Yes, I’m here,” I call as I round the door, tugging my robe closed.”

“This is bullshit,” Connor yells. “They’ve already charged me.”

“Connor,” I plead as I place a trembling hand on his arm. “Please, calm down. Call Jim for me. I need you to see Wendy and Jeff as well.”

The officer pushes his way inside and begins reading me my rights, while his partner more or less, blocks Connor from me. My entire body is trembling as he cuffs me.

I’m being charged with murder.

And I’m guilty.

I’m going to prison.

“Let her put some goddamn clothes on!” Connor shouts. “She’s half naked.”

But the officer doesn’t listen. He turns me and pushes me out the door and down the steps where a herd of reporters are waiting, snapping photos, and yelling questions at me. I lower my head, letting my hair hang over my face as I’m led to the car when I hear someone shouting.

“You killed him!” Mrs. Jenson shrieks. “He gave candy to those kids! He was kind to you, and you killed him!” She’s sobbing as she wipes at her nose with her forearm. The reporters are snapping photos, flashes from their cameras blinding me.

“Grab her!” The officer holding my cuffed wrists shouts as he pushes me forward. The other officer grabs Mrs. Jenson and pulls her away, and I’m pushed forward toward the car. This is humiliating. I’m practically naked, being shoved into the back seat of a cop car.

“Don’t worry, Demi,” Connor is right beside me all of a sudden. “It’s going to be okay, baby. I love you,” he whispers in my ear before the officer leading me shoves him away. His words slice right through me. Here, we just found one another, finally came together, and now I’m probably going to prison.

A vigilante.

That’s what the newspapers were calling me.

Demi Stevens—takes justice into her own hands.

After my arrest, Connor went straight to Wendy and Jeff’s and told them everything. McKenzie reluctantly came forward, confessing her part in Mr. Jenson’s death, and she also shared the horrific details of what he did to her years ago. Mary-Anne also came forward. Just as I had suspected, McKenzie had coached her, made her swear not to tell what happened that day, terrified she’d go to jail.

The prosecutor dropped the murder charge on Connor and for me, but then I was charged with voluntary manslaughter. The coroner’s report showed that ultimately Mr. Jenson died from suffocation. Jim showed me the photos from the crime scene, and I was immediately confused. Nothing looked as I remembered it. Mr. Jenson was positioned differently, and there was blood in places there wasn’t from what I remembered.

I knew immediately what happened. Connor and Dusty had altered the crime scene. They did their best to make it look like there was a struggle between Mr. Jenson and me; and that I killed him out of self-defense.

My mother refused to post bail for me; apparently I’m disowned now. But lucky for me, I have another mother . . . of sorts. Grams came to the rescue and bailed me out. Like I said, God might close the doors, but he always leaves a big beautiful window open somewhere.

As soon as I got out, I came home and hid from the world, refusing to leave the house. Connor has stayed with me, and Lexi comes by to visit every day. Wendy and Jeff have stayed away, but Wendy does call every day. The prosecutor didn’t charge McKenzie as she hit Mr. Jenson in an attempt to defend me. But with Mrs. Jenson living across the street and the horrid things she’s been saying to the newspapers about us, they have no choice, but to avoid my home. Not to mention the reporters circling my house like buzzards about to feast on a dead carcass.

Pulling my curtain aside, I peek out my side window. “They’re only three today. At least they seem to be decreasing.”

“I’m sorry you have to deal with that. I can’t believe you’re national news.”

Plopping back on my sofa with a huff, I ask, “How is McKenzie doing?”

“She’s doing okay,” Wendy tells me over the phone. “I hate myself for not realizing there was something going on with her. I just thought she was a pissed off teenager; that it was hormones.”

“I’m so sorry, Wendy.”

“I met him several times, Demi. I thought he was the sweetest old man alive,” Wendy admits. “I never thanked you, though.”

“Thanked me?” I ask. “For what?”

“For killing him,” she states plainly. “I know that sounds awful, but . . .”

“I know, Wendy. I know,” I assure her. Connor walks in the living room where I’m curled up on the couch, wiping his hands on a shop rag.

“Babe, can you come in the kitchen?” he asks.

“Yeah, sure,” I reply. “Can I call you later Wendy?”

After hanging up with Wendy, I head into the kitchen and find Jim seated at my table with a small woman about my age. Connor has made four cups of coffee for all of us and pulls the only empty seat left next to him where he sits and pats the seat. “Have a seat, baby. You’ll want to hear this.”