Stalker On Mountain Ridge

Chapter 4 - Letting Go

Jonah POV

October 17

Emily and I had awakened that morning with a nagging feeling that something wasn’t right, and our first instinct was to go check on Avery—now that we were able. I don’t know what I’d expected to find when we got there, but it certainly wasn’t a tow truck and a charity van parked in the driveway. I parked my truck off to the side, out of the way, and looked over at Emily. We exchanged looks of confusion, then shrugged and emerged from the vehicle to go in search of the home’s owner. 

My mouth dropped open when I saw Cal’s prized Porsche being backed out of the garage and driven up onto the flatbed of the tow truck. I nearly fell to my knees when they wheeled out his Harley and loaded it up behind the car. When they started to secure the chains, I had to look away. There were a lot of memories tied to both of those vehicles and watching them being hauled away was just another reminder that Cal was gone.

I took a moment to gather myself, then joined Emily at the bottom of the porch steps. She pivoted and watched with wide eyes as men with lanyards strode from the house loaded down with boxes and bags. 

“What in the world is going on here?” she asked, fixing her stunned expression on me.

“I have no idea.”

Tentatively, we stepped into the house and scanned the great room for signs of Avery. We listened to see if we could hear her voice, but with the exception of the sounds of material brushing together as the men walked back and forth, there was nothing. 

“Avery?” Emily called out, moving further into the house. 

“Bedroom!” Avery yelled back.

As familiar with this house as we were our own, Emily and I turned down the hallway on the right and walked into the master suite at the end. Avery was nowhere in sight. Emily turned a circle and just as she opened her mouth to call out, we heard the clacking of hangers coming from the closet. My brows furrowed, questions burned in my mind when we stepped to the open door, but I held my silence.

Avery was inside with a box at her feet and one of Cal’s baseball jerseys in her hand. 

Emily, however, would not keep silent, and asked, “Um, what’s up, Ave?” as her eyes swept over the half-empty racks of clothes.

Avery dropped the shirt in the box and smiled over her shoulder. “Hey! I wasn’t expecting you guys today,” she said, pulling another shirt from its hanger. “I’m clearing out Cal’s things.” She waited a beat after dropping the shirt, then reached for another. “It’s time,” she murmured, without facing us.

Knowing better than to argue, Emily stepped around the box and lay her head on Avery’s shoulder. “Anything we can do to help?”

Avery didn’t say anything. She just dropped her hands and stood there motionless. Her eyes stared unblinking at the row of shirts yet to be packed, and within them, I could see her struggle to remain in control. Emily wrapped her arms around her waist and murmured to her.

“It’s okay to still be grieving, Ave. There is nothing saying that you have to be ready for anything at any specific time.”

I wanted to step in with them, but after last night, I didn’t trust myself anymore, so I remained where I was, leaning against the door jamb, hoping that my presence was comfort enough. When the fight finally went out of her, Avery turned into Emily’s arms and released the sorrow she’d been fighting to hold at bay. Over her shoulder, Emily looked at me, a silent plea in her eyes. I understood what she was asking and nodded before leaving them alone in the closet.

 Out in the living room, I stopped one of the men from the charity as he was coming back in for another box. He was a large man with a big barrel chest and hands that looked as big as my face. His friendly smile did little to ease the trepidation his size inspired. 

“Excuse me… Would it be possible to schedule another day to pick up the rest? Mrs. Campbell is understandably struggling with letting go of her husband’s things,” I explained.

The man’s smile faded and was replaced with an expression of sympathy. “Absolutely.” He reached into his pocket and handed me a business card. “You tell Ms. Campbell that she’s welcome to call us anytime and we will come finish the job that same day.”

When the man offered his hand, I hesitated only briefly before accepting it. I was surprised by how firm, yet gentle the man’s grip was. Clearly, he was aware of his size and power. After he left, I looked outside and noticed that the tow truck was gone. I closed and locked the front door, then went to the garage and flipped the switch to lower the garage door. Seeing only Avery’s blue Hyundai Elantra in the garage was jarring. Cal had been gone for four months and yet, being here in this house, I still expected him to come striding in with that slightly crooked grin on his face and a beer in each hand.

“Come and see the modification I made on the bike, Jonah,” I expected him to say while motioning for me to follow.

Avery POV

Jonah had sent everyone away, I realized as I stepped into the living room after getting myself back together. I didn’t know if I should feel relieved or annoyed. I was a stickler for schedules and calling a premature ending to the task I’d been trying to complete, pushed mine back a bit. I had to admit, the pressure I’d been feeling in my chest had lessened. Perhaps the schedule I’d set for myself was too ambitious. Maybe Emily was right, and I had been trying to do too much too fast. 

Thank God for Jonah and Emily. 

No one, other than Cal, knew me quite so well or connected with me so deeply. They always seemed to know when their presence was needed, even without being called. And they came without being asked. If you were their friend, they were always ready to offer a shoulder to cry on, an ear to listen while you ranted, or a hand when you needed help. 

I sat down on the sofa and allowed Emily to fuss because it made her happy. She brushed my hair back from my face and pressed a tissue into my hand. 

“I’ll go get you something to drink,” she said and walked away. She paused just outside the hall to the kitchen. “Water? Beer? Coffee? What would you like, hun?”

“Water is fine, Em, thank you,” I answered and patted away the remaining moisture on my cheeks. “I’m sorry I’m so emotional. It’s probably because I didn’t get much sleep last night,” I said, lifting my voice so it would carry to Emily.

