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

Trust Me

Chapter 7

In the closet in front of Brenda, hanging next to the black leather coat Jax had been wearing two days before, were several full body snowsuits.  The suits were made for skiing, but they would certainly do for someone to spend a long period of time outside in a harsh winter setting, she thought giddily to herself.  They were perfect for her escape.  Judging from the lengths of the suits, three of them were made for women and three for men.  Logic was telling her that if the clothes in the bedroom closet had fit her so well, one of these suits probably belonged to the same woman and would, therefore, fit her well, too.  Searching quietly, Brenda found it and pulled it out, holding it up against her body for a moment.  Now, all she needed was an excuse for Jax to let her outside.

The television was on in the other room and Brenda could hear the newscast once again.  Jax was watching the story if his escape intently as she entered the room, without the snowsuit.  He shook his head silently in response to something the reporter was saying and she saw him lower his head slightly and bury his face in his hands.

“Jax?” Brenda said, interrupting his attention when the news program went to a commercial break.

Jax looked up at the sound of her voice.  He’d almost forgotten she was in the house, she’d been so quiet for the last hour.  “Did you find something to do?” he asked, distracted by his thoughts on the report.

It was now or never, Brenda decided.  “Actually, I did,” she began somewhat nervously.  Suddenly, she was having doubts that he would even let her go outside.  Surely he would be worried that she would try to make a run for it.  He would certainly decide that he either had to go with her or not let her outside at all.

“What’d you find?”  He turned his attention to her to see what might be in her hands that she had found.  He was surprised when he didn’t see anything.

She had to sound more convincing than she had started, she knew.  Forcing herself to sound more cheerful and playful, she smiled and said, “Well, I was looking outside a minute ago and it’s such a nice day out.  You saw that, right?” 

Jax glanced quickly out the window as if he was just noticing the brilliant sun and snow outside.  “Yeah, I guess so, but it’s also about five degrees out there,” he responded doubtfully, completely unsure why she was even bringing it up.

“Oh come on, Jax!  It’s the perfect day to build a snowman!  There’s a ton of snow and the sun would feel so good.  You just have to say yes!” Brenda exclaimed, fairly confident her playful act was working.

Jax stood up slowly, his doubt in full force.  “And what would I be saying yes to?”

She heard the tone of his voice and almost faltered, but she couldn’t back down just yet.  “You just have to let me go build a snowman outside, Jax!”

“I don’t think so!” Jax exclaimed loudly, laughing slightly because she had to be joking.  He realized she hadn’t been when he saw her face fall when he laughed.  She seriously thought he was going to let her go outside unsupervised.  Surely, she didn’t think he was that stupid!

Brenda forced a pout onto her lips.  “Aw, Jax, I am going nuts inside this house!” she replied, sounding very much like a petulant child.  She wondered if a quivering lip would help convince him.  She decided not to use that just yet.  “You can watch me from the windows.  I’ll stay in full view, I promise!”

“No,” he said, shaking his head definitively.

One last argument and then she would give it up, she promised herself.  “Come on, Jax,” she pleaded childishly.  “You’ll be able to see me the whole time and even if I did try to run, you can certainly run faster than I can.  You would be able to catch me in no time.  I know that.  I’m not going anywhere.  I can’t outrun a much bigger, much stronger, and much faster man, can I?”  She looked at him innocently and smiled again.  It was the last ammunition she had.  If she played to his sense of manhood, he might just relent.

Jax remained silent for a few minutes.  She had a point.  He was faster than she was.  The snow would be halfway up her legs, making it very difficult to run anywhere.  He could watch her the entire time.  And it was a full mile down to the road in five degree weather.  She couldn’t go very far very fast.  Sighing loudly, he finally nodded his agreement.  “All right, you can go outside.  But if I tell you to come back inside, you have to come back inside, no arguments.”

Brenda jumped up and down a few times, happily.  “You sound like my father, Jax,” she said lightly as she headed for the front hall closet to get the snowsuit and take it into her bedroom to change.

A few minutes later, she no longer cared if the long underwear she was pulling on wasn’t hers.  A layer of warm long underwear and then her jeans and a thinner sweater from the closet, and finally she pulled on the black and yellow snowsuit over it all.  It all fit perfectly, so that she could move comfortably without feeling like a walking marshmallow.   She had seen a pair of matching black boots in the closet and she went back to get them.

Jax looked up at her from his position on the couch.  How did she do that?  She could even make a winter snowsuit look incredibly good.  He watched her get the boots from the closet and bring them back into the room so she could sit down and put them on.  As she was lacing them, he cleared his throat to get her attention.  Pointing out the front windows to his left, he said, “I want you to stay right there, Brenda.  If you disappear at any time for more than a minute, I will come after you.  Do you understand?”

