Chapter 6

Trent - Chapter 6

Joe looked at the two pictures of Benny, the young man, and of Jefferson, the adult. It was the same person. But why would he come after Max, if that was what he was going to do? There had to be more than just the fact that he'd been cruel to him as a younger man. The others were talking around her, but she could easily tune them out. It wasn't until TJ, as he had insisted that she call him, sat down next to her that she snapped out of it.

"You see something there?" Joe told him she wasn't sure just yet. "Yeah, I have that feeling sometimes. It's like you're looking too hard at it. Take a break. Talk to me about this thing with my son."

"Thing? I'm not sure I understand what it is you mean." He explained. "You wish to know about him selling his business to Elijah. I would guess that would be a better conversation to have with him, don't you think?"

"I talked to him, but I don't care for his answer. I think there's more. Like for instance, why now?" She said she didn't know. "I think you do. I'm not blaming you. I never thought he was cut out for office work anyway. But teaching? I just never saw that coming."

"He is very smart, your son." TJ agreed with her. "Perhaps he wishes only to teach so that he can be a football coach. He did mention that part several times. Can he only be a coach if he is not a teacher?"

"Good question. I have no idea. But I don't think Trent is any better suited to being a teacher than…it's the being inside part that I think might be hard on him. It's what he complained about when he was working all the time. And he needs a job that has no stress. Being a teacher might get him only part of what he wants, but I don't think it will give him what he needs." Joe wasn't sure it was the stress that bothered Trent or the need to be perfect. At any job he did. "He needs one of them jobs that keeps him out of doors, I think. Like a landscape job."

"Landscaping? I did that for a while. It is quite satisfying to see things that you plant grow. Noah and I own a landscaping business together, and have for many years. It is successful where it is. But it will be up to Trent to decide what he does. I want him happy." TJ assured her that he did as well. "You love your children very much…it shows in everything you do. Trent respects you as well. That is a part of everything that he does."

"They're my life," TJ said without any hesitation and with a great deal of conviction. "Christine and I, we would die for our children, much like I'm sure your parents would have done for you."

"My mother was a house servant for a very wealthy man. When he found out that my mother carried me, his bastard, he took her into his home and kept her well fed and happy. But when I was born a female, he fired her, had her return all the good things he'd given her as she lay resting from my birth. I was put out when I was old enough to care for myself. There were times when it was difficult to survive during those times. But I was resourceful and kept myself alive. Then I met Noah, and he gave me a part of him so that I could live a long and very good life." TJ told her he was sorry. "Don't be. It's not your fault. It was just the way things were then. Now people do worse things to children they no longer wish to keep. I have seen dogs treated with better manners. Haven't you?"

"Yes. Sadly." TJ leaned back on the couch they were sharing. He was a very nice man, and he and his wife had been very happy that she and Trent were getting married soon. "Do you think it's possible that Ford killed this woman and Marshall saw him do it?"

"I thought the same, but there is no way of finding out after all this time. The newspaper said that her death was suspicious, but I cannot find where there was any solving of it. If it was indeed murder, no one seemed to care enough to go and find the person or persons who had done it, and the case, even after all these years, is unsolved. So I think the lack of interest had them shoving it under the rug for a time until it was simply out of their memories completely. She had no family to mourn her, and she had nothing to leave anyone should they have cared. I think she was cremated as a way for the city not to have to bury her."

"But this boy, he found her, correct? Do you think he might have killed her? Over something he had in his head, like that she belonged to him?" Joe said that she didn't think that either. "He was in love with her, Noah said. You thinking there might have been something there? Not murder, but something that happened that he saw?"

"I don't know. I suppose that could be it. As you said, he was, for all intents and purposes, in love with her. I spoke to him several times before she was killed. He was simply a nice boy who thought that he could give her a better life." Joe wondered now if he might have given her more than Max would have. "He told me once that Max had tried to hurt her on several occasions when she wouldn't allow him into her home. I think perhaps that might have upset him, but he always just said that she'd handled herself well but that he'd be there if she needed him. I'm not sure what he meant by Max hurting her. Even now, I don't know."

