This is a continuing adaptation of Judith McNaught's Remember When

Feels Like Home

Chapter 22

If you knew how lonely my life has been…
It feels like I’m all the way back…

Jax and Brenda arrived at the police station twenty-five minutes later.  They asked for Alexis and were directed to a room much like the ones Jax had been in before.  Through the window, they could see Alexis, Jerry, the DA, and a guard.  The DA was gesturing and speaking to Alexis.

Jax knocked on the door and opened it.  “Alexis?”

Alexis turned, slightly startled at the interruption.  She smiled when she saw Jax and Brenda walk in the room.  “Good, you made it,” she greeted them.  “We were just finishing up Jerry’s statement.”

Jax’s eyes glanced over at his brother who was sitting at the table, staring at his hands.  Jerry looked up just as Jax was returning his gaze to his lawyer.  “He told you everything, I take it?”

She nodded.  “He did.”  She glanced at Jerry.  “And I must say, it makes for an interesting turn in the story.”

“Turn?” Brenda asked hopefully.

“Don’t get your hopes up, Brenda,” Alexis assured her quickly.  “Unfortunately, Jerry’s story isn’t enough to completely clear Jax.”

“It isn’t?”  Brenda took Jax’s hand in hers, lacing their fingers tightly.

The DA spoke for the first time.  “No, it isn’t.”  He was the same DA that had asked Jax for his list of enemies and that Jax had point blankly refused to help.  “All Mr. Jacks’ story does is point a finger.  We still have absolutely no proof that Mr. Cassidine actually went through with anything.  Mr. Norton is still refusing to talk.”

Jax shook his head silently as Brenda gazed up at him, trying to get him to look at her.  She looked at Alexis, confused.  “I don’t get it, then why are we here?  Why did you call us in such a hurry?”

“Because I thought you’d want to see who showed up,” Alexis answered mysteriously and turned to face the window.

Jax and Brenda turned together to see what she was looking at.  There, in the room across the hall, was Katherine Bell.  There were two other men in the room with her and it looked like she was giving a statement.

“What in the world could Katherine possibly be doing here?” Jax asked, stunned.  He, of course, had no idea that Brenda and Alexis had been to see her the week before.

Brenda had chosen to ‘forget’ to tell Jax when he’d been called to the police station that same day.  She just hadn’t thought he would take lightly to the fact that she had gone to see Katherine without his knowledge.  It certainly hadn’t been what he had intended for her to do with the information he had finally told her.  “Is she…?”

Alexis nodded.  “I believe so, but I won’t know for sure until I see her statement.  However, I think it says something that she came here without Stefan.  I wonder if he even knows she’s here?”

Jax had caught the implication that Brenda knew what was up and he was now staring at her, confounded and a bit angry she had kept this from him.  “Brenda, why don’t you tell me what’s going on here?”  He turned on Alexis.  “Or you can, Alexis, either one of you.”  Taking his hand out of Brenda’s, he crossed his arms in front of him.

“I’ll tell you what,” Alexis began, “why don’t you tell Jax out in the hallway, Brenda.  We’ll finish up Jerry’s statement in here and then I’ll join you in a few minutes.”  She had seen the look on Jax’s face enough times before to know when he was holding back anger.

Brenda nodded and gave their attorney a small smile.  She took Jax’s hand and led him out there door again where Jax immediately took his hand out of hers again.  “Jax, come on,” she said exasperatedly.  “It’s not that big of a deal.”

“Well, I wouldn’t know now, would I?” he responded in a clipped voice.

She tried to get him to soften by smiling at him, but he wasn’t budging.  “All right, all right.  We went to see Katherine last week,” she admitted.

“Why?”  Jax thought he knew the answer to that already. 

“I wanted her to admit that she and Stefan were setting you up.  See, I had a tape recorder and I was going to catch her telling us that they had planned it all along.”

“And what happened?” he asked.

Brenda kind of grimaced a bit sheepishly.  “What we got wouldn’t have been admissible.  Katherine never really admitted to anything,” she said.  She hurried to continue, “But she as much as admitted it, Jax!  She told me I couldn’t prove anything.”

“You couldn’t.”

“Well, I know that.  But when we left, I had hoped we had scared her into confessing on her own.”

Jax shook his head and crossed his arms again.  “You didn’t really believe she had a conscience, did you?”

Brenda looked at him for a few seconds.  He was really angry about this, she realized.  But there was something more to it.  There had to be.  “Jax, what’s really bothering you about this?  It can’t be only the fact that I went to see Katherine,” she said.