Brenda finished tying the boots, glanced at where he was pointing, and nodded.  “Yes, Jax,” she said softly.  She got up from the couch and started towards the front door.  Turning around when she got to the hallway, she said, “Thanks.”

Jax nodded his response and continued to watch her intently as she exited into the bright winter sun.  He saw her slip on a pair of sunglasses to hide her eyes from the glare.  While he stood in front of the windows, she did exactly as she was told.  She started forming the beginning ball for the bottom of the snowman.

Brenda formed the snow in her gloves and then dropped it on the ground to start rolling it for the base of the snowman.  She hadn’t done this in over ten years, mainly because she hated outside winter activities.  But the opportunity had come along and she had to take it.  Now she just had to figure out how to escape without using her car.  Jax was still standing in the windows with his arms crossed over his chest.  He was watching her intently.

On her knees, she pushed and pulled the growing ball of snow to keep its sides expanding.  Her movements had started to pack down the snow around her, but she still sunk a few inches while she crawled in circles.  Within a few minutes, the sun beating down on her black snowsuit had warmed her so much that she was sweating.  She wiped away the beads of sweat forming on her eyebrow and continued to form her base.  Every once in awhile she would look in Jax’s direction.

After the first fifteen minutes, Jax finally moved away from the window and sat on the couch.  He still watched her through the window, but now he could hear the newscasts at the same time.  She looked very determined to accomplish this snowman, he thought.  It reminded him of when he was younger and playing in the front yard of his family’s house in Alaska.  He and his brother had made entire snow scenes as they grew up together.  Shaking his head quickly, Jax shoved the memories of his brother from his mind with a grimace.  He tuned his ears into the news in time to hear the reporter start yet another story on the escape.

Brenda saw the moment Jax walked away, and the sun wasn’t shining onto the windows so she could still see into the house where he sat still watching her every move.  She tried to make it look like she was paying full attention to her snowman instead of scouting the area for a clear path down to the road.  The woods began about twenty feet on the opposite side of the house from where she was.  The deep snow would definitely slow her down if she decided to run for it and she had been absolutely correct in telling Jax he was much faster than she was.  He would catch her very quickly if they were on foot.

She had to find a way not to be, then, she decided quickly.  Leaning back on her heels, she pretended to wipe her brow again and pushed her hair away from her face.  She scanned the area around her again, noticing the shed off to her right.  She had seen it the night they had gotten there, the headlights barely illuminating it in the dark and snow.  The one window was on the side closest to the house; the door on the other side.  A garage door covered the front wall, so she wondered if it was possible there was something that could be driven out of the shed. 

Yeah, probably a lawn mower, Brenda, she chided herself.  She couldn’t count on that, then, but knew she had to find a way to search it anyway.  There had to be something that could help her, she decided.  Inside, Jax had turned his head away from her, finally.  She didn’t want to test his patience just yet, so instead of running to the shed, she started to build the second part of the snowman, widening her area with her new circles.  Her plan was that, if she started inching her way out of his view for a few minutes, he would see she wasn’t trying to escape, just getting fresh snow for her snowman.

Inside the house, Jax’s attention had turned to the newscast at the mention of Roy’s name.  “A new report today on the prisoner who remained behind in Jasper Jacks’s escape from the Pentonville Penitentiary three days ago,” the blonde newswoman began.  “Roy DiLucca, who was previously reported as being in critical condition in the prison infirmary after a gunshot sustained during the escape, has apparently died this afternoon as a result of complications from the wound.  From a source within the prison, DiLucca died at one forty-five today.”

He didn’t even recognize the anguished cry that came from deep within himself.  He couldn’t bear to hear the rest of the news of Roy’s death, but he couldn’t bring himself to turn it off either.  He buried his head in his hands as tears sprang to his eyes.  He was responsible for Roy’s death now.  It wasn’t only a gunshot wound.  Roy was dead.  Now the conviction was true – he was a murderer.  He had killed the one man who had helped him in the last two years, the only person who had defended him in prison, whether with his words or with his fists.   If he hadn’t been so anxious to escape, it could have been avoided.  He should have arranged for Roy to escape with him.  He should have done something, anything, so that this hadn’t happened.

Jax lowered his head to his knees, unable to control the first bout of real emotions he’d had to deal with in two years.  The tears ran unchecked down his face and into his hands.  This was all his fault.