"So this young man tried to keep Ford away from a woman that he wanted to rob. There were issues with her and Ford…everyone that knew them could attest to that. Then Ford was ridiculed, left town, and she ended up dead a few weeks later." She told him that was what it looked like. "But something drove this kid, now a man, to more than likely seek out Ford and make him...what? Pay for some crime that only Jefferson knew about?"

"That is what it seems like. But it is my understanding that Noah and Randal are going to talk to him. Tomorrow, correct?" TJ said that was right but that he wasn't happy about that. "Noah won't let anything happen to your son. You have my word on that."

"I know that. I mean in the short time I've known the man, I think he's a good guy. What I worry about is if Jefferson is no more upstanding than Ford is. What if they're in this together to get back at Noah?" Joe had thought of that as well. "I'd like nothing better than to meet him myself. See his worth."

"Then you should go as well." He looked at her oddly. "You are the patriarch of this family; should they not listen to you when you ask for something?"

"Yeah, you'd think that, wouldn't you?" Joe didn't understand what he meant, but before she could ask him to explain, he snapped his fingers as if just remembering something. "The alpha, he wants to see the two of you. Soon. I don't think he'll have a problem with the two of you becoming mates, but there are things he has to make sure you know. I'm sure that will be nothing more than you going to pledge yourself to him and what not. He was…he did seem sort of put out to know that Trent had found his mate, but I don't know why. You'd think he'd be happy about it, wouldn't you?"

"Perhaps he thinks that Trent will want more now that he has his own family. I don't know this alpha, nor have I heard anything about him other than his name is Casey O'Neal." She knew that the Calhoun family followed the laws and ways of their pack. It had surprised her and Noah that TJ had not become the leader of their group when he'd turned twenty-five. He was strong enough and he was respected a great deal, as were all the Calhouns. She told him that she'd talk to Trent and see what he wanted to do concerning the other male.

When she was left alone, she looked at the police report again. She had seen many such reports given by the police when she'd been an attorney, but this one seemed to be lacking in a great many areas.

In the area where it said official cause of death, there were four things to choose from, yet none were marked. But the picture of wounds on the drawing of the deceased bothered her most of all.

The drawing was a copy of a non-descript female. The same kind of drawing was available for a male should they have needed it. The coroner in this case had marked several places that Sydney had injuries, but had offered no explanation of how they might have gotten there. For example, there was a deep puncture wound on her left thigh. All it had was the words deep and puncture. Then there were the ligature marks on her wrists. There, too, it only pointed them out without explaining anything about them. Were they from cuffs, someone holding her, or was there tape residue there? No information at all. On the right side of her head was a cut, like she'd fallen or been hit. It looked, according to the picture, like it had run the entire length of her forehead, yet there was nothing about whether or not it had been made by a knife or a fall. The scrapes on her knuckles might had been from her defending herself. And her mouth had been cut as well. Some notes on the body could have been done better as well, to Joe's way of thinking.

"Was she raped?" Joe looked at Sterling when he asked. Joe told him she thought so, but the report hadn't mentioned a rape kit being used. "I've looked over the entire file, and there is no report of any kind of tests being made on her…no toxicology or any kind of skin or tissue searches. To me, and I'm not much of a sleuth, she looks like someone either raped her or tried. Was she naked when found?"

"No. Her clothing was intact." She looked at Sterling again before continuing. "I think perhaps Jefferson cleaned her up after he found her and called the police. I don't know why I think that, but I can see him doing such a thing. He wouldn't want her to be exposed like that. He would have wanted her to have dignity even in death."

"I can see that too." He picked up the paper she had been studying and then put it back down. "I have a friend that can go over these for us. I don't know when he can look, but I can ask him. As lay-persons, we might just be looking at a formal report on someone that we don't know well. At least I didn't know her well."

"That would be very nice." She picked up the papers to put into the file when a small sheet fell out. Leaning over to pick it up, she nearly dropped it again when she realized what it was. "Did you see this?"

She handed to him, and he looked at her after reading it. Sterling looked as shocked as she was. "It says she was pregnant, and that it had been aborted at her death. That she...you think it was Ford's?"

"I don't know what to think. But I should like to speak to Jefferson. I think he needs to explain things to us now. Something about this says that all of this is revenge and this is the key." Sterling nodded to her and stood up. When she did as well, they made their way to Trent. This was going to be the end of it all, she knew it.

