Jake
18 months later
Two nights after Lara went to the police, Jackson was arrested.
Nick Seaver – real name Nick Perino – was arrested the same week, and unsurprisingly linked to a series of other violent break-ins in the tri-state area.
Three days after his arrest, Gabrielle’s body was recovered.
It was by no means the instant relief that Lara and I had imagined. Somehow, we never thought about the trials, the media, what we’d say to our friends. But the hardest part by far was facing Gabrielle’s parents, Lyle and Sofie. In court, Sofie read a letter to Jackson, the video of which would play on the news for weeks. “She was our daughter, our only child and the light of our lives. She was the little girl who told silly jokes to make us smile when we were sad. Now she’s no longer here to heal our pain. Our hearts will forever ache because of Jackson Kinsley’s brutal, heartless and unthinkable actions. This monster has the blood of our nineteen-year-old daughter on his hands and to see him receive anything shorter than a life sentence would be the cruelest injustice, second only to the murder of our beautiful Gabby.”
The media ate it up. Society Princess Killed by Hedge Fund Lover. A Low-Class Murder In High Society. Neither Lara nor I could go anywhere without cameras following. The tabloids dug up our past. Sources claimed that it wasn’t Jackson’s first act of soliciting to murder. Others claimed that it was Lara who had ordered the hit.
That was when the home invasion came in handy. Text messages were read in court to show that Jackson had callously instructed Nick Seaver to break into the duplex, wait for Lara’s arrival, and then “rough her up but don’t send her to the hospital or mess up her face.” While the texts about Gabrielle were spoken largely in code, and the cash deposits made to hidden bank accounts, Nick Seaver’s lawyer eventually offered the judge a turning point in the form of a recorded phone conversation.
“Yeah… I don’t know how you usually do this… I know you said you don’t usually do these kinds of things as much.” Jackson’s voice had been shockingly casual. “But my preference is to leave no room for mistakes so if I were you, I’d definitely go for a head shot. Two bullets to be sure.”
That was probably the line that got him the life sentence.
Eight months after his arrest, Jackson was finally put behind bars at a federal prison in Upstate New York. But Lara and I were gone before he even got there.
She hadn’t seen her older sister, Riley, in seven years so we went to visit her in Hawaii, in the small town of Hanalei. She had moved there recently with her husband and four-month-old baby girl, Leilani – full name Lara Leilani.
The visit went on for another five months. We hadn’t planned it that way, but soft sand, turquoise waters and grassy mountains turned out to be a quick way to find peace. On top of that, it was a draw for constant visits from Sloane – sometimes even Caleb. He had known about Jackson’s affair with Gabrielle but not the fact that he’d had her killed.
It was Sloane who had put several things together the night that she’d seen Jackson laying under Audra outside the Monarch Hotel. She remembered things that Gabrielle had said, ways that Jackson had whispered to her during the galas. She reconsidered what Lara had drunkenly told her that night and shortly after, gave Caleb an ultimatum: choosing between Jackson or her. He went with the latter and days later, they got married at Buccieri.
During Sloane’s last visit, she was joined not by Caleb but Sawyer, who was all smiles as he updated us on Dane. “He’s definitely not the same Dane anymore. You know how he was always perma-smug, like the world couldn’t touch him and he’d keep doing whatever the fuck he wanted? Well, since… Jackson… he’s kind of become a like… paranoid recluse, I guess? I know I shouldn’t be laughing right now but come on. The world needed less Dane McNulty. For all I care, he can spend the rest of his life getting old at home, reliving his glory days and ordering bad sushi off of Seamless.”
A very Sawyer way to put it.
We’d laughed, Sloane had ruffled Sawyer’s hair and then turned to Lara. “Name your baby Sawyer,” she’d said. “Whenever you guys have one. I mean what would we do without this stupid goofball? Boy or girl, Lara, you have to name your baby Sawyer.”
The next day, Sawyer and I went out surfing while Lara and Sloane laid out on the beach. At night, we grilled under palm trees and the following morning, said goodbye to our friends. It had been a good enough time that Lara had acted strange the entire week following.
“I think I want to go now,” she whispered to me one morning as we lay awake in bed.
“To the beach? Already?” I smiled. “We haven’t even had breakfast yet.”
She shook her head, her hair spilling onto my chest as she gazed up at me. “No, I want to leave Hawaii. I think it’s time for the next spot. I want to go today.”
I ran my hand through her hair and said yes. I had no intention of denying Lara any part of her dream life. I found her next city of choice a bit odd – a big departure from the sands of Oahu, but I went with it because no matter where we were, I’d always be exactly where I wanted. So we went to Belgium, “one of the best cities in the world for raising kids,” Lara told me.
Because she was six weeks pregnant. Sloane had known without her even telling.
Lara had casually revealed the secret on one of our regular morning walks, right after she chose where to have brunch. I was in a state of shock but I recalled that we were standing in front of the cathedral, and that I had brushed her hair out of her face because the breeze had blown it astray. She looked more beautiful than I had ever seen in my life, and I’d been at a complete and utter loss for words. But the ones that finally came made her laugh.
“Does this mean we have to name our baby Sawyer?”
“No. But come on, Jake, it’s not such a terrible name that you should be shedding man tears,” she teased.
I held her face in my hands, gazing into her eyes as I repeated the words. “You’re pregnant.”
“I’m pregnant.”
Letting out a long breath, I stared at the sun, my surroundings – my unbelievable life in the city where I was about to start a family with the most beautiful woman in the world.
“I can’t believe it’s a boy,” I grinned at her.