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

Trust Me

Chapter 6

“And when was the last time you saw Brenda?” Mac Scorpio, the Port Charles Police Commissioner asked Lois.

Lois and Ned were standing in the police station filling out a missing person’s report.  It had been more than twenty-four hours since Brenda had left for the nightclub the day before.  The last time Lois had spoken to her friend was three hours later when Brenda had said she would be heading home shortly.  They hadn’t heard from her since and Lois was now panicking.

“Yesterday, she left at ten o’clock for the meeting,” Lois answered.  “Mac, you have to understand, she didn’t answer her cell phone at all last night.  We haven’t heard from her.”

“I do understand, Lois,” Mac said sympathetically.  “But you also have to understand that it’s going to be very hard to do anything right now.  We have hundreds of people stranded on the roads everywhere north of here.  If Brenda is one of those people, it may take awhile to find her.”

“She would have called us, Mac,” Ned insisted for his wife.  Lois looked ready to go searching for Brenda herself.  He grabbed her hand and held it tightly to try to reassure her.  “This is not like her at all.”

“Ned, listen, cell phones go dead or she may have gotten stopped in a place that has no service range.  There is no way to know, but I can tell you that with the snow storm we got last night, it’s not going to be easy.  Not to mention the fact that they’re predicting six more inches today.”  Mac signed his name to report and handed it to Lieutenant Taggert to prepare and distribute.  “All I can tell you right now for sure is that we’ll send a description of Brenda out to all the departments.  If someone finds her or her car, they’ll let us know.”

“I understand,” Ned said.  He watched as Mac walked off to address another officer’s questions.  Turning back to his wife, he forced her to look up at him.  Her blue eyes were shining with tears.  “Lois, try not to panic, please.  We will find her.”

Lois sighed and tried to smile in response.  “I know we will.  I just don’t know what else to do except worry about her now.  They need to find her soon, Ned, or I’m going to start looking.”

Laughing softly, Ned kissed her lips lightly.  “We wouldn’t want it to come to that, honey.  We will find her,” he repeated one more time, as much to convince her as himself.

Brenda was bored.  Since Jax had come back downstairs, he hadn’t said a word to her.  Having given up on finding a phone, she flipped on the television for something to occupy her time until she figured out something else to try.  Jax had built a fire in the fireplace and now seemed to be staring into it vacantly, his thoughts obviously occupied elsewhere. 

She was caught between a rock and a hard place, so to speak.  To carry on a conversation with him, she needed to be comfortable in his presence.  Because she was currently the hostage of a convicted murderer, she found it hard to be comfortable in that situation.  However, he seemed to be fairly harmless so far, so it was possible he had no intention of hurting her.  But he did have a gun somewhere in this house with them and since he had been convicted of murder before, he probably wasn’t afraid to use it if he needed to.

She got up from the couch where she had been sitting and crossed the room to the entertainment armoire.  Opening the doors, she tried to pick out a movie that would keep her at least distracted, if not entertained. 

“Do you like action movies?” Brenda asked aloud.

Jax had been staring into the fire thinking about Roy again.  He wondered how his old cell mate was doing today, but didn’t really want to check the news reports to find out.  He didn’t want to know he was responsible for Roy’s death, too.  Hearing Brenda’s question, he looked up to find her looking at him expectantly for a response.  “Whatever you want to watch is fine with me,” he replied.  He doubted it would provide much distraction for his thoughts.

“Have you seen this one?” she asked as she held up a video case.

He shifted his gaze to see the title and shook his head.  “No, I haven’t seen that one.  Never heard of it.”

“You’ve never heard of it?”  Brenda had to sound surprised at that.  “It won four Academy Awards last year.  Everyone saw this movie.”

Jax didn’t answer her, but he kept his eyes on her until she made the connection.  It was obvious when she did.

Blushing deeply, she finally realized her mistake.  “I’m sorry, Jax,” she apologized softly.  “I didn’t realize.”

Standing up, he crossed the room to her and took the video from her hands.  Putting it in the VCR, he changed the television channel and pushed Play.  Brenda wouldn’t look at him and she was still blushing.  Tapping her gently under the chin until she raised her eyes to him, he said, “It’s okay, Brenda.  I’ll watch it now.”

Jax sat back down on the couch, putting his feet up on the coffee table in front of him.  He focused attentively on the television screen as the beginning credits started.  Obviously, no further discussion was needed for him, but Brenda was still completely embarrassed.  She sat down on the other couch in the corner that was closest to where he sat.  “If it makes you feel any better, my friends made fun of me last year because I never saw this movie,” she said, looking directly at him.  He chuckled slightly at that, but he didn’t meet her eyes, letting her know the conversation was forgotten.  She smiled and turned her head to the movie.

