This is a continuing adaptation of Judith McNaught's novel, Perfect.

Trust Me

Chapter 1

Brenda Barrett tossed her long, dark brown hair over her shoulder as she left the modeling agency.  She didn’t need them anyway, she thought to herself as she clutched her portfolio to her chest and walked proudly away.  “Too short, my foot,” she muttered.  She’d show them what they were missing when she was signed with someone else.  Someone bigger and better than they could ever be.

Returning to her room above the local diner, Kelly’s, she flopped onto her bed and stared at the ceiling.  Maybe it was because she was in Port Charles, New York - quite possibly one of the most boring towns in all of the United States - but she needed some excitement in her life.  She needed something to do that was different from anything she’d ever done before.  And it would be even better if she had a man to do it with, she thought wickedly to herself.  Like that was going to happen, though.  Nothing exciting ever happened in Port Charles and certainly not to her.

The phone on her bedside table rang, interrupting her thoughts.  “Hello?” she answered it.

“Don’t you sound excited?” Brenda’s best friend Lois Cerullo teased immediately in her Brooklyn accent.  “I take it things didn’t go well with the agency?”

“Not particularly,” Brenda responded.  “They think I’m too short for runway work and they don’t do print ads.  Or so they said, anyway.”

“Sounds like you need some cheering up, then,” Lois said.  “How about meeting me downstairs in about twenty minutes?  That’ll give me enough time to get there.”

“All right, I suppose,” Brenda sighed.  She hung up the phone and stood up from her bed.  She crossed the room to look at herself in the mirror.  “What do those girls have that I don’t?” she asked herself aloud.

Her skin was an olive tone that her dark brown, almost black, hair only served to accentuate.  She wore her hair curly on this particular day and the curls framed her face prettily.  Her glittering eyes flashed with gold flecks through their brown color.  She had a petite, slender frame that was all muscle now.  Having been overweight for the first fifteen years of her life, she’d finally shed the pounds to get healthy. 

She made a face at the reflection in the mirror.  There must be something about her they didn’t like, whoever ‘they’ were.  Maybe she looked like she’d been raised in a small town all her life.  Maybe that was because she had.  Port Charles, New York was not exactly the most exciting place to live in the world. 

Brenda walked downstairs just in time to see Lois come through the front doors with a blast of chilly January wind.  She greeted her friend with a smile and they sat down to have lunch together.

“So, I take it by your mood that the interview didn’t go well?” Lois asked halfway through their meal.

“That’s one way to put it,” Brenda responded disappointedly.  She sighed as she told Lois all about what they’d told her that morning.

“Well, maybe you just haven’t found the right agency yet.  Or maybe it’s a sign that you’re meant for better things than modeling,” Lois suggested.

“Yeah, maybe,” she replied.

As they were finishing their meals, Lois’s fiancé, Ned Ashton, walked in.  He kissed Lois hello, shed his overcoat, and sat down to join them.  “Did you guys hear the latest?” he asked.

Curious, Brenda shook her head.  “About what?”

He leaned forward to keep their conversation among them.  “You’ve heard of Jasper Jacks, right?”

“Yeah, isn’t he the billionaire who goes by a nickname, Jax, or something like that?”

“That’s him, all right,” Ned said.

“What about him?”

“He’s been arrested.”

Brenda choked as she laughed.  “What?!  Why?  I thought he was supposed to be one of the most upstanding businessmen there is.”

Ned nodded.  “He’s a great businessman.  He always has been.  Apparently, though, it has nothing to do with his company.”

“Then what?”

“He’s been arrested for murder.”

Brenda’s jaw dropped.  “Murder?  Of who?”

“His ex-wife, Miranda Jameson.  You know, the first model of Jacks Cosmetics?  She was killed a week ago.  For some reason, the police think Jax did it.  He was arrested two days ago.”

“How well do you know him, Ned?” Brenda asked.

“Jax?”  She nodded in response.  “Not very well.  I’ve really only met him in passing.  Seemed like a nice enough guy.  Why?”

