Page 50 of Carved

Janine's eyes sharpen with understanding, but she doesn't push. Instead, she closes the laptop with a decisive snap. "That's enough of that nonsense. You don't need to read their version of events."

But I do need to read it. I need to understand exactly what story the world is telling about Harry Jenkins, because that story will shape how people see me, how they treat me, what they expect from me going forward. The grieving daughter of a hero cop carries different social weight than the grateful survivor of a child abuser.

The phone lights up again—Channel 7 News this time. Janine declines it without even looking.

"How long will this last?" I ask.

"A few days, maybe a week. Until the next tragedy captures their attention." Janine reaches across the table to squeeze my hand. "I won't let them get to you, sweetheart. You don't have to talk to anyone you don't want to talk to."

The protection in her voice is genuine, fierce in ways I've never experienced before. Someone actually shielding me from harm instead of being the source of it. The unfamiliarity of it makes my throat tight with emotions I don't know how to name.

"What if they keep calling? What if they show up here?"

"Then we'll deal with it. Together." Janine's grip on my hand tightens. "You're not alone in this, Delilah. You don't have to carry this by yourself."

If only she knew what I'm actually carrying. Not just grief for a dead father, but gratitude for his killer. Not just trauma from years of abuse, but a confession tape that could destroy half the police department. Not just the weight of loss, but the burden of maintaining a lie that protects the truth from people who would never be able to handle it.

The phone lights up again. This time it's a number I don't recognize, probably another media outlet fishing for an exclusive interview with the tragic orphan. I watch Janine decline it with practiced efficiency, her movements sharp with protective anger.

"They're like scavengers," she mutters. "Feeding on other people's pain."

"What did they do when Mom died?" I ask, surprising myself with the question. I've never talked about my mother's death with anyone except therapists and police investigators, never explored what the media coverage looked like from the outside.

Janine goes very still. "It was different then. Smaller story, less dramatic. 'Local Woman Dies in Car Accident' doesn't capture headlines the way 'Hero Cop Brutally Murdered' does."

"But they covered it?"

"Some. Mostly because of your father's position, the tragedy of a police officer losing his wife, leaving behind a young daughter." Janine's voice carries careful neutrality, but I catch the undertone of something sharper. "The narrative was very focused on his grief, his struggle as a single father."

His grief. His struggle. Even my mother's death became about him, about his loss rather than the destruction of a woman who'd been trying to escape. I wonder what the real story was, what details never made it into those carefully crafted news reports.

I wonder if Janine suspected then what I know now about the nature of that "accident."

"Delilah," Janine says carefully, "can I ask you something?"

My body goes tense automatically, muscle memory from years of loaded questions. "Okay."

"What really happened that night? When you came home and found him?"

The question hangs in the air between us, loaded with implications I'm not sure either of us is ready to address. Because Janine isn't just asking about the timeline of events. She's asking about the truth underneath the official story, about the things that don't quite add up in my carefully rehearsed account.

"I told the police everything," I say, falling back on the script I've practiced. "I came home from work around eleven, found the front door unlocked, called out for Dad but didn't get an answer. When I went to the kitchen…." I let my voice break slightly, the perfect performance of traumatic recall. "There was