An hour into the movie, Brenda glanced at Jax and noticed he was trying valiantly to pay attention to the plot, but his eyes kept closing for short periods of time.  She remembered then that it hadn’t seemed like he had slept the night before and with everything that had happened, he must have been exhausted.  She wondered why he was even making the effort to watch the movie.

The movie was extremely slow, Jax thought.  If this was what Brenda had qualified as an action movie, he had a few things to teach her.  The slow tempo of the movie along with the darkening room was making it very difficult for him to keep his eyes open.  But he had to, not only because he had told Brenda he would watch this movie with her, but he needed to keep an eye on her.  She might try something if he left her unsupervised.  He wasn’t fooled by her decision to watch a movie instead of figure a way out.  When he was coming down the steps earlier, he’d seen her searching frantically for the phones he had removed from the room the night before.  She wasn’t giving in yet, and he didn’t expect her to.  He was sure she would try a few more things before she realized she was effectively trapped in this house for as long as he wanted her there.

Forcing his attention back to the television, he rubbed his hands briskly over his face to wake himself up.  Between his determination to keep an eye on her and his desire to be able to discuss the movie with her at the end of it, Jax was able to keep himself awake for the remainder of the movie.  As soon as it was over, though, he turned on the lights in the great room as high as they would go.

“Are you hungry?” Jax asked Brenda as he stood up.  He walked over and stoked the fire in the fireplace until the flames caught another log.

She was bored, and that was pretty much it.  The movie had done very little to entertain her.  She had no idea why everyone thought it was such a great film last year.  If every day up here was going to be like this, she would go insane before she could escape.

“I could eat, I guess,” Brenda replied.  She got up and followed him into the kitchen.  “Is there anything I can do to help?”

Jax nodded towards the pasta he had pulled from the cabinets and she set to work finding a pot to start the water boiling for it.  As Jax made the pasta sauce and everything else for their dinner, Brenda thought it was best to stick with the spaghetti noodles since she was fairly certain she couldn’t screw them up.  Twenty minutes later, she was setting the table for them in the dining room.

Once he placed the bowl of spaghetti on the table, Jax walked back over to the wine cabinet and selected a red wine to pour for the two of them.  He waited for her to signal him that it was okay before he poured any of the wine into her glass.  The room was brightly lit by the chandelier above them, effectively making Brenda feel very safe that it was going to be an unromantic dinner.  This dining room was one of the smaller rooms in the house with a table designed only to seat six people.  Four chairs were set evenly apart from each other on either side with one at each end, as well. 

Brenda watched Jax eating slowly at the other end of the table.  She had set their places at the two end spots and he had yet to argue with her.  He was obviously okay with her desire to keep her distance from him.  As she ate another bite of his spaghetti, she realized he had apparently had quite a bit of experience in the kitchen to be able to make something this good out of so little on hand.  That was one thing she had been wrong about.  She wondered how many more there were.

She noticed he ate in silence, but he did occasionally look up and meet her gaze.  Each time she averted her eyes after a brief glance so he wouldn’t think she was staring at him.  She was, though.  It had become very hard to keep her eyes looking at anything else.  He was not only a very handsome man, he was also a complete mystery to her.

When she had finished the last bite on her plate, she put her napkin next to her plate and looked solidly at Jax.  He was looking back at her just as steadily, as if he was studying her as intently as she had been studying him.  Clearing her throat lightly, she smiled at him.  “Can I ask you a question?” she asked softly.  They were the first words either of them had spoken in the hour they had been preparing and eating dinner.

Jax leaned back in his chair, nodding at her.  He had wondered how long it would take.  “Go ahead,” he answered.

“I wasn’t in your plan, was I?”  Brenda didn’t really know why she was asking that question, but something in her was trying to put her mind at ease about him.  Somehow she thought it might make it okay if he admitted she was an innocent bystander.

His mouth lifted slightly at the corner and he shook his head.  “No, you were not in my plans at all,” he replied gently.  “I never had any intention of taking a hostage.”

She had already known that, but hearing it from him made it a little bit better.  She remembered the first time she saw him had been when he was trying to get the car started at the truck stop.  “So, then what was your plan?”

Shaking his head again, his expression turned cool towards her.  “I can’t tell you that,” Jax responded.

“Why not?”

“Because then you would be able to testify to what I told you, Brenda.  I don’t want you to be in any danger because of what I do.”

She hadn’t been expecting that answer from him.  He was actually concerned about what happened to her?  Somehow that didn’t fit her image of a kidnapper or a murderer.  She let it drop then, knowing he wouldn’t answer anymore of her questions along this route.  Instead, she stood up and started to take the dishes back into the kitchen.  He followed her with his plates shortly after.

“I’ll get these,” Brenda said, taking his plates from him and putting them in the sink.  “You look like you could use some sleep.  I’ll clean up.”