Brenda saw Jax’s back was turned to her, his attention apparently back on the television.  She rolled the mound of snow quickly out of the sightline towards the shed.  Getting to her feet, she ran the rest of the ten feet to the door.  Turning the handle, she gave a soft yelp when it wouldn’t budge in her hand.  The door was locked.  Thinking rapidly, she ran to the other side of the small building.  Someone was watching down on her as the window moved an inch or two when she lifted up on it.

She put her fingers in the tiny crack she had created and continued to try and push the window up.  It was quite obvious it had been a long time since this window had been opened.  It wasn’t lifting easily.  After several more grunts and hard pushes, she finally edged it up enough to look inside. 

It was dark because of the lack of lighting and the only light was coming in around her where the sun shone in.  There was a dark tarp covering something large in the back of the room.  The shape didn’t give anything away as to what might be under it.  She looked around and didn’t see Jax standing at the window.  He was still distracted, giving her more time to search.  She eased the window up as far as it would go.  She would have to come back, but when she did, she could get her leg up and climb in over the ledge easily.

A minute later, she rolled her mound of snow back into Jax’s view and peered inside the window as she lifted it onto the base of the snowman.  Stopping in her tracks, she walked closer to see him.  He still had his back to the window, but he looked like he was huddled over in a ball, like he was in pain.  She wanted to go in and check on him, but then stopped herself.  He was completely distracted right now.  This was the perfect opportunity to get inside that shed, see what was under that tarp, and escape if she could.  Another minute of watching Jax and he hadn’t moved.

She ran at top speed back to the shed, climbing into the window with ease.  There was a light switch by the door and she knew Jax couldn’t see inside the building from the house, so she flipped it on.  Immediately, she could see the shelves and equipment in front of her.  There was a large lawnmower in front of her next to the window.  That ruled out one thing that could be under the tarp.  She tried not to get her hopes up as she started to lift the covering.

Brenda’s heart soared when she saw a snow blade peeking out from where she lifted the corner of the tarp.  She tore the covering off to reveal two very shiny snowmobiles.  This was her escape!  Something was finally going her way, she thought excitedly to herself.  She had absolutely no idea how to ride one of these things, but she was willing to learn with some hands-on experience.  She’d driven a motorcycle once years before when she dated a guy her sister hated and she could tell from the handlebars that this might be a similar experience.

The keys to each vehicle were in their slots on the bases.  She put one leg over and straddled the seat carefully to see how it would feel.  It was much wider than a motorcycle seat and it would be awkward, but she would deal with it.  At least her feet touched the footboards on either side, if she stood slightly.  She smiled broadly when she saw there was a full tank of gas in the snowmobile she was straddling.  Now her only problem was going to be getting the garage-style door open.

Jax rubbed his hands over his reddened eyes, wiping away the tears one more time.  The news program had moved on to another topic and was now reporting on the local traffic.  He lifted his head slowly and stared out the picture windows in front of him.  It looked impossibly cold outside with the sun make the snow and ice sparkle across the mountains.  It jolted him back to the reality of the situation and he remembered Brenda was outside. 

He glanced behind him and saw the second half of her snowman was perched snugly on its base.  She was seriously building a snowman.  That thought almost brought a smile to his lips.  He hadn’t done anything so completely uninhibited in years…not since he’d first started dating Miranda.  He closed his eyes and leaned back against the couch, trying to stop the flood of memories about his ex-wife. 

She had been a beautiful woman when he met her.  She was young and fresh, exciting and fun, and exactly what he’d needed in his life.  She made it easy for him to enjoy the life he had built for himself and to forget the family he had left behind all those years ago.  Until Miranda, he hadn’t wanted to even think about marriage, but there was something about her that made him think he could spend the rest of his life loving her.

Shoving his fingers into his hair, he clasped his hands behind his head and looked up at the ceiling.  Apparently, she hadn’t felt exactly the same way about him, he thought savagely.  She had only wanted him as long as it was convenient for her at the time.  As soon as she grew bored, she’d moved on to someone else.  His partner and friend, for that matter.  Of everything she had done or said to him in the months after they had broken apart, the one thing that had always gotten to him was the fact that she had gone to AJ.  He had been one of the only people Jax had trusted, both professionally and personally.  Now, every reason he’d had for doing that was destroyed, replaced by a hatred that ran very deep.

The hatred wasn’t there because AJ had taken Miranda from him, though that was certainly a small part of it.  It was because he had done the same thing the rest of his family had done at some point in his life.  AJ had betrayed his trust and deliberately lied to him.  That was something that was unforgivable in his book.

