Shielded In The Shadows

Jayden was alive. Moving. And reaching for her. He slid his hands around her waist and they stood up together. “You okay?” Jayden asked, his voice strong. Sure.

She didn’t know what she was. Before she could find words, Chantel was there, standing beside the two of them, while a female officer led a hysterical Suzie outside and officers surrounded the body on the floor.

“You two okay?”

Not trusting her voice, Emma nodded. Jayden was fine. Alive. Standing next to her. His shoulder, clear down to his wrist, touching hers.

“I’m fine,” Jayden said aloud.

“I thought you’d been shot!” The words sounded strangled as Emma finally got them out. She needed a small dark place to go hide so she could curl up in a ball and cry.

“For a second there, I thought so, too.” Jayden sounded relieved, but dead serious. “What...how did you...?”

“We were outside,” Chantel said. “When we got here, saw him with Suzie in a neck hold and you two at gunpoint, we surrounded the place, and everyone had orders, if anyone saw a shot, he or she was to take it. Period. When he dropped his guard to look at Suzie...” She shrugged. “I can tell you I about swallowed my heart when I saw Jayden jump on the chance, too...”

He’d just jumped right up there, willing to get himself killed...not knowing the police were outside...

Like he didn’t value his life enough to...

“If they hadn’t been outside, you might have been killed.” Emma got those words out loud and clear.

“But you and Suzie would have had a chance to run for help.”

Chantel nodded. “You deserve a medal for that one, Powell,” she said.

A medal, hell. What he’d earned was Emma’s fury.

* * *

Emma was clearly pissed. Anger was a common response to extreme fear. That was what Jayden told himself as they walked outside to give their statements.

“How did you guys get here so fast?” Emma asked, walking more with Chantel than with him as they exited the house.

“Fate,” the blond detective said, leading them to an unmarked car with doors opened. “Or people doing their jobs and it all coming together at exactly the right time,” she added, looking back at the house. “One of the neighbors you saw today, you told him Suzie had been hurt again...”

“Camden Harris. I was impressing upon him that it was urgent he tell me anything he knew that could help us or he could possibly find himself an accomplice to charges he didn’t want to face. He didn’t budge.” Jayden was at Emma’s side again. Where he planned to stay. For a while at least. Until he could convince himself that she was really safe. Alive and safe.

“Not with you, but you got to him. That call I got when I was on the phone with you...it was him. Camden Harris.” They’d reached the unmarked car. Emma sat sideways on the back seat, her feet on the ground. Jayden stood beside her, his leg touching hers, while Chantel shielded them from a news car that had pulled up. “He said you gave him my number and that he had information. Turns out he knew a lot more than he was saying. He’d kept quiet because he didn’t want to jeopardize his marriage...”

“His marriage?” Emma asked, standing again.

“He’d seen Suzie with bruises in the past,” Chantel said, nodding. “He called out to her once, asked her if she was okay. He knew Bill, liked him. She told him he wasn’t hurting her and he believed her. Or tried to. Sometimes people let themselves be convinced. He knew Bill had a tendency to be overprotective, that he was jealous of anyone looking at his wife. Bill had even asked him a time or two if he’d ever seen anyone over at his house. Asked him to keep an eye on the place. But at the same time, Bill was a decent guy. Fair businessman. Gave jobs to guys down on their luck. Helped out in the neighborhood anytime there was a problem. Fast-forward to a week when Camden’s wife was out of town and Suzie and Bill had another fight. He went over after Bill took off and one thing led to another...”

“Harris was the one she slept with?” Jayden asked. Bill had had legitimate reason for his jealousy. He’d said more than once that a man knows these things. Ja

yden had just put it down to the man’s insanity where his wife was concerned. Nothing would excuse the hell Bill put Susie through, however.

“It only happened that once,” Chantel said. “But that’s why the neighbor never said anything to anyone about what happened later. He truly loves his wife and he was afraid if he ever said anything, the fact that he slept with Suzie might come out. While he was over there that night, she got a phone call. It was Kyle. Bill’s son.”

“What!” Emma screeched while Jayden’s jaw dropped.

“His son?”

“Illegitimate,” Chantel confirmed, “but yes. He’d lost his mother. His stepfather didn’t want him around, and he’d come to Bill for help. But Bill didn’t want a teenage boy around his twenty-four-year-old wife and told him he couldn’t stay. So Suzie helped him behind Bill’s back. After Bill was sent to prison, she let Kyle move in with her and eventually they became a couple.”

Jayden felt like he was on some other planet. “There’s nothing in Bill’s records about having a son.”

“He didn’t believe an ex-girlfriend when she told him she was pregnant and the baby was his. She moved on, married, and raised the boy with her new husband. He just found out Bill was his father when his mother died.”