Jax allowed her to take the plates from his hands.  He was surprised to hear her sound as if she was concerned for him.  But her suggestion that he needed to sleep was exactly right.  He hadn’t slept since his last night in the prison and even then for days before his escape, he hadn’t slept well.  Thoughts of her trying to escape continued to nag at his mind, though.  Placing his hands on the counter and on the island and leaning slightly towards her, he effectively trapped Brenda between the back wall and himself.  He noticed her eyes went wide in growing fear.  Inwardly, he cringed at doing that to her.  It had looked like she was just starting to relax a little bit with him, and now he was ruining that.  But it had to be done.

“Brenda,” he started softly, “I am going to sleep in the bedroom at the top of the stairs.  The security alarm will be set and it will go off if any of the doors or windows are opened.  You are free to move around the house, but if you attempt to get out, I will know immediately.” 

He saw the recognition in her eyes and he knew he didn’t need to say anything else.  Standing up straight again, he started towards the front hallway.  Brenda hadn’t moved yet, but she was watching him as he left the room.  Turning around, he stopped in the doorway.  “One more thing, I am a very light sleeper,” he said with only a note of warning in his tone.

Jax set the house alarm on his way up the steps.  It was only when he turned off the front foyer light that he heard her start to move in the kitchen again.  He cringed again at the thought of having had to scare her like that.  More than anything right now, he needed her to start to trust him.

Brenda watched Jax leave the kitchen feeling her hands begin to shake slightly as he backed away from her.  She stood frozen for a few seconds after he went upstairs.  She knew it had been too much to think he was worth her trust.  She had begun to think he was a decent person at the dinner table.  Now she was once again thrown into a serious state of confusion about him. 

On the one hand, he wanted to protect her from anything that could incriminate her with his escape.  On the other hand, he still felt he had to threaten her in order to keep her hostage.  It wasn’t as if she could go anywhere tonight anyway.  She remembered just how far back to the main road it was and from there, it had been at least thirty miles to any sign of civilization.  She wasn’t dumb enough to try anything in the dark.  But it was the simple fact that he felt he needed to hold his physical threat over her that brought the feelings of mistrust back to her.

When the front foyer light went dark, Brenda started back into the dining room to finish clearing the table.  It was still early and if she finished the dishes quickly, she would be able to catch the evening news.  She wondered if anyone had reported her missing to the police yet.  Surely Lois would be worried sick by now.  If only she could find her cell phone battery, she could just call and let Lois and Ned know she was okay. 

Half an hour later, Brenda settled in front of the television with the fire blazing again.  The nightly news was just starting.  News of Jax’s escape was still the top story of the hour.  She listened intently as the news reporter recounted the steps the police had taken to locate Jax’s whereabouts.  The search area had been widened to the entire state, but the recent snow storm was slowing the search considerably.  As far as the hostage was concerned, police still had no identity for her.  Several young ladies had been reported as missing that fit the description, though two had been found already, having been stranded in the snow storm.  The newscaster moved on to report that the prisoner who had been injured during Jax’s escape was still in very serious condition in the Pentonville infirmary.

While the news reports moved on to other topics, Brenda thought back to Jax’s reaction to the news of his cellmate’s shooting.  He had seemed devastated by the news and it certainly appeared he held himself responsible.  As well he should, Brenda thought to herself.  But she knew at the same time that just like she had not been a part of Jax’s plans, neither was the shooting of his cellmate.  There had to have been some kind of mistake for that to have happened.  She was sure Jax had tried to cover every angle to prevent it from happening.

Two hours later, when Brenda finally ran out of things to watch on television, she stood up to put the fire out.  She hadn’t heard a sound from the upstairs bedroom since Jax had gone up there.  As she turned off the lights in the downstairs rooms, she noticed the light coming from the upstairs hallway.  Jax must have accidentally left it on.  She walked towards the staircase and looked up at the loft-style second floor.  It was the one spot she hadn’t explored in her initial tour of the house.

Telling herself she was only going to turn off the light and then go back downstairs, Brenda walked quietly up the carpeted steps.  The second floor had an eight foot balcony that looked down into the great room below.  She could see the wall of windows directly ahead of her.  The hallway light gave just enough light for her to see the black leather couches arranged next to each other on her left, one against each wall in the corner.  A large bookshelf filled to the edges with books took up the entire wall to her right.  Directly in front of her, against the railing was a handsome cherry wood office desk with a black leather chair pushed into it.  The light reflected a silver desk lamp on the corner of the desk.  Obviously, this space was used as an office for whoever owned the house.

The hallway went off to her left towards the back of the house.  The bedroom that occupied the upstairs level ran along the back part of the loft.  The door was wide open and Brenda could easily see Jax laying on the bed, asleep in the light from the hall.  As she moved closer to the light switch to turn off the over head light, she could see further into the room.  Unable to stop herself, she moved to stand in the doorway, looking at him while he slept.