Suddenly, his thoughts were shattered by the sound of an engine roaring to life nearby.  “What the hell – “ Jax exclaimed loudly, but was cut off when he saw a figure dressed in black race past the front window on a snowmobile.  He ran to the door quickly, just in time to see the brown hair of his hostage flying behind her as she jetted into the woods on her stolen vehicle.

He had completely forgotten about the snowmobiles!  They always kept them fueled in the shed for a daytime run through the woods.  Brenda must have broken into the building somehow and figured this was her escape route.  He cursed himself loudly as he bolted back to the hall closet to grab his coat and go after her.

The garage door to the shed was wide open as he ran towards it.  The other snowmobile was still halfway covered with the green tarp.  He threw it aside and jumped on the vehicle.  He had been the one to purchase these things in the first place.  Now he was just hoping Brenda had no experience on this type of vehicle.  It was his only chance of catching her.  The engine caught immediately as he turned the key.  He wrenched the handle for the gas and raced off after her.

Brenda glanced behind her a minute after she was in the woods.  She didn’t see Jax yet, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t coming.  As she turned her head to face forward again, she nearly upended the snowmobile to swerve around a tree directly in front of her.  This was a lot more difficult than driving that motorcycle!  She slowed down a bit to avoid another mishap, knowing that every second was counting here.  Jax was sure to have heard her escaping so now she needed to stay ahead of him at all costs.

She finally found what looked like a trail through the woods.  At least, the trees were kept far enough apart from each other to allow her easy passage through them.  The trail was winding a bit and the turns were slowing her down, but she couldn’t just take off down the hill.  She had no idea what lay ahead of her and if there was a cliff or an obstacle of any kind, she would have no hope of stopping in time.

Not knowing if Jax was behind her was driving her nuts, but she knew she had to keep moving.  Stopping for even a second would mean he would certainly catch up to her.  She continued down the face of the hill, having no idea how far down she had gone yet.  She was moving quickly and expected the hill to bottom out any second now, but with each turn, she was disappointed.  Suddenly, she remembered the small river they had passed over on their way up the driveway.  She would have to cross it first in order to get to level ground.  At least now she had a landmark.

Jax followed the path marked with the blades from Brenda’s snowmobile.  He could easily see where she had just been and he could see the caution with which she made her turns.  He was right!  She didn’t have much experience with this.  The cold bit through him and made his eyes water as he flew across the snow and between the trees.  He hadn’t taken the time to even zip his jacket and gloves were a much desired afterthought, but he couldn’t stop now to do either of those things.  He had to catch her and get her back.

He had learned, in his experience of driving his snowmobile, how to tune out the sound of his own engine and listen for other sounds in the woods.  In doing so this time, he was able to hear Brenda’s vehicle getting steadily closer as he gained on her.  Within a few minutes, he just barely glimpsed her black snowsuit before she went behind another tree.

Brenda heard it now – the sound of Jax’s snowmobile closing on her.  She risked a glance backward, but didn’t see him just yet.  She had to do something, anything, to get him off her tail if she had any hope now.  Just up ahead, she saw the river snaking through the woods.  She was less than a quarter of a mile from the road.  There was a large embankment on either side of the river, though.  One she would have to either navigate carefully and very slowly or find a way around.  She wished now that she had had the foresight to go straight down the driveway when she left the house, but she had figured the trees would give her a much better cover and chance at escape if she could hide in them.

That was what she would do now, she thought, her mind swirling with panicked ideas.  She had no idea what Jax would do to her if he caught up to her now.  Her best bet was to come up with some way to throw him off.  Searching frantically around her as she continued to move through the trees, she finally saw a huge evergreen tree ahead of her.  She glanced back again, unable to see Jax pursuing her.  The tree was just before the large embankment to the river.  If she stopped behind it, she might just be able to go unnoticed with the branches covering all the way to the ground.

Turning hard to her right, she headed straight for the tree.  When she turned back, she suddenly saw all the tracks her vehicle was leaving behind her, giving Jax a huge clue as to where she was headed.  She thought fast and drove around the front edge of the tree.  She stopped the snowmobile for a second on the very edge of the embankment.  Maybe Jax would think she went over it, she thought to herself, pushing the thought of how cruel that was to do to anyone out of her mind.  Carefully, she backed the snowmobile up over its same tracks and headed behind the tree.  She pulled it as close to the evergreen branches as she could possibly get.  Crouching down in front of the vehicle so that it hid her as much as possible, she listened and waited for Jax to catch up.

Jax bit his lip as he hunched down further over the base of his snowmobile and looked hard for any sign of Brenda.  He was still following her tracks, but had only been able to catch one more glimpse of her ahead of him.  He was coming up on the river fast and the only other bridge, other than the driveway, was a quarter of a mile to the right of where he was.  He knew Brenda didn’t know that so his plan was to catch her as she tried to maneuver across the river.