He took a deep breath and looked away from his wife, watching down the corridor for a few minutes.  Katherine was still in the room across the hall, talking to one of the men.  The man had a tape recorder on the table between them and he was listening intently to what she was saying.  He forced himself to look away as he felt his anger building just looking at Katherine.  It was the first time he had seen her in over ten years, but that didn’t soften the reality of what she had accused him of doing.

“You’re right,” he finally admitted.  “That’s not all this is about.”

“Then what is it?”  She’d seen him looking at Katherine and could only guess what was going through his mind.

Jax sighed.  “Look, Brenda, I told you what happened between Katherine and me ten years ago so that you would know what was going on.  I did not tell you so that you would feel you had to defend my honor.  And I certainly didn’t want you going to her in order to do it!”

“Jax!  You’re being unreasonable!” Brenda exclaimed indignantly.  “That is not what I did!”

“Then why did you go see her?”  They were talking in hushed voices, but he had to pause so that he could lower his again.  “And why didn’t I know about it?”

She glanced around to see if anyone’s attention had been drawn, but saw no one looking their way.  “I went to see her because I knew she and Stefan were the only ones who could help you.”

“They could not possibly help me!” he said coldly.

She glared at him.  “Will you just listen to me?”  She saw his jaw clench again in anger.  “I was desperate, Jax.  We don’t have any proof that anyone did anything.  The only thing we know is that Stefan hired Jerry to hire Robert Norton.  That wasn’t enough and we both know that!  We also both know that we were never going to find any proof that Stefan or Katherine did more than that, either.  They were making sure of that.  So the only thing I could think of was to confront Katherine myself.”

“For all the good it did you.”

“Stop it, Jax!” she exclaimed.  “I was only trying to help you by going to her.  I thought I could get her to trip up and admit to something.  But she didn’t.  And nothing she said on the tape I had was going to convince anyone of anything.”

They were interrupted as the door behind them opened.  Alexis looked at Jax and Brenda and knew immediately that Jax was not taking the information well.  As he heard the door open, Jax wheeled on Alexis, the same angry glint in his eyes as he now looked at her.

“And you were the one who went with her, I take it?” he asked accusingly.

“Yes, I was.”

He shook his head again, biting his lip before he spoke too soon.  “Why would you go when I was under the impression you no longer had any contact with them?”

“I didn’t, Jax,” Alexis said.  “But I figured it would be the easiest way to get Brenda in to see Katherine.  And it worked.”

“Obviously it didn’t,” he said harshly.

Alexis returned his glare with one of her own.  “I don’t get you, Jax.  Why are you so upset about it?  It’s not like Brenda did anything you wouldn’t have done.  She was right, too.  If Katherine and Stefan are doing this because of something that happened ten years ago –“  She cut herself off when she saw Jax turn to look at Brenda suddenly.

“You told her?!” Jax exclaimed loudly.

Brenda’s eyes were wide and apologetic.  “Yes, I did, but you don’t understand!”  She didn’t get a chance to finish her explanation as Jax turned and walked away from her.

“Jax!” Brenda shouted after him as he walked out the door.  She started to follow him, but Alexis held her arm.

“Brenda, wait,” she said quietly.

“I have to go after him, Alexis!”  Brenda’s eyes were glistening as she thought of how angry her husband had looked as he walked off.

Alexis nodded, but said, “I know you do, but maybe you should let him cool off first.  Besides, you do want to know what Katherine said, don’t you?  I mean, she could be ending this all right now.”

Brenda laughed sarcastically, rolling her eyes.  “Yeah, right!”

“She could be, Brenda,” came Jerry’s voice for the first time.  He hadn’t said a word to them since they’d gotten to the station.  He’d been silently observing Jax and Brenda’s argument.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Jerry?” Brenda said harshly.  “Because then it would mean that your statement means nothing and therefore you had nothing to do with this.”

“That’s not at all what I meant,” he defended himself.  “I just meant there is a possibility.”

“Like I said, yeah, right,” she repeated.  “Katherine Bell has no conscience in her.  She wouldn’t do the right thing if it would save her life.  It’s all she and her husband are about.  Lies and revenge.”

A calm, cold voice spoke up from behind her, “You know, Brenda, I don’t really care what you think of me.”

Brenda turned around.  She hadn’t heard the door open behind her as Katherine walked out into the hallway.  “But you can’t deny it’s true, can you?” she said heatedly.  She glanced to the side as she saw Alexis and the assistant DA go into the room Katherine had just come from with the other two men.  They closed the door behind them again.

“I don’t have to deny anything to you or anyone else.  Your opinions mean absolutely nothing to me.  It’s a shame Jax didn’t stick around, though.  He and I have some unfinished business.”  Katherine smiled cryptically.  She walked away without letting Brenda say another word.

It was just as well.  Jerry had had to grab a hold of Brenda as she lunged at Katherine’s neck.  He held her shoulders firmly while the other woman left the station only letting go when Katherine was out of sight.