The covers had shifted on the bed in his restless sleep.  Now, they lay half over his body and half on the floor.  He apparently slept in very little, she thought as she took in his boxer-short clad body.  She had to admit, the sight of his bare chest was making her breathe a little quicker.  His blond hair was tousled from the pillow so that several locks fell over his forehead.  He had one arm thrown above his head on the pillow while his other hand rested across his well-muscled stomach.  As she watched him, he shifted positions, the covers sliding further towards the floor.  He moved several more times in the next few minutes, like he was trying to find a comfortable position that just wasn’t possible.  She wondered what was making his sleep so troubled.  She could only imagine.

She saw him shiver and didn’t know if it was from his dreams or from the fact that the bed covers were almost on the floor.  She walked quietly into the room, careful not to make a sound and wake him.  It would be very awkward to try to explain her presence there.  Picking up the heavy down comforter, she lifted it over his body to his chest.  Patting it lightly down over him, she noticed when he settled into a deeper sleep, his legs finally becoming still.  Before she could wake him up, she quickly left the room and started back down the hallway, embarrassed by how long she had been watching him sleep.  Remembering to turn off the light switch, her original purpose in coming upstairs, she headed down the steps and into her bedroom, closing the door tightly behind her.

Brenda leaned against the bedroom door in the darkness for a few minutes.  She took a few deep breaths and tried to rationalize her thoughts.  She wasn’t supposed to feel like this, not towards a man who was holding her hostage.

The next morning, Brenda was up at the crack of dawn, again unable to sleep in a strange bed and in these circumstances.  She dressed in the same jeans and sweater from the day before because she couldn’t quite convince herself she wanted to wear more of someone else’s clothes.  Daylight was just coming around as she went into the kitchen.  Jax wasn’t even downstairs yet.

For a few minutes, Brenda went into the great room and peered out the windows.  The sky above her was perfectly cloudless and the snow seemed to have stopped for the day.  Judging from the base of the trees, she could see approximately a foot and a half of untouched snow on the ground.  There was no wind and if she hadn’t known better, she would have thought she was looking at the most perfect winter vacation spot on earth.  She jumped when she heard a floorboard creak above her head. 

Ten minutes later, when Jax came downstairs, she was back in the kitchen, rolling up her sleeves, and beginning to burn the bacon she had found in the freezer.

Jax saw the smoke starting to rise from the pan in front of Brenda and he quickly intervened.  “Whoa!  What are you trying to do?!” he exclaimed as the grease started to splatter.

Brenda eagerly handed the cooking over to him and stepped away from the stove.  She grinned at the thought of even trying to cook.  “Sorry, I was just trying – “

“To burn the house down?” Jax teased her lightly.  “You don’t know how to cook, do you?” 

She slanted her gaze at him and saw he was smiling at her, his eyes had a definite teasing glint in them.  Crossing her arms, she leaned against the counter and watched him try to salvage the burned meat in the pan.  Shaking her head vigorously when he lifted two very black pieces of bacon from the skillet, she said, “No, it’s not exactly my strong suit.”

“Not exactly?” Jax intoned lightly.  “I’ve got an idea.  Why don’t you stay as far from the stove as you can and see about setting the table?”

Brenda nodded, laughing again.  It was much easier to spend the time in relaxed moments like these than the ones of the night before.  She went about setting the table while Jax finished making their breakfast.

A while later, Jax was flipping channels on the television, looking for the local news.  Brenda was sitting on the couch next to him, staring intently outside.  Suddenly, she got up, her hands on her hips.

“I’m going to go look around the house some more.  Maybe I can find something to do,” she announced when Jax looked up at her.

“Just don’t open the doors,” he warned softly, certain she had heard him, but not wanting her to acknowledge his light threat again.  He hated himself for even saying it in the first place.

“I won’t,” she agreed, her tone indicating her exasperation.  She was upstairs a minute later looking at the books on the bookshelf.  She knew Jax could see her from where he sat if he turned his head towards her.

Brenda stayed in Jax’s sight for a few minutes, making sure he wasn’t really paying attention to her.  He seemed too intent on finding news on his escape.  Slowly, she eased her way out of his view.  Her plan was simple, really.  She was going to find a way out of here today. 

The weather was perfect.  With no snow coming today, she could certainly withstand the cold for as long as she had to.  The only problems were going to be getting Jax distracted enough for her to get out of the house and the more serious problem, actually getting down the mile-long driveway and back to civilization without drawing his attention too quickly.

Methodically searching every inch of the upstairs rooms, another very large closet, the bedroom, and the bathroom, she came up with nothing of any great help.  Slowly, she went back downstairs, careful not make the steps creak on her way down.  She didn’t want Jax to know where she was in the house so he couldn’t stop her searching places he didn’t want her to see.  As quietly as possible, she eased open the front hall closet and found exactly what she was looking for.

 

Chapter 7