He turned his head to look towards the right where that bridge was on the off chance she had thought of the possibility, but he didn’t see any tracks leading that way.  As he turned his head back around, he had to swerve quickly to avoid a birch tree just in front of him.  He swore loudly as a smaller branch stung his face just below his left eye and broke the skin slightly, but he didn't slow down.  The river was less than two hundred feet in front of him and he was starting to panic for Brenda when he saw the tracks had not veered from a path headed straight for the embankment.

“Oh God,” he breathed as he realized she hadn’t seen the embankment and had probably tumbled down over it.  He raced to the edge of the ravine and stopped hard.  The trees were dense, but he couldn’t see any immediate evidence that she had gone over the edge.  He didn’t see any that she hadn’t either.

“Brenda!” Jax shouted across the river.  He looked down on the cold river flowing quickly around the large chunks of ice.  If she had gone into it, she could be seriously hurt and unable to fight the current, he thought.  Frantically, he looked down the river embankment.  He didn’t see her and he didn’t see any sign that she had gone up the other side either.  The snowmobile would have left some tracks somewhere, he thought.  Unless she was now on foot and had ditched the vehicle somewhere.  If that was the case, he would never find her tracks sitting there.

“Brenda!” he yelled one more time as he started the dangerous and slippery descent down the embankment.  He left the snowmobile sitting where it was and went on foot.  It was obvious one of two things had happened.  If he didn’t find any foot tracks on the other side of the river, he would have his answer.  She had gone into the quick-moving river.

The snow broke under his feet as he half-ran, half-slid down the hill.  When his feet slid on the ice beneath him, he grabbed the branch of a nearby tree to stop his fall.  Breathing hard, he took a second to look around.  He was twenty feet from the edge of the river and he could clearly see the other embankment.  There were no foot tracks going up it.  Quickly, he let go of the tree branch and slid the rest of the way to the river edge.  She was in there.  It was the only place she could be now.

Looking into the fifteen-foot deep river water, he struggled to see anything moving.  The water rushed over the rocks on the edge, splashing slightly at Jax’s feet.  He felt a few drops hit his face and it was like ice against his skin.  He shuddered deeply at the thought that Brenda was now somewhere in that water and he was to blame for it.  “Brenda!” he shouted again, hoping she had been able to get her head above water somewhere in earshot, but he quickly knew it was not the case when he didn’t hear a single sound in response.

She could be down there somewhere.  She could be trapped beneath a branch or a rock and unable to swim back to the surface.  She could be drowning while he watched. 

His heart was in his throat as the thoughts raced through his head.  This couldn’t be happening to him, not now.  Roy was dead and now Brenda probably was, too.  He was responsible for both of them.  They were both dead because of him, because he had to escape now.  He couldn’t have waited a few more months.  He had dragged Roy into his plans and gotten him shot, even when Roy had repeatedly warned him of the dangers.  Now he had kidnapped Brenda, a completely innocent bystander, and she was now drowning, as a result.  He couldn’t stop the tears that started to run down his cheeks while he continued to look into the water for a sign of something.

Brenda watched from her spot behind the tree as Jax crouched down and looked into the waters.  She could see his shoulders heaving and could hear the sounds echoing as he sobbed, and she could only guess what he was thinking.  He probably thought she was in the water since he couldn’t find her.  He probably thought she was dead.

“No!” the agonized cry echoed through the woods and she cringed, closing her eyes as if that could stop her from hearing it.  It was an even more tortured sound than the one she’d heard before, the night they arrived. 

But it was a good thing if he thought she was dead, Brenda thought, her eyes still closed.  He wouldn’t continue to look for her if he knew he wouldn’t find her.  He was the one who had brought her up here against her will.  She did not care about the amount of pain she heard in his voice.  She repeated that a few more times before she opened her eyes.

Upon opening them, she saw Jax crouched over one more time.  His head was bowed into his chest and his arms covered his head.  Even from her distance, she could see that he looked ravaged by the thought of her death.  It was enough when she saw his knee collapse and he buckled slightly, falling closer to the river’s edge, and he appeared not to care.  She had to stop this.  She could go down to him and go back to the house.  She would find the keys to her Jeep and escape another day, with more thought. 

Brenda took exactly three steps from her hiding spot when she saw Jax lift his head suddenly and look intently at something in the water for a split second.  Before she could react, he had thrown off his heavy leather coat and dived beneath the icy river surface.

 

Chapter 8