Jackson

It was hard to leave Elisa’s house. Dinner hadn’t exactly went how I had thought, but instead it went better. I was able to forget for a while about going home. As I got into my car I couldn’t help but think that I wanted to stay longer. Now I stood in front of my front door, hand lingering over the door knob. I was unsure of what to expect when I walked inside, but my gut told me that it wasn’t going to exactly be good. I sighed and walked in anyways.

The moment you walk through my front door you’re inside the living room. I glanced around the room and frowned at the figure that sat on my couch. “So, did you have fun?” It asked, it’s voice sounding full of spite. “What are you doing, Sarah?” The woman sitting on the couch was Sarah. My wife. Soon to be ex-wife.

She had her arms crossed, a clear displeased look on her face. “I was waiting for my husband to get home, that’s what I’m doing.” She stood up, tossing a strand of black hair behind her shoulder. As she got closer I could smell the alcohol on her breath. “How much have you drunk tonight?” I questioned. Sarah glared at me, like that was the stupidest question she has ever been asked. “Why does it matter to you? My drinking has nothing to do with you!” I groaned. This wasn’t going to go anywhere.

She got closer, wrapping her arms around me. “How could you leave your lovely wife all alone like that?” She slurred. I pulled back away from her. “Sarah, you know we aren’t together. We’re waiting for the divorce to finalize, remember?” She tsked. “I told you yesterday night I wanted to work things out! Are you seriously wanting to have it finalized?” She was getting angry. Usually when she was angry I would always say what she wanted to hear, trying to prevent another fight, but I knew one way or another if I truly wanted to leave this marriage, I had to stand my ground. “Yes, Sarah, I do.” Before I realized it, she had spit in my face. I gritted my teeth. “What the hell Sarah?!”

She walked back over to the couch, grabbing the drink she had on the table beside it, and took a swig from her drink. “After EVERYTHING we’ve been through, you seriously want to do this?” She then chugged the rest of her drink, looking at her glass and then at me. I nodded. “Yes, I can’t keep doing this with you.” I saw the flash of hate in her eyes. She threw the glass in my direction. I ducked as it shattered against the wall.

“You’re seeing someone else, aren’t you?!” She shrieked. ‘Here we go again.’ I looked at the shattered glass, and instantly felt exhausted. “That’s why you want this so badly! Because you have some slut you’ve been seeing!” I couldn’t take it. “You want to talk about ME seeing someone else? If you want to go down that road, let’s talk about the countless men you’ve cheated on me with!” I hollered. I felt myself getting heated, but at the time it was hard to bring myself to care. She went silent, but I kept on. “What about your current guy, huh? The one who randomly showed up at our door a few months ago pleading to see his son? OUR son? You’ve yet to get a DNA test done to see who Lucas' father is! That was the first time I even found out about the others!” I was still screaming. “This is MY house, the only reason you’re still here is for OUR son! If it wasn’t for him, your sorry ass wouldn’t even be living here right now!”

“I haven’t got the DNA test done yet because I know Lucas is your son Jackson!” Her face had paled, she sat back down on the couch and tears began to fill her eyes. She placed her face into her hands. “Yeah? Then why does he keep coming over while I’m not home and doesn’t leave for hours?” After the first time the man had appeared at our door, I had a security system placed at the front door. Footage would be sent to my phone, and for months now I would see the man coming over to our house, staying for hours. She looked shocked.

“I… I don't know what you’re talking about Jackson!” Her face had guilt written all over it, and I felt sick to my stomach. “You’re really going to sit there and lie to my face about it?” Before she had the chance to speak a small voice called out. “Mommy? Daddy?” I looked behind me. Lucas stood in the doorway, holding his stuffed teddy bear close to his chest. His curly, brunette locks were messy. Looking at him now, it was obvious to me who his father was. Neither I nor his mother had curls, but he did. We both had black hair, while Lucas had brown hair. My eyes were green, Sarah’s were brown, Lucas had blue. None of his facial features looked like me either. At the time I thought he took more after his mother’s side, but after seeing the other man, I couldn’t help but see more of that man in my son than Sarah and her family.

I walked over to Lucas and crouched down to his level, placing both my hands on his shoulders. “Are you okay Lucas?” I knew our screaming must’ve woken him up. Guilt ate at me with that thought. He nodded. “Are you two fighting again?” My heart dropped. All his life I tried to hide him from our issues. I always tried to give him the best. I glanced over at Sarah, she looked to be in no position to offer comfort. “No son, mommy just had a little too much to drink and was getting too excited and hadn’t noticed how loud she had gotten. I also got overly excited too, I’m sorry we woke you up.” He nodded, but the look in his eyes told me he already knew what the truth was.

