SCARRED - Part 5 by Kylie Walker Page B

have power of attorney so they can scan or fax things to either of us if they need a signature. They’re just all so saddened and they seem kind of lost without him.”
    “I know how they feel,” she said.
    He nodded. “Me too. I need to go by the marina and check on the yacht. Do you want to just get something to eat on the pier?”
    “That sounds good.”
    Jake asked the driver to take them down to the marina. As soon as they turned into the parking lot, Chloe felt sad. She thought about the last time she and Derek had stayed on the boat together. It was the night that she’d been sure Jesse was watching them. She’d had that feeling many times since. She’d even begun to start trying to plan a way that she could be alone, just to get it over with. She didn’t want anyone else around when she took Jesse on. She couldn’t bear for anyone else to get hurt.
    She and Jake went onto the boat and Jake went down into the engine room to check on things down there while Chloe cleaned the old things out of the refrigerator. She had the water on washing dishes when she heard a creak. It sounded like someone stepping on an old wood floor...or the wooden stairs that led down to the living quarters. She stopped and listened. She didn’t hear anything else, so she went back to her dishes. A few seconds passed and she heard it again. She turned off the water and said, “Jake?”
    The creaking stopped and no one answered. Her heart began to pound relentlessly inside her chest and her breaths started coming faster. She could almost feel the adrenaline flooding her veins.
    “Jake?” she called out again.
    Silence.
    Chloe dried her hands on the dish towel and took a step towards the stairs. She heard the creak again.
    “Who’s there?”
    Silence.
    She closed the space between her and the foot of the stairs. They went halfway up and then there was a blind curve where you couldn’t see anything until you turned the corner. There was no one on the bottom half.
    “Jake?”
    This time she said it louder.
    Still silence.
    She reached out and took hold of the banister and pulled herself up onto the bottom step. That was when she heard the all-out pounding of footsteps running across the top of the yacht.
    “Jake!” she yelled at the top of her lungs as she ran up. When she reached the top, she slammed into a wall. It was Jake. He’d heard the commotion and heard her call out to him. He’d come up to see what was going on and Chloe ran right into him.
    “Did you see him?”
    “Who? Was Jesse here?”
    Chloe’s heart was slamming so hard against the wall of her chest that she felt like she was having a heart attack. She was trembling. “I didn’t see him. I heard someone on the stairs and when I started up, he took off.”
    “Stay right here,” Jake told her.
    “He’s gone, Jake. He accomplished what he wanted to do today.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “He only wanted to scare me. He accomplished that. It was always one of his favorite things to do. He takes a perverse pleasure in it. It pisses me off!” The fright turned into anger, just like that. “I worked so hard to be ready for him. I did everything I could think of to chase the fear away. I knocked you on your ass; I knocked Max on his ass! I’m ready, damn it! Why the hell does he still scare me?”
    She was trembling and she felt the tears welling up again. One of them started to spill over and she swiped at it with the back of her hand. “Shit! Damn him! Damn him!” She broke down into sobs and Jake took her into his arms and just held her there while she cried. It was several minutes later before she was finally able to pull herself together. When she did, she was embarrassed. “I’m sorry,” she said, wiping at her face once more.
    “Don’t be sorry. He’s pure evil, Chloe. He scares me. It’s normal to be afraid of evil. We wouldn’t be normal if we weren’t. If I knew he was going to come at me face to face and fight me like a man, I wouldn’t