It was time to talk face-to-face, whether she was ready or not.
CHAPTER 14
Her day of reckoning had come, wearing worn jeans, a House of Blues tee, and sneaks.
Seth paced her living room as Jess ushered her guests out the door without much of an introduction. Sam would take Alexa back to her hotel. But before they left, she exchanged cell phone numbers with Alexa. If something came up, Jess wanted a way to contact her.
That left her alone to confront Harper. Despite his personal problems—the glitch of a manslaughter charge hanging over his head—she knew by the look in his eyes that he would finally tell her about his father.
And the reason he’d crossed her path in the first place.
Harper looked tired, in need of a good sleep. And his antsy behavior would have been contagious if she didn’t feel wrung out tired herself. She fought the urge to make this about him. After all, he was the one who had knowingly chosen to keep his secrets and betray their friendship. For her to forgive him now would depend entirely on what he had to say.
“You took a chance comin’ here. I could’ve slammed the door in your face.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time a woman had that notion.”
“Oh, Harper…I doubt that.” She stuffed her hands in her jeans. “Can I get you a beer?”
Harper had a dismal expression. And he hadn’t settled down since he walked through the door. He had something in his craw that needed to come out. And with an unrelenting glare, she wasn’t making it any easier on him.
That would have to change if she expected him to open up.
“No.” He shook his head, avoiding her eyes. “I just…”
She plopped down on her sofa and patted the seat next to her, taking a deep breath and reining back the attitude.
“Hey, you’re wearing me out,” she admitted. “You’re like a moving target in an arcade game. Sit down before I shoot you.”
“That might not be a bad idea. Put me out of my misery.”
“Nah, like I said before, Harper. You gotta have faith.” She could have told him the latest developments, but judging by his guilt-ridden face, Seth had something to say.
“Spit it out,” she said. “Just say it.”
An awkward silence filled the room as he slouched beside her, sprawled in the farthest corner of her sofa. He crossed his arms, still not looking her in the eye. It suddenly dawned on her that his outward appearance and easygoing attitude had been a wall he’d crafted to hide who he really was.
She’d thought she knew him, and that simply wasn’t true.
In the past, Seth sometimes refused to answer the occasional question she’d thrown him, but it had never seemed important for her to press him for answers. She’d always believed his basic nature was trustworthy. He was an open book, a simple guy who was easy to read. If he had something to hide, she thought she could always spot it lurking in his dark eyes. And all it would take to get him to open up would be persistence on her part.
But after learning about Harper’s connection to the man who had saved her life as a kid—and how well he had kept his secret from her—she realized Seth was far more complicated than she had ever given him credit for. She had to take off the blinders and see him in a different light.
She wasn’t sure she could do that.
“I had no intention of you finding out about my father that way. At my damned bail hearing. I’m sorry, Jessie.” He struggled for words. “I wanted to tell you. But when you were leaving for Alaska, Mandy hit a new low. She needed…someone.”
Before her unforeseen trek to Alaska, she remembered how lost and utterly alone Harper looked the day she came to him for help in tracking down Payton Archer’s missing niece. She knew something was up and even asked him about it, but he deflected her pointed questions about his personal life and changed the subject. And she’d been too distracted to push him. The hunt for Globe Harvest—the insidious organization behind the girl’s abduction—had heated up and taken all her concentration.
Backtracking to that moment, his behavior now made sense. It had seemed harmless at the time, and she hadn’t pressed him out of respect for his privacy. Her mind raced with all the other times he had been evasive about his life, but she tried to stay focused.
“But why did you disappear like that? Sam had to tell me you were gone over the phone, even before I came back. What happened?” She touched his thigh. The intimacy of her gesture got his attention. His eyes met hers and stayed. “Did you think I wouldn’t notice you were AWOL? Did you think I’d be okay with that?”
Jess was surprised at the hurt in her voice—and in her heart. She had made room in her life for Harper, and his disappearing act felt too much like rejection.
“You didn’t need me anymore. Not really. Maybe you never did, but Mandy had no one. And the men in her life always took from her.”
Harper was the kind of guy who took in strays of the two-legged variety. She wondered if that was all she had meant to him in the beginning, but questions about Mandy surfaced.
“Was she in more trouble, Seth? I mean beyond her self-inflicted bullet to the brain of using drugs. Did she ever mention being scared of someone?”
“She was so messed up, Jessie…because of her addiction and other stuff.”
“What other stuff?”
“Life, her boyfriend, everyone was out to get her. You know the drill with addicts. They’re paranoid and delusional.”
“Did she ever say anything about blackmailing someone?”
“No, but I doubt she would have told me if she was. I wanted her clean. And breaking the law wouldn’t be a part of that. Besides, I hadn’t talked to her in weeks, not until the night I was supposed to meet her. And I have no idea why she called me out of the blue like that. She never said.”
Harper was a regular Boy Scout. His good nature reinforced her judgment that he was a solid, well-meaning guy when it came to others, but something else lurked deeper. Something personal that he was keeping from her. She could have accepted his explanation on its merits and gotten balled up in his angst over Mandy, but a major piece of the puzzle was missing.
“So why did you pick me…and Mandy? Does this have anything to do with your father, Seth?”
Jess held her breath, waiting for his answer. And by the look on his face, she knew what he had to say wouldn’t be easy to hear.
A flood of images from the day she was rescued filled her mind—an overload of horror that threatened to suffocate her. She struggled to picture the face of Detective Max Jenkins, Harper’s father. But all that came to mind were his strong hands and reassuring voice when he hauled her out of that house in his arms, freeing her from a living hell. She’d blocked too much from her memory. Even the good got jumbled into the bad. The torture. The muffled screams. Her abuser’s face. That house on High Street. It made her sad that she couldn’t recall Seth’s father—the man who had saved her life.
“You’ve got to understand, Jessie. My father was a hero to everyone…” He lowered his chin and muttered, “…to everyone except me.”
Harper shut his eyes tight until he could start over. It took courage to talk about an ugly truth, one he probably had never intended to share. The least she could do was listen without passing judgment.
“I never understood why he chose other people…over me. My mother tried to explain it, but after a while, she just stopped. I think she felt it, too.” His voice took on the sharp edge of resentment. The years hadn’t tempered his pain, something she understood. “He gave everything he had to the job. And there was nothing left. Not for me…or her.”