“Want me to tuck you back into bed?” He broke into a smile. “Yes please!” I wrapped him into my arms, carrying him up the spiral stairs to his bedroom. He squealed the whole way up, and I smiled. I tucked him into bed. “Daddy, will you please stay with me until I fall back asleep?” “Of course.”

Once asleep, I walked back down to Sarah and crossed my arms. “We can’t keep doing this. Our fighting is going to affect him. He’s only nine. He shouldn’t have to keep seeing this. We’re not setting a good example for him when it comes to relationships, Sarah.” I said sternly. “You’re going to get a DNA test done, if not, I’ll take it to court and hopefully have a test ordered. It’s up to you how this goes.” I turned my back to head up to my room, then stopped. I looked back at her, “Oh, and you’re sleeping on the couch tonight.” I went to my room and locked the bedroom door behind me, rubbing my face from exhaustion as I got into bed.

I remember the day that Lucas had been born and we brought him home. Sarah was exhausted but she beamed with happiness. We were going to have our family over to meet our baby. Thanks to growing up with my grandmother for a few years I was able to grow a closer relationship with an aunt and uncle of mine. At the time, the only siblings I had contact with had all gone their separate ways and none were going to be there, but my aunt and uncle were. Sarah’s sisters and parents were coming. Today we were going to have a baby shower. Sarah and her family didn’t believe in baby showers until the baby was born, thinking it would bring bad luck.

I was busying myself in the kitchen, preparing some food for our family to enjoy while Sarah was in the living room with the baby. I was pulling the last dish out from the oven when there was a knock at the door. My aunt and uncle had been the ones to arrive first, but shortly after them had come Sarah’s family.

“Welcome everyone!” I hugged all of them. They were all excited to meet baby Lucas. “So where is the little guy?” My aunt asked. “Follow me.” I led them all to where Sarah and Lucas were. Sarah looked up and smiled at everyone. Lucas was awake, looking around at everyone. He had already been born with hair on top of his head, his baby hair was extremely curly, and his eyes were the brightest blue eyes I had ever seen. I watched as everyone cooed over him, except my aunt and uncle. They both were staring at Lucas with a curious look. They caught me staring and looked away.

“I’m going to go get everyone their food, any special request for drinks?” My aunt stood up. “Let me help you.” I was thankful for the help. In the kitchen as we were fixing plates, my aunt stopped. “Jackson.” She said in a whispered tone. “Yeah?” I questioned. She looked me in the eyes, frowning. She got closer to me. “What I’m about to say, you don’t repeat to anyone, not even Sarah, okay?” I started getting worried. “Okay… What is it?” She inhaled. “Jackson, Lucas isn’t your son.” My heart felt like it had stopped beating. “What do you mean he isn’t mine?”

She glanced towards the doorway, it was obvious she wasn’t wanting anyone to overhear. “Have you taken a good look at him? He looks nothing like you. I’m only telling you because I feel it in my gut that he isn’t your son.” Her words felt like someone was stabbing me in the chest. “Look, we just brought our son home. I’m going to pretend like I never heard you tell me that, okay?” She nodded, and we silently fixed the rest of everyone’s plates.

After a month or so, I had pushed what my aunt said to the back of my mind. As I watched him grow over the years, what she told me would surface to my mind.

“I was thinking, Lucas doesn’t have many features that look like me,” I said aloud to Sarah one day. Lucas was already asleep in bed, Sarah and I were sitting out on the back porch. At the time we had our own private land that went on for acres, so if we ever had a screaming match, no one would hear it but us, and Lucas, if he woke up to it.

Sarah had frowned, crossing her arms. “Are you about to say you don’t think he’s your son?” She sounded defensive, I couldn’t help but find that weird. “No, I was just saying that because I had been hoping he would have looked more like me, that’s all.” She was still frowning. “Well, have you thought that maybe he just took more after my side of the family? My great grandmother had really curly hair, and my father has blue eyes. He just took after us. Now get what your aunt said out of your head!” I eyed her suspiciously. ‘I thought her dad had brown eyes?’ I should have known back then something was wrong.