“Oh, just curious.”  She sat back in her chair, thinking.  She knew who Jax was.  They’d all seen the local papers every time he did something outstanding for the community or made a large donation to some charity.  He was a billionaire businessman who had the looks to go along with all the money.  His marriage to Miranda had been an infamous one, though.  They had been in and out of tabloids that were accusing one or the other of constantly cheating on the other.  It had always seemed to Brenda that Miranda was the one accused most often of it.  Jax seemed to live a fairly quiet life for the amount of fame he had.  No one even knew much about where or how he’d grown up.  She remembered seeing the front pages of the magazines when they had divorced.  They’d portrayed Miranda as the culprit, saying Jax had filed for the divorce because he was tired of her infidelity.  That had been about six months ago.  And now, Miranda was dead with Jax standing accused of doing it.  He really did lead one interesting life, she thought to herself.

Jasper ‘Jax’ Jacks sat with his back against the gray wall of his jail cell.  He stared at his hands clasped on his knees in front of him.  The bright orange of the prisoner uniform he’d been wearing for two days now cast a funny glow on his skin.  He moved slightly, shoving the fingers of his right hand into his blond hair, staring at his left hand.  The line where his wedding ring used to be had faded now and there was no sign of it left.  Closing his blue eyes, dulled from their normal sparkle with pain, he tried not to think about the last few days.  It was impossible…

A week ago, he had been sitting in his office in his high-rise building when Lucy Coe, the President of the Cosmetics Division at J&J Jacks had burst into his office.  She’d had a look of total disbelief on her face.  “Jax, oh my God!  Did you hear?”

“Hear what?”  He had no idea what she was talking about.

“It’s Miranda.”

“What about her?”

“She was killed last night!”

He felt the breath go out of him.  She was his ex-wife now since he had filed for divorce six months earlier and to say he disliked her was putting it way too mildly.  She’d been cheating on him since a year after they’d been married.  He’d known about it all long, for four years, but had chosen to remain silent about it since he’d been so busy raising his fortune and getting his business off the ground.  It had been more convenient to do it with a wife to accompany him to parties and events.  But seven months ago, when the tabloids had published the picture of Miranda with her latest boyfriend, who just happened to be Jax’s good friend and business partner, AJ Quartermaine, he’d had enough.  She’d made a fool out of him for long enough.  He’d made the decision to go ahead with the inevitable divorce.

A few nights later, though, when they’d had a required business dinner to go to, Jax happened to look up and see AJ across the room from them and Miranda staring at him.  He saw red, furious that they would be so blatantly obvious about it.  Interrupting their companion’s conversation, he jumped from the table, striding towards AJ.  AJ stood as Jax approached, trying to ward him off, trying to avoid a scene.  He didn’t even realize he had thrown the first punch until AJ was on the floor in front of him.  Seconds passed until AJ stood and swung back at him.  In the end, Jax had had to be pulled off AJ by his dinner companion.  Miranda left the restaurant with AJ.  The tabloids had had a field day with that one.  Within a week, they’d signed the divorce papers.

All of that still didn’t change the fact that the woman he had married five years before had been apparently murdered the night before.  It stunned him to think someone could have done that. 

He and Lucy had talked about the details for a few minutes and then Lucy left Jax alone.  For a solid hour, he sat in his desk chair, too shocked to do anything really.  She’d been murdered.  Even that wasn’t sinking in.  Miranda didn’t have many enemies.  She was fairly well liked as far as he knew.  With the exception of himself and a few models, he couldn’t think of anyone who would have cause to hate her enough to kill her.  After awhile, he slowly returned to work. 

For three days, he thought of little else but Miranda and their rollercoaster life together.  It had always been obvious to him that his mistake was in marrying her.  They probably could have led a pretty good life, if they had just never gotten married.  Miranda was a free-spirit.  She hated the idea of being tied down to something or someone.  As soon as she and Jax had gotten married, she’d gotten restless.  He thanked God they’d never had any children together.

The end of the week came quickly, for Jax.  Miranda’s funeral was on Friday evening.  He had no plans of going.  Her parents had never liked him and their divorce certainly didn’t help that fact.  That afternoon, he left early, though, to go home.  His home was the penthouse apartment he had shared with Miranda.  She had moved out with the divorce and he didn’t really care where she went.  There was nothing left of her in the apartment.  He’d had as little contact with her as possible.  Two meetings at the lawyer’s office and that was it.  He hadn’t seen her since, except in the tabloids.