~*~

Jefferson didn't bother picking up the file he'd been given…he knew what was in it. Knew every word of every sheet that was there. He even had copies of things that this person didn't. Nothing they could say to him could get him to admit to or corroborate their thinking.

"You know her?" He said nothing to Trent Calhoun. "Jefferson, we want to help you with this. If Ford did you wrong, we can help you."

"I don't understand why you believe, first of all, that I need your help or that I have anything to do with these people. Ford is my partner. A very shady one I've come to find out, but my partner all the same." Jefferson didn't look over at the pictures that hung on his walls and were framed on the shelves that cluttered his office. Why he'd agreed to this meeting he was still trying to figure out, but they were here and he'd do what it took to get them off his back. It was too soon for him to be exposed just yet.

He knew these men, or at least he knew one of them…the others he knew only in that he'd looked into their lives. Noah, the only one that he'd met before, had not said a word to anyone upon entering his home. It made him nervous, him being in his home or anywhere near him for that matter. He wasn't afraid of Noah; he had been at one time, but now he was just fearful that he knew things that Jefferson wished that he didn't. Jefferson was terrified that he knew who he was.

"We believe that you might hold a grudge against Max and are in partnership with him for a reason other than for it to be beneficial to both of you." Well, no shit, he wanted to tell TJ, but said nothing. "We also think that you're this young man Benny Gibson, a young lad that might know something about Ford that the police haven't figured out. About the death of Sydney Carlin."

It hurt him to hear her name, ripped at his heart in ways these men would never, could never understand. He had loved her with all that he'd been. She might have been older than him, even smarter, but she had been his one and only true love. And until he was satisfied that justice was served in her death, he would do whatever it took to make sure her killer saw the errors of his ways. Even if it was served by him and only him.

Even after all these years, he hurt for her. She was by far the nicest person he'd ever known, and she had not deserved what had happened to her. But telling these men what he knew would do none of them any good. The only person who was going to pay was Ford. And he was going to pay dearly.

"Benny? That's your name, isn't it?" He looked at Noah, a man who had not aged one single bit in all these years. It had frightened him a little, seeing the man at his doorstep. And he'd nearly said no when asked if he could be invited in. When he asked him again about being Benny, Jefferson shook his head just as Noah continued. "I'm a vampire. You might not have known that back then, but I'm telling you now. The reason for this full disclosure is that a vampire never forgets a scent. And I have yours. You are without a doubt Benny Gibson."

"There are no such things as vampires." Jefferson tried not to squirm on his seat, and stared right at Noah. "I don't know what you think you're doing, but I'm not stupid. And I think it's time that you—"

"I'm a wolf. Not the horror story sort that you see on television, but I'm one all the same." Trent stood up then and walked toward him. "I'm going to show you something. Just please, don't scream. We don't want to bring the house down on us." He started to tell the man that he had no intentions of screaming when Trent pulled up his sleeve. In a matter of seconds, his hand disappeared and was replaced with a thick wolf paw. The hair on his arm grew and became denser as well. Jefferson whimpered a little when he put the large paw on his own hand. "I'm as real as you are, and as real as the fact that Noah is a vampire."

Jefferson sat very still. He wasn't sure what to believe, but Trent moved back from him and he let out a long breath. These people had to go. But before he could stand up to show them out, TJ spoke again.

"She was with child, did you know that?" Jefferson felt his entire body sag. "They didn't make it known. No one did a test to see if she was raped or not, but now that I'm thinking on it, I can see why they'd not do that. She lost it. There had to be a rape, didn't there, Benny? That wouldn't be how she got pregnant of course, but they did very little to find out who killed her or even why. If that had been one of mine, child or friend, I would have wanted to exact revenge on them. Hard and fast. But you waited…why is that?"

"Benny died that day. I knew she was…the baby wasn't mine, if that's what you're thinking. But the police…they told me if I kept my mouth shut on what I'd seen then they'd not arrest me for tampering with evidence." He reached in his bottom desk drawer and handed TJ the file he'd kept all these years, adding to it when he found things, taking out information that wasn't right. "The officer on duty, he accused me of killing her. Had me in cuffs as they walked around her little living room, messing with her things. Said that it was why I'd redressed her and made sure that she wasn't like that when they got there. I did do that. I…she was so exposed, and I knew that she'd hate that more than anything. But I didn't kill her, and after a while, they left me alone."