Before Lucas had been born, Sarah had started going out more, she would always smell kind of strange when she got home, and she would be drunk. It happened more and more. We started fighting over her drinking, fighting about why she was going out all night and not coming home until early morning. We would fight over the smallest things. Once she had found out she was pregnant it stopped. It all picked back up after he had been born. It turns out Sarah had heard what my aunt told me, and it caused a lot of issues. Everything was a fight.

Eventually I was offered a better position within my career with the police. I had decided to take the offer, which meant we had to move out of state. I bought more land and had a new house built before we moved. Sarah and I agreed that the move would be our new start, we would go to marriage counseling, we’d stop all the fighting, she wouldn’t drink anymore. It did start off like that, and I had thought our marriage could be saved, until the day he showed up.

At the time I was at home, it was my day off. Lucas was at school. He had just turned nined the day before. Sarah was upstairs in our bedroom. There was a knock at the door. It had only been three months since we moved in. I got up and opened the door. A man standing at least 5’8 was nervously rubbing his hands together in front of my door. “Can I help you?” I asked curiously. “Is Sarah home?” This struck a nerve. “I’m sorry, but who are you? Why are you asking for my wife?” The man's eyes widened. “Oh! I had no idea she was married now. I wanted to speak to Sarah about me being able to see my son.” I looked him up and down. Blue eyes. Curly, brunette hair. His face looked just like Lucas, or yet, Lucas looked just like this man.

“I said, tell me who you are.” I said through gritted teeth. “My name is Daniel. I'm Sarah's ex.” I eyed him. “Why did you two break up?” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I found out she had been cheating on me with a few other guys. I left her when I found out. Anyways, can I please talk to her?” I felt anger boil up inside of me. “SARAH!” I yelled out. “GET DOWN HERE NOW!” I heard her footsteps come running down the stairs. “What’s wrong honey, you sound-” She stopped in her tracks when she saw Daniel at the door. Her face fell. He gave her a small wave.

“What are you doing here?” She hissed at him as she approached the door, her arms crossed. “I came to see my son. That’s why I’m here.” She looked at me then back at him, her face had gone extremely pale. “Your son? We dated way before we ever got together.” Daniel looked at me and frowned. “I’ve seen pictures of him. He looks nothing like this guy. He looks like me. We broke up a month before you found out you were pregnant Sarah!” I clenched my fist. “How did you find out she had been pregnant?” Daniel looked like he pitied me. “Her family told me. I was really close to them. They were how I found out about her cheating. When they told me she was pregnant I tried to get back with her, but she told me she recently got with someone new. Then after that I was never able to get a hold of her again.”

I looked over at Sarah. “Someone new? We had been dating for years before we got married. You found out you were pregnant sometime after our marriage!” Daniel shook his head. “Sorry dude, she was with me and was seeing other guys on the side. If I had known she was married I never would have done anything with her.” I felt anger boil inside me. I couldn’t be angry with someone who didn’t know, but I was severely pissed at Sarah. “Your family told me that he was my son. If he is, I want to be part of his life.” Daniel sounded pleading now. It felt like my head was overloading. I had to sit down.

“You two talk it out, I’m going to sit down.” Daniel looked worriedly at me while Sarah just stared coldly at me. ‘Funny how the guy she cheated on me with is worried about me while she isn’t.’ I laughed to myself.

“Jackson.” Sarah sat down beside me after a while. “We need to talk.” I agreed. We did. “Tell me the truth.” She looked down at the floor. “I did cheat on you before and after we got married.” I gritted my teeth. “However, I can promise that Lucas is yours!” I frowned. “No, I want a DNA test. If he belongs to Daniel then Daniel deserves to see his son. Also, after today, I want a divorce.”

After that day I had her sign a contract stating that we were no longer together, that the house was solely mine. After the amount of time passed, I went and filed for divorce. We fought multiple times over it. She didn’t want to get a divorce, I did. For months it was put on, until one day she signed it. Of course I had been told it would be a while to be finalized, but I felt relieved.

Before I had taken out divorce papers, Sarah started seeing other men again. I no longer had love for her. I refused to continue living the way we were. I knew one of the guys was Daniel. I had the feeling that she was letting him see Lucas, so I had cameras installed, and my gut feeling had been right. Daniel was coming over. I felt numb.

I woke up the next day with a headache. There were small knocks at my door. “Yes?” “Daddy!” Lucas called out. I looked at the clock and froze. It was 10 o’clock. Lucas should have been at school already. Sarah was supposed to take him. I jumped out of bed, throwing my clothes on. I opened the door. “Baby, why aren’t you at school?” He looked down. “Mommy said she didn’t feel like taking me this morning, then she left.” I clenched my fist. “I’ll take you, okay? So go get ready.” He ran off to his room. I was tired of her shit.