The apartment was lit with the winter afternoon sunset.  He put his briefcase on the desk inside the door and went to his bedroom to change his clothes.  He was able to think the best when he was jogging so he put on a pair of running pants and a sweatshirt along with his running shoes and went back out the door.

One five mile jog later, he was no closer to figuring out who would have possibly killed Miranda.  He returned to the hotel chilled, exhausted, and in need of a shower.  There were two men standing outside his door when the elevator doors opened on the top floor.

“Mr. Jacks?”

He nodded.  “Yes, that’s right.”

“I’m Detective Garcia and this is Detective Taggert,” the man with dark hair said as he gestured to the man beside him.  They both showed him their badges to prove themselves.

Jax put his key in the door.  “What can I do for you, gentlemen?  Is this about Miranda?”

“You could say that.”

He opened the door and went inside, leaving the door open for the officers.  “What about her?”

Suddenly, everything was in slow motion.  Taggert was removing a pair of handcuffs from his back pocket and Garcia was moving closer.  Before he could even think about it, a solid metal cuff was around his left wrist.  “Mr. Jacks, you are under arrest for the murder of Miranda Jameson…”

Jax opened his eyes and looked at the dingy gray cell around him.  The arraignment had bound him over for trial and he had not been allowed to post bail.  With his money, he was considered a flight-risk.  His trial was due to begin in a week.  He still had no idea what the evidence was that had led the police to believe he had committed the crime.  He’d been in such a daze since it all happened, he’d just let his lawyer, Alexis Davis, deal with it.  He had no idea what was going on.

“And what did Mr. Jacks say then?” the district attorney asked AJ Quartermaine.

The man sitting in the witness chair turned his head slightly and gazed directly at Jax.  “He said he would rather see her dead than ever give her another chance with him.”

Jax closed his eyes, but refused to drop his head in defeat and show weakness to the jury.  It was a week later and his trial was well on its way to being over already.  His attorney, Alexis, was doing well so far counteracting the evidence the DA was giving, but AJ’s testimony was going to be too strong.  He felt as if he had been hit by a truck this week.  He’d barely slept in the tiny cell of the county jail.  The food was horrible and what he did eat was barely enough.  He could tell by the way his suit fit him that he had lost quite a bit of weight in the last week, and the glimpse that he’d gotten of himself in the mirror told him he looked nothing like himself.

He remembered the conversation AJ was testifying about.  It had been about a week before her death when he had run into Miranda and AJ as they were picking something up from the apartment.  AJ had gone to take a phone call and Miranda had started the conversation.  Somehow it had worked its way around to her asking if there would ever be a chance for them again.  He felt such disgust for her that he said what AJ overheard.  Apparently, AJ had heard the entire conversation and that last comment was what had given the police enough motive to arrest Jax for Miranda’s murder.

They had no one else with the motive or the means.  Jax had even had the opportunity since he was alone at the office the night of her murder.  There was really no one to corroborate the fact that he was there until two in the morning.  Miranda had been killed at ten o’clock at night.  The evidence said she’d been shot from across the room in her own apartment.  All the murderer had to do was get in the apartment and turn the gun on her.  The living room, where she had been shot, was only ten or twelve feet wide.

Everything was basically circumstantial since there was nothing to really prove or disprove the theory that he had killed her.  Now it had become the DA’s job to make the jury believe his side of the story.  So far, Alexis had only been able to put a few tiny holes in their theories.

There was the fact that he hadn’t signed out of the building register until two in the morning and a guard remembered saying goodnight to him.  They had the records from the security people at his apartment building that said he didn't come in until two-eighteen in the morning.  They had no fingerprints or murder weapon.

The DA was arguing that he could have left the building from a different exit and then come back in later on to give the impression he’d been there all along.  They had the reports of his public scene with AJ in the restaurant that told everyone how enraged he could become.  He could easily get Miranda to let him in with no struggle.  And now, they had AJ’s testimony that he wanted to see her dead.

