Chapter 4: Reflection and Resolution

He was surprised when Hellcat had them stop and change back into their civilian clothes until she explained that Sleuth would meet them at Jake’s condo. For some reason this bothered him. This was superhero business. He was already furious that Bishop had brought the fight to his personal oasis of normalcy. But that’s where Sleuth wanted to meet and they couldn’t very well show up in uniform. It was bad enough that billionaire Veronica DeVries would be slumming at a middle-class condo, but at least she changed her hair and wore clothes her society friends wouldn’t be caught dead in. She couldn’t seem to hide her bearing, but as far as disguises went it would have to do.

When they reached the condo, Jake found the door already unlocked and Kate snacking on a toaster pastry in the kitchen. The pleasing aroma of fruit filling wafting through the house told him she’d even used his toaster to heat it up.

“Oh, hey,” he said. “Come on in. Make yourself at home.”

Kate snorted then coughed on a piece of pastry that went down the wrong pipe. Served her right. After recovering, she set the snack aside and seemed to be looking for something in his expression. Whatever she saw caused her to grapple him in a hug.

“Hey big guy. How you holding up?” she asked softly.

Jake, stiff at first, allowed himself to relax into her embrace and hugged her in return. “I’ll be better when this nightmare is behind me.”

Kate released her grasp and stepped back from him, again searching his face. After a quick glance to Veronica standing behind him, she announced “I know it may be painful, but let’s go to the scene of the crime.”

Yesterday’s Jake would have made a joke about finally getting two women in his bedroom, but today he just nodded and led them down the hall.

Entering the room, he immediately noted that the bed had been made. Most likely the sheets were clean too. Before he could follow that train of thought, Kate took a running jump and bellyflopped onto the bed, ruining the blanket’s smooth surface. Rolling over, she beckoned to her friends. Straight-laced Veronica sat on the edge facing the door. Jake tried to do the same, but Kate pulled on his shoulder until the upper half of his body lay back, his feet still on the floor. Her lap made for a hard pillow.

“I now call the Jake Bryant fan club meeting to order,” Kate announced.

“Kaaaate,” Jake growled.

“Okay. I’m sorry. I was just trying to lighten the tension. And we really are your fan club,” Kate announced. “Anyway, Veronica why don’t you tell us what you learned from talking to Smackdown?”

Jake felt a pang of disappointment. When she’d wanted them in the bedroom he had hoped that Kate would point out hologram projectors, trick mirrors, or some other simple explanation.

Veronica didn’t take Kate’s cue, instead sitting silently with her shoulders slumped. He was again remined of that day at her penthouse months ago. He closed his eyes and braced himself for whatever was about to come.

“Veronica?” Kate prompted.

“Do I have to?”

Jake felt his insides clench and Kate’s tone softened in her reply. “It’s an important piece of the picture. It’ll be okay.”

“Your identity is safe.”

He understood the words, but for some reason he couldn’t get them to connect. “What?”

“Smackdown his harmless,” Veronica said miserably. “His threat had nothing to do with your identity, which he doesn’t know.”

“Then what—?”

“Smackdown saw you coughing coming out of the free legal clinic last night and realized you still had to breath. The idiot thought he’d stumbled across some great secret vulnerability he’d sell to the highest bidder,” Veronica said.

Jake had a flashback. Looking down on Earth’s curvature from the edge of the atmosphere, his lungs burning as he gasped for air that wasn’t there.

Kate ran her fingers through his hair, trying to calm him, and picked up the story.

“As soon as I got back to my place this morning I hacked Terri’s phone and your cellular provider. It was always possible that the whole thing was a setup, which is why Veronica questioned Smackdown. Now we have both sides of the story.”

“We do?”

“Yes,” she said simply.

Jake waited, but Kate remained silent. He opened his eyes and looked up into her face. Her eyes were filled with tears. “What?”