“I’m sorry I’m so late.” Elisa was at my desk, looking like a lost puppy. I couldn’t help but find it cute. She waved her hand. “Oh, don’t worry about it. Are you okay?” I knew my hair was sticking out from me practically running inside of the building. I quickly pushed my hair back to look more straight and I smiled. “Yeah, just taking my son to school.” She eyed me curiously. “You have a son? How old is he?” I bit my lip. “Uh, he’s nine. His mother was supposed to take him this morning but… Well, something came up and she didn’t but I wasn’t woken up to be the one to take him so I took him when I got up.” She gave a sympathetic smile. “I’m sorry it’s been a rough morning.” I appreciated her kindness. “It’s okay. Are you ready to start the day?” She nodded.

“I looked more into it, but my stepfather had been working at a life insurance company. It’s not a well known one though. It’s more of the kind of company that answers calls for other businesses.It’s kind of a small building off of main street.” Elisa said.

We were already heading to the company in question, I noted how by itself the building was. We parked in front of the building and walked in. There was no front desk, as soon as you walked in all you saw were separated mini offices, and you could hear phones ringing, then being answered.

“Hello there officers, how may I help you?” A young man said as he approached us. He was dressed very formally, he looked like he was more than a regular employee. “We’re looking for a supervisor. Can you help us?” He smiled. “That would be me. How can I help the two of you?” I looked towards Eliza.

She stepped forward. “Were you the supervisor in charge here three years ago?” The man nodded. “Do you remember an employee by the name Caden Hutckins?” The man bit his lip, but nodded. “Yes, I do. He was one of our best employees. His death was a terrible loss.” “He was my stepfather.” Elisa may have looked fine on the outside, but I could tell this was bothering her. “Well, first of all, I was his supervisor William Harris.” William held out his hand, we both took his hand and shook it. “We just want to ask, the week before he did, did anything seem off? Did he make any reports of someone following him?”

William thought for a second, then ran his fingers through his shortcut blond hair. “He made a report saying he felt like someone was following him. I asked if he reported it to the police. He said he had. He seemed genuinely worried, so I started keeping an eye out more. I noticed whenever he left work this blue van always followed him a good bit behind. He always started to receive strange calls at work all throughout the day. He seemed disturbed. I also made a report to the police, but they didn’t take it seriously. The night he had been murdered, someone had broken in and only taken from Caden’s desk. When the police who originally were investigating came by, I told them all of this, but I have no idea of where that led the case to. I’m guessing because you two are here, it didn’t go anywhere and it’s being looked into again?” I looked at Elisa. “Yeah, it is. There was a whole family who was murdered. We believe it’s the same guy. We also wanted to know if any employees that might have been friends with him back then still worked here?”

William nodded again. “Oh yes, two of them do. Both of them aren’t here today though. One got into an accident and is still in the hospital, the other one had asked for this week off to go out of state to visit some family.” I took a pen from my pocket and took the pad that Elisa always carried when interviewing people and wrote down our numbers. “Call us if you find anything out, and have them give us a call when they come back.” William took the paper. “Will do. Have a good day officers.”

“Well that was kind of a bust.” Elisa muttered. I shared her aggravation. “Well we were able to get a little more information than what we had. It just pisses me off how badly the police failed your stepfather.” Elisa was looking down. It was silent until I looked into the rearview mirror. A white pickup truck was behind us. I kept driving, it followed.

“Elisa, I think we’re being followed.” She glanced at her side view mirror and hummed. “It seems so. I wonder what they-” Her sentence was cut off by the sound of a gun going off. The back windshield shattered. The driver in the truck was holding a gun out of his window, pointing at us. I pressed my foot to the gas, more gunshots going off.

Elisa picked up the radio. “This is officer Reynolds, we have a white pickup truck behind us firing shots at us, we need back up. We just turned off of main street, heading towards Summers Rd.” Another shot fired. I swerved to avoid it, taking a sharp right onto Summers Rd. The station wasn’t far. I heard sirens heading our direction. The truck driver must have to, because he wouldn’t dare turn down the road after us. He continued driving.

I stopped the car and looked at Elisa. “Are you okay? You didn’t get hit, did you?” She shook her head. Police vehicles pulled up around us, and we got out of the car. We looked at one another. We knew what just happened.

The killer felt threatened, and he was sending us a warning to back off or be killed.