He might as well change his plea, he thought.  But then again, the strongest point they had working for them was that he didn’t do it.

Two days later, Brenda read the headline on the front page of the Port Charles Herald.  “JACKS CONVICTED OF FIRST DEGREE MURDER,” it said in big, bold letters at the top.  The article went on to say that Jasper Jacks had received a life sentence in prison for the murder of his ex-wife Miranda Jameson.  She read every word and then re-read it again.

She was surprised at the outcome because she had been convinced he hadn’t done it.  She’d been reading the newspaper accounts of what the evidence was against him and she just couldn’t see it all adding up.  On top of that, his public identity had always made him seem like a kind, gentle man who wouldn’t hurt anyone.  She’d read reports of his business takeovers where he didn’t allow one person to lose their job in the process.  He gave enormous amounts of money to charities every year.  His interviews had always made him seem like a likable person.  She just couldn’t imagine him killing his ex-wife.

“Just goes to show that looks aren’t everything, Brenda,” she muttered to herself as she folded the paper back up and picked up her keys to go meet Lois.

They were going to talk to the bank manager at a local bank to see about getting a loan to start up their new company.  They had decided on a record label and were going to use Lois’s previous contacts as a nightclub manager to get in touch with lesser-known bands to get them to sign on with them.  It sounded like a good idea, if they could just get it off the ground.

Two and a half hours later, looking at the paperwork in her hands, Brenda sighed.  “I don’t know why you didn’t just borrow the money from Ned to do this, Lois.  At these rates, it’ll take us years to pay back this loan.”  They were lucky they’d even gotten it in the first place.

“You know why, Brenda.  I want this to be something you and I do together.  Besides, my mama always taught me to be able to get by on my own, without a man to support me.  You should know that!  And it’s not going to take us years.  We’re going to be hugely successful.  I just know it!  With your persuasive abilities and my knowledge, we’ll have bands just begging us to get them on our label.  Right?”

Brenda sighed again.  “Right.”  She tried to sound optimistic, but it just seemed like a bit more than they could handle all of a sudden.  She followed Lois as they got in her car and headed towards the gatehouse on Ned’s family’s estate where he lived.  They were going to base their business from there to start with, until they made enough to be able to afford to equip a space for a studio.  Lois had it all planned out.  They were in business.

The prison van came to a bone-jarring stop in from of the Pentonville Prison in mid-state New York.  Jax winced as the cuffs around his wrists clinched a little tighter.  For the duration of the ride, he had put his head against the wall of the van and kept his eyes closed.  His hands and feet were chained together and connected through a belt around his waist.  There was a chain from the belt to the floor of the van where he was sufficiently locked down. 

When the van stopped, Jax slowly opened his eyes to look at his new place of residence.  He’d be living here for the rest of his natural life if the state of New York had anything to say about it.  The lock on the floor was removed and the guard pulled on the chain to signal he was to get out of the van now.

Being the only transport that day had been kind of nice, up until now.  As he exited the van, he saw the entire prison population staring at him from the fenced grounds.  Several of them were lined against the fence topped with barbed wire.  They were taunting him.  Many were making lewd gestures.  Counting to ten, he lifted his eyes toward the gray sky and prayed he’d survive the first day, let alone the first week.

Two very invasive hours later, he was led to his cell block and eventually to his cell.  The rest of the prisoners were brought in from their recreational time as he and the two guards escorting him arrived at his cell.  The door clanged open with the turn of a key.  Once inside, one of the guards removed the cuffs from around his wrists as the other did the same with his ankles. 

“Enjoy your stay, Jacks,” one of the guards leered, grinning cruelly.  The two guards disappeared from sight, but the door remained open while waiting for his cell mate to return.

Seconds later, a tall man entered the six by eight room.  He was considerably older than Jax with graying edges to his straight black hair.  His prison-issued blue jeans and shirt were slightly baggy, as were Jax’s.  The shirt was rolled up to his elbows showing a long scar running along his right forearm.

Jax didn’t say a word to the other man as the buzzer sounded and the doors automatically shut with a loud click.  It signified the beginning of a very long road.

 

Chapter 2