"How did they know for sure you didn't kill her? I don't think you did either, but there had to be a reason for them to have let you off for it."

He nodded at TJ, then looked at Trent. "A man told me he could not smell me on her, not sexually. I had no idea what he meant until years later, when I figured out that Joe wasn't human either. She…she was my friend as well." Noah told him that she was marrying Trent. "I liked her a great deal, still do. And you. You never treated me as a child. And when I told you that day that I loved her, you didn't say I was too young or that it wasn't love. You were…nice to me. Not like Max was. Still is for that matter. You treated me like a person, not a kid still in diapers."

"You loved her, of that I have no doubt." Jefferson nodded at TJ and then pulled out another file, this one filled with pictures.

"When the police took away her body—wrapped her up like she was nothing more than the afternoon trash—I snuck back in the room and took what I could. There wasn't much. She didn't have much in the way of personal things. A few pictures and some small cheap jewelry. The place that she lived belonged to my father and she paid him rent." He handed him the first of many pictures that he'd taken from the apartment that day. "That was of us. We'd been out for the day…I was showing her the sights. We weren't…we were friends, not lovers. The child she carried belonged to someone I think she knew briefly."

"Did you see who killed her?" He nodded at Noah, knowing for some reason that this man would understand his anger more than others. "Was it Ford? Is he not just responsible for her death but her losing her child as well?"

"He'd gone back to her place several days after the ad had come out in the paper. My father was furious about it, that one of his tenants had been bothered by such a man. My parents liked Sydney and sort of knew that I was…we were friends, and my parents didn't have a problem with us being together. I could talk to her when I couldn't them. When Max, as he goes by now, came around the afternoon that the article came out about him, my father ran him off with a shotgun. It was a sight that I'll never forget." He grinned at the memory. "Then that night while the household slept and my parents were out with some friends, I went to see her. We often talked well into the night. She would tell me about talks that she had with you, and I would tell her of my plans to be a rich and famous person. One that could take her away from all that. She told me of her child that night."

He remembered the conversation as if he were there again. "I'm going to have a baby. It's not with a person that I love, but a mistake that I made. I want to keep it, but I'm afraid that I just can't raise a baby. I can barely raise the rent." She'd meant it as a joke, but he didn't laugh. "If only you were a little older, Benny. I'd let you care for me."

"I will." She shook her head and told him it was too late for them. "No, it can't be. I'm in love with you, and will be forever."

Her face had looked so sad that he had felt his heart twist up. He knew that she was going to tell him he was nothing more than a baby and much too young to care for himself, much as she'd said about herself.

"And I love you as well, but not like a woman would a man she will keep in her heart like that. You are and will forever be my best friend. I will call on you when I'm in need, and you'll come to me then. But this baby? I can't raise it alone. I'm going to have to give it up. I've no way of supporting a child right, and I want the very best for it. I can't do that. Neither can you, and you know it. We are both victims of our circumstances." He'd not understood her then, but he did think about her words often. Looking at the men in front of him again, shaking off the memory of her words, he finished his story.

"It was well after midnight when I went home to get something for her. I had taken to writing down prose, and she would tell me where I'd misspelled something or what needed work. As I was returning, I heard her speaking. I thought she was on the phone, but when I came all the way into her living room, I could see Max there." Jefferson remembered thinking at the time he should have gone and called his dad. Every time he thought of Max and Sydney that night, he knew that he'd been just as responsible for her death as Max had been. Maybe more so.

Jefferson got up to pace. He could no longer sit there and have them…they would think him a coward. He did that often enough. So he paced so that he'd not have to see their faces when he told them the rest of what had happened that night.

"Max told her that it was her fault that he'd been run out of town. He blamed her for his landlord demanding his rent too. Something I guess he'd let go for a few months, I found out later. I also found out a great many things, but.... When she told him that she had done it, taken out the ad in the paper and would again, he slapped her." His steps grew slower as he remembered it all. "As she lay there, bleeding from her head, he tied her arms above her head and then cut her clothing off. When she woke, screaming at him, he took a pillow and stuffed it over her face while he…he—"

"He raped her." Jefferson nodded at Trent. "Go on. What did he do next? There were cuts to her leg and a wound on her head."