She came back in with two bottles of water. “That should have told you that you were putting too much pressure on yourself.”

Emily handed me a bottle as she lowered herself down on the couch next to me. 

“It wasn’t that. Someone decided to play a sick prank on me last night.”

“What kind of sick prank?” Jonah asked as he emerged from the hall.

I looked up and met his eyes briefly, then twisted the cap off my bottle. “They hung a dead cat from my porch roof,” I told him, shivering slightly at the memory.

Emily gasped. “Who would do such a thing?”

“I don’t know. The only socializing Cal and I did was with you guys. I don’t even know our neighbors’ names.” I took a sip of water. “The police said it was most likely just some kids out to cause a little trouble.”

“It’s good you called the police. If it happens again, they’ll know it wasn’t an isolated incident,” Emily said.

I shook my head and twisted my face in disgust. “Well, I sincerely hope it was an isolated incident. No one needs to experience that. I’m surprised I’m not deaf, to be honest. I screamed so loud I swear it shook the walls.”

“You should have called us.” There was an edge to Jonah’s voice that drew my gaze to his. Olivia called him brother bear, but it hadn’t been a joke. He was extremely protective, almost to the point of being annoying. 

I took another sip and tried for nonchalance. “It was some kid’s idea of a sick joke, Jonah. No big deal.”

It was a big deal. It had scared the hell out of me, but I’d be damned if I’d admit it. If Jonah thought for one moment that I was afraid to be here alone, he’d pack me a bag and haul me off to stay with him and Emily. 

Leah and Mason had already been making noises about me buying a condo in the city. Both felt my home was too isolated and therefore, unsafe. The fact that Jonah and Emily lived just five minutes down the mountain did little to ease their minds. If anything, it encouraged them further.

You can’t rely on Jonah and Emily to come to your rescue all the time, Avery. 

What are you going to do when they start having kids and can’t be there when you need them?

They have their own lives.

If there was an argument to be used, they used it, and when they did, the calls would end in anger and a period of no contact. I hated being pressured to do things I didn’t want to do. It was especially irksome when that pressure came from people who were not part of my everyday life. I loved my brother and sister dearly, but they both lived on the opposite side of the country and knew precious little about my life, other than what I told them.  

I looked up at Jonah, his jaw was tight, and I could tell that he wanted to argue with me about the severity of the situation. From the corner of my eye, I saw Emily shake her head at him. Instead of arguing, Jonah sat down in the chair and glared at me without saying anything further.

Emily POV

“You’re awful quiet,” I said to Jonah as we drove home from Avery’s that evening. “What’s on your mind?”

He glanced over at me, then caught my hand in his and brushed his lips over the back of it. “I’m just a little unnerved by that cat thing,” he answered.

A chill slithered down my spine. “Eww. Me, too… You were going to push her into coming to stay with us, weren’t you?”

“I was going to suggest it. I wouldn’t say I was going to push.”

I giggled. “Jonah. You don’t suggest things, you demand them. Especially when it comes to the wellbeing of the people you care about.”

“I do not demand. I request…strongly,” he claimed in his defense and shot me a quick flash of a smile.

I request…strongly.

I couldn’t help but smirk at his description. It brought to mind the argument between Jonah and his mother when she told him that she had cancer. We’d been newly dating at that time and he’d lived in a condo near downtown Los Angeles. Suddenly, the small two-bedroom house he’d bought for her in Culver City was too big for her to take care of in her condition. He’d insisted that she needed to focus all her energy on beating cancer, not doing housework, and tending her yard, and she most certainly didn’t need to be working. They’d argued for over an hour before she finally gave in and agreed to move in with him. 

From that day forth, he made sure she had everything she needed, and took only local jobs with the understanding that he could leave the set at any time should his mother need him. It had actually been written into his contract. When she became too ill to care for herself and refused to let him tend her, he hired a team of nurses to be on hand twenty-four hours a day. Her last week of life, he took a leave of absence from the film he’d been working on and stayed by her side around the clock, only leaving to shower, and only if Millie or I sat with her. He was adamant that she would not die alone. 

Jonah’s need to fix things for those he loved was both his greatest attribute and greatest flaw. While he would go above and beyond for his friends and family, sacrificing his own needs for theirs’, he could also be a bit too insistent. If I hadn’t been there to stop him, he would have packed a bag for Avery and dragged her out of the house kicking and screaming, all in the name of protecting her. Unfortunately for Jonah, Avery was fiercely independent and stubborn, and that situation would likely have ended badly. 

Cal’s death had been the only time she’d voluntarily reached out for help. It was the only time, in the three years we’d known her, that she’d ever admitted that she couldn’t handle something. She’d suffered the loss of loved ones before, but this was the first time that the responsibility for those final details fell on her. Her parents had planned the funerals of all four grandparents. Her father had handled the funeral planning for her mother without including either of the children, while his funeral arrangements were handled by Leah and his secretary.

When Cal died, his parents were too distraught to do more than suggest a funeral home, and Avery was left to deal with the details on her own. The look on her face after that phone call had been heartbreaking. She’d looked so lost and confused, sitting at the dining room table, staring at the funeral home information she’d scribbled on the legal pad in front of her. 

~Flashback~

“They’re not going to help me,” she whispered, then was taken under by another vicious wave of grief.

Jonah and I flanked her, cradling her between us and holding her as tight as possible while she sobbed.

“I can’t do this.” She repeated the words like a mantra. “I can’t.”

“We’ll help you, Avery. Whatever you need from us, you got it,” Jonah said, lifting her chin to look in her eyes.