“It wasn’t a setup,” she said, her voice breaking. “She wasn’t tricked. She’s been cheating on you with a trauma surgeon from work. I’ve got more than two months of text messages, cell phone GPS intersections of when they met, the whole thi—”

Jake’s head spun and his stomach rebelled. He launched off the bed, bounced off the doorframe into the master bathroom, and barely made it to the toilet before losing what remained of his waffles. Someone darkened the doorway and he weakly waved them away.

The room still spun and he resumed hugging the sides of the commode. His world had turned upside down all over again. He’d latched on to the idea that it had all been a trick because the alternative was too painful. It was a knife in his heart he couldn’t Reflect.

He couldn’t have guessed how long he stayed in that position. Long after his head stopped spinning and his stomach settled, he remained on the floor hugging the cool porcelain. What now?

What now?

The life he’d mapped out was gone. In its place he faced a black, gaping chasm.

What now?

Eventually a leg cramp convinced him he couldn’t stay there forever. He grabbed the bathroom counter and pulled himself to his feet. The picture in the mirror wasn’t pretty. He ran some water in the sink and splashed his face. Marginally better.

In the bedroom, Veronica and Kate both looked almost as stricken as he did. They seemed almost afraid of him. He stood there stupidly, too tired to figure it out.

Kate broke the silence with a timid, little girl voice. “Do ... do you hate me?”

Jake blinked.

“What? No! I ... you two are...” Jake choked on his tears. “ ... all I ... all I have.”

Kate sobbed and flew across the room into his arms. A moment later Veronica joined him, both squeezing him tightly. Before anything more could be said, the sound of the deadbolt unlocking and the front door opening came from the living room.

Jake dropped his arms. Veronica followed suite, but Kate held on for several more seconds until she reluctantly let go at Veronica’s prompting.

“Stay here,” he said in a low voice. He closed the bedroom door behind him as he headed for the living room.

Terri was just setting down her purse by the door when Jake entered the room. His wife looked up in surprise. “Hey. I thought you weren’t going to be back until later. When did you get in?”

He couldn’t answer her because he knew his voice would break. Instead, Jake stood behind his recliner as if it were a shield and tried to get his emotions under control. He’d fought the Mind Hive; he could face his wife.

Terri took a second look at him when he didn’t respond and her face changed to concern. “Baby, what’s wrong? What happened?”

His wife approached him and he shoved out his arm to keep her back. Terri came to a halt, her expression even more concerned. Jake had no idea where to go from here. Terri looked at the outstretched arm in confusion, then must have seen something in his face. He had no idea he was so easy to read but she seemed to deflate a little.

“You know,” she said softly.

Jake still couldn’t trust himself to speak so he just nodded his head. His vision blurred momentarily and he angrily swiped the tears from his eyes with his sleeve. Terri looked as if she wanted to come to him, but after a moment of hesitation backed off instead.

Now it was his wife who was agitated. She moved to the couch and sat down, but bounced up only a few seconds later. Like a trapped animal, her eyes darted all over the room and she suddenly didn’t know what to do with her hands. They fluttered from her sides to her hair to her neck and then back to her sides. Finally, she fled to the kitchen.

Jake used the time that Terri spent stalling in the kitchen to get himself under control. His wife had dispelled any shred of hope that the heroines had been wrong. He told himself his heart couldn’t be any more broken, so he’d just have to power through the next 15 minutes. He could find somewhere to curl up and die afterward.

Eventually Terri came out of the kitchen with two glasses of wine. She held one out to him, but when he made no move to take it she set it on the coffee table and retreated back to the couch.

He still couldn’t bring himself to move from behind the relative safety of his recliner so he just gripped the top of the chair and waited for her to say something. Terri took a gulp of wine, made the briefest eye contact with Jake, then broke away and took another gulp.

Jake waited. It wasn’t a mind game or a power play. He was too close to breaking down again and if he did he wasn’t sure if it would be another trip to the porcelain god or if he’d just go crazy. He wanted to shout at her, to throw the coffee table through the tv, to grab the couch she was sitting on—one they’d made love on once upon a time—and rip it in two. So instead he held himself still and did nothing.