“You should have let me go, Jerry,” Brenda said through clenched teeth.

Jerry smiled, amused at his sister-in-law’s fire.  “I didn’t think you needed an assault charge on your record.  It might have kept you from finding Jax.”

She sighed deeply, blowing her bangs up onto her forehead.  “I know, you’re right.  She just makes me so mad!”

“I can see that,” he said.

Brenda looked in on Alexis to see what was going on.  The four of them were discussing something and Alexis was looking at the table at the recorder.  Brenda wondered if she had heard what was on the tape yet.  “What do you think is happening?” she asked Jerry.  She glanced up to see him gazing as intently in the window.  She saw concern and worry on his face.

“I don’t know,” he murmured in reply.

A few minutes later, Alexis shook all three gentlemen’s hands and grasped her briefcase in her hand.  She opened the door to tell Brenda what had happened.

~~~~~~~~~~

Jax walked all the way back to the penthouse, fuming silently at his wife.  He knew, in the back of his mind, that he wasn’t really all that angry with Brenda.  She did exactly what he would have done in her situation.  It was the fact that she hadn’t told him that really bugged him.  They were married, they were supposed to be honest with each other.

He was somewhat surprised when it only took him twenty minutes to get back to the apartment building when the normal walk took him thirty minutes.  His anger had propelled him along quite a bit faster without him even realizing it.  He needed to get rid of his tension, he thought as the elevator ascended to his floor.

The phone was ringing as he opened the door, but he ignored it.  It was probably Brenda and he had no desire to talk to her while he was this angry.  He knew he’d say something to her he didn’t mean.  His thoughts were confirmed when her voice came on the answering machine.

“Jax, it’s me.  I don’t know if you went home or not, but if you did, call me as soon as you get this.  You’re going to want to hear what I have to say.”  She didn’t say anything more and he didn’t rush to pick up the phone.  She was only apologizing to him and that could wait.  He thought the same thing a moment later when his cell phone buzzed in his pocket. 

He went into the bedroom and changed into workout clothes.  Before he took out his frustrations on someone he cared about, he figured it was best to do it on the punching bag in his gym.  Fifteen minutes later, he had already worked up a sweat.

As he punched the bag, his thoughts were moving just as quickly.  He was thinking about what was really making him mad.  Was it Brenda’s neglecting to tell him where she went?  Was it the threat of the trial beginning in just days?  Or was it the thought of Katherine herself?  After all, it had been Katherine’s accusations that drove him away from Brenda all those years ago.  He’d had to give up ten years with the woman he loved most in the world.

He couldn’t stand the thought that the woman who had taken him away from all that was the one person who could get him out of going to prison for the next several years.  Just the sight of her this afternoon had made his blood boil.  Until this had happened, he’d tried not to think about her.  His attacks against Stefan had been out of revenge, but he tried to convince himself they had nothing to do with Katherine.  It was nowhere close to true.  They had everything to do with her.

He slowed his punching down as he realized Katherine was taking him away from Brenda again.  This argument he had perpetuated with her was just one more way Katherine was ruining his relationship.  But, his thoughts suddenly said, he did have a right to be upset with her.  She hadn’t told him she had been to see Katherine the week before.  It had been something that had concerned him and his case and she hadn’t told him.  She had deliberately kept it from him.  They were supposed to tell each other the truth.  She was supposed to trust him.  That was a fact of marriage.

Just like you trusted her?  His conscience was nagging at him.  The more he thought about it, the more he could count the number of things he had kept from her in the two months they’d been married.  She had been a lot more honest with him than he had been with her, he admitted to himself.  And she had tried to get him to talk to her a lot more often than he had for her.  She was there for him when he needed her and she left him alone when he asked her to.  He couldn’t even remember the last time they had discussed her feelings or thoughts or anxieties about the trial.

Jax stopped punching the bag and leaned against it with his forehead.  He closed his eyes, trying to stop these thoughts.  He groaned out loud and straightened back up.  He had a lot more to think about before he was ready to talk to anyone, he was realizing. 

A few minutes later, he ignored the phone again as he was just getting back into a rhythm on the punching bag.  He didn’t hear the answering machine in the other room or his mother’s voice on it.

“Jax, are you there?  I know it’s been a long time since we’ve spoken, but your father and I were on safari in Africa for the last several weeks.  Listen, Jax, your father found out you’ve been deceiving him with Brenda.  He’s on his way there right now and I couldn’t stop him.  I just want to warn you.  I’m on the next flight to New York.”

 

Chapter 23

 

Song Credit: Feels Like Home by Chantal Kreviazuk and can be found on the Dawson’s Creek Soundtrack.