Chapter 11
When Leah’s crying had subsided she pulled herself out of Jeff’s arms and looked him in the eye. All she could see was concern. She looked to the bed where the letter lay. When she had been in Jeff’s arms she felt safe, she knew that she didn’t have to fight him, she knew he would hold her for as long as she needed to be held.
“We need to talk.” He said as she met his eyes again. She nodded and prepared to explain. “I need to know. I need to understand.” He said whole-heartedly.
“Can we go sit on the balcony?”
“Sure.” He said as he led her out where she sat on the edge of the sun lounge. He pulled a metal chair up beside her and turned to face her.
“It all started when I was 15. My parents and me where on there way to go and see my granny and granddad, the where walking and I had decided to go get a drink from the shop on the other side of the street. I crossed over and grabbed a bottle of coke and I headed back out to the pavement and when I got there I saw my parents crossing the street. I don’t know why, they must have got fed up with waiting I suppose, but when the where half way across the street, this car…” she cut of as she let the memories come flooding back, the memories she had blocked for so long, so many years. Jeff placed a hand on her legs and rubbed it slowly and softly. “The car…came from no where. I could see it driving straight at them…they tried to run out of the way but the car followed them. It got closer to them. I screamed and ran out to the road….” She tried to continue but she couldn’t talk through her tears. Jeff looked at her. His own eyes filled with tears. He lifted both his hands to hers and took her small shaking hands; he held them tightly in his as she continued. “ …But it was to late. I heard the deadening thud as the car hit them. My mum flew over the bonnet and down behind the car and my dad went straight under it…I looked at the driver, I knew who it was….I couldn’t believe he had done it…he told me later on that he did it for us. I froze, I couldn’t move. People ran past me and went to my parents,. When someone asked me who I was I told him or her. They told me my dad was dead….i screamed and cried as the paramedics covered his body and put him in the back of one ambulance, I watched as they put my mum on a stretcher in the back of another. The one of them came over to me and said I needed to be treated for shock. They dragged me kicking and screaming to the hospital. I wouldn’t talk to anyone. I couldn’t believe that…that the….” She broke of as she broke down in to hysterics. Jeff moved from his chair and sat beside her. He went to put his arms around her but she wouldn’t let him. She wanted to finish, the story she had kept bottled up since she had left Alabama. “…The guy I was dating had just run over my parents, he had killed my dad and my mum was in intensive care.” She wiped her eyes and turned to Jeff. “They came and told me that my mum had had a blood clot on the brain and had died an hour before. He killed them Jeff, he killed them.” She finished as she let herself fall into his arms.
“I’m so sorry.” Was all he could whisper into her ear as he held her tighter than ever before. His own body was numb from her story. He now knew what happened to her parents, but he wanted to know about the boyfriend, the one who killed her parents. “Leah.” He whispered softly. She lifted her head and looked him in the eye. Her whole body shock. She seemed to know what he wanted, need to know.
“He came to see me four weeks later. He acted like nothing had happened. He wanted to play lovey dovey. He even asked me to marry him. But I didn’t love him. I loathed him. I slapped him and punched but he hit me twice as hard back. He beat me until I was nearly unconscious. When he left I got to the phone and called an ambulance. Then when I came out of hospital I told the police what had happened and who beat me…. and…. and who killed…. my parents. They wanted me to help catch him and I did. Then they asked me to testify against him. I had to Jeff. He was a murderer, he murdered my parents, and how could I not do it Jeff?” Jeff didn’t answer he just ran a finger down her cheek, wiping away her tears. “And then throughout the trial and court case he sent me these sorts of letters, you know the sort I just got and phone calls and people trashing my house. I just didn’t think that that first letter was his because he supposed to still be in jail. But what if he isn’t Jeff? What if he got out and is after me for sending him down? He has to be here, in this hotel Jeff, he’s after me, he wants payback.”
“You don’t know that Leah.”
“I do Jeff. After I went upstairs after o got that first letter, I got out the box of old one I had, and they were the same style, he hand this way of sticking certain letters on. It’s him Jeff, I know it is.”
“Then you have to tell someone, you need help with him Leah. He could hurt you again.”
I know that Jeff. I just don’t want to believe it’s true. I want to go back to three days ago. Where none of this had happened.”
“Does Molly know?”
“No. She doesn’t know about any of the letters and I don’t want her to. Jeff you have to promise me that you won’t tell her or Matt. Jeff promise me please.” Leah begged him.
“She’s your best friend Leah, she needs to know.”
“NO!!” Leah cried out as hysteria threatened to take her over again. “Please Jeff, you can’t tell her. Please promise me that.”
“Ok, I promise. Just let me help you then.”
“Why do you want to help me Jeff? I’ve been such a bitch to you. You don’t have to Jeff, I can handle this on my own.”
“No you can’t. Look at you after two letters, what are you going to be like after more, if they come?”
“Jeff, I can handle it.”
“I won’t let you Leah. I am going to help you through his is if you like it or not.”
“Please Jeff. Just leave me.”
“No Leah. I can’t do that, you got me involved and I’m not going to walk away, not from you.” Jeff said looking Leah dead in the eye. He noticed something change, the hardness that was there before had gone. She had none left to cry. Her eyes looked into his, the feeling he had somehow gained her trust, her friendship. “Is all this the reason you don’t like me?” he asked her, her hands still in his.
“yes, I guess. I trusted Matt because of Molly, but you….you seemed different, there was something that I….”
“Hated?”
“I know I said that, and at the time I did mean it, but this last day or so you have been really sweet to me and how can I hate you know? You know stuff about me that my best friend doesn’t.”
“Maybe I’ll be your friend one day.”
“Maybe.” She said smiling slightly. He sat back into the sun lounge and put one leg either side. He took her hand and pulled her in between his legs. He wrapped his arms around her waist as she rested her head back onto his chest. His fingers entwined themselves in hers. Leah closed her eyes as she felt Jeff’s warm breathe against her ear.
“Your safe with me. I won’t let anybody touch you. Ever.”
There they lay for the rest of the night. Leah held in Jeff’s arms as they slept. But neither one of them could be prepared for the events of the following day.
back to Chapter 10