"She hit the fireplace when she went down. I think that was what had knocked her out at first. The cut on her leg happened when Max used a knife to cut away her clothing. I saw him cut deeply into her, then laugh about it." He waited for them, any of them, to ask him why he'd not saved her, but they all sat there, waiting on him to finish. "After he raped her, she bled a great deal. I think that might have been when she lost her child. But when he stood up, pulling his clothing back on himself, I could see that she was dead. Her chest no longer moved when he moved the pillow off her face."

"Did he see you?" Jefferson shook his head at Noah's question. "You did the right thing, Jefferson. Had you gone in there with him, tried to help her in any way, you would have died as well. You know that, don't you?"

"I could have saved her." He broke down then, admitting for the first time in his short life that he'd done nothing to help her. He sobbed, like the child he'd been all those years ago when he'd let the only woman he'd ever love lay there and be killed. "She lay there, broken and bleeding, and I did nothing."

"But you did. You saved her dignity and you were her friend. Are you the one that put the marker on her grave?" He nodded, not knowing how Noah would have been able to find that out. "I went to the city records and did some digging. I found that a person who wanted to remain anonymous had requested her ashes, and they were buried soon after. I knew that it had to be you when we starting putting two and two together. That was very kind of you. I wish I could have helped you with that. It was a great undertaking that you've done for her."

"She might be alive had I done something sooner." TJ told him that he'd be dead too, that Max was a ruthless bastard. "You don't know the half of it. He's a slimy bastard too. And more than that, I think that he's killed more than just Sydney. Also, I wanted to say that I'm glad that you pulled from the deal when you did. I didn't know until after the fact what he was up to with your company. I want to ruin him, but not at the expense of others."

"What is he up to, do you know?" Jefferson nodded at Trent and went to his desk again and pulled out a small remote. The projector slid from the wall at the press of a button, and he touched his fingers to the camera behind him. "That's quite impressive, if I do say so myself."

"It was in the house when I bought it. I fell in love with watching old reel to reels that I would find. Sorry, but this is just a thumb drive of a conversation that I got when Max had a meeting in his office. And yes, I bugged his offices and his home, as well as his cars and some of his jewelry. I know everything there is to know about the man." He grinned at Trent when he told him he needed him to come work for him. "My parents were indulgent and got me all the newest gadgets that came along. I miss them dearly, but they left me very comfortable. I will help you with projects…it would be my pleasure to do so. But this conversation, it was taken a few weeks ago."

As the video ran, he sat down and watched them instead of the recording. He knew it by heart, every word, every gesture, as well as the amount of money that was exchanged between the two men. There wasn't anything in there that could be used in a court of law, but plenty enough to make these men aware of the bastard they had nearly done business with.

Max had made a deal with the devil. Not only that, but he'd really fucked everyone over in a very short amount of time while he'd been at it. This man was there to get the money that had been earmarked to pay the retirement funds of the people that worked for them. The money was going to an overseas account, and this man was only one of several who was sending it there for him. Jefferson had put it back and kept Max from it, but it did show how ruthless and terrible a person Max really was. Then he watched Trent carefully when Max talked about the loan he was getting from the man's firm.

"Christ, he was going to take it all and run." Jefferson nodded at Trent. "I would have been bankrupt. I mean…Christ, I would have gone to jail if this hadn't been stopped. He was saying things…the man was going to ruin me. And for what? A few million dollars? What the fuck was I supposed to do? I can't believe this."

"He would have killed you as well. It's the way that he does things." He handed him the last sheet of paper. "And he has a list of men that were to murder you so he could collect on the insurance policy that he'd taken out on you. I've taken the liberty of cancelling the hits and changing the beneficiaries to your parents' names. I do hope that is all right."

Trent nodded as they rewound and watched the video again. The man in the shot was now dead; he'd been killed a few days ago. Jefferson wasn't sure who had done it, but he was reasonably sure it had been Max. The man had wanted his money up front, and Max didn't have it…and never would. Now he was lying in a morgue without a name to go with his body, and Jefferson was sure, like with Sydney, there were many more bodies.

"I'm going to ruin the man. I'm going to make sure that he pays for every crime that I've found on him. And when he's caught, I'm going to tell him just who I am." Noah said he'd like to help. "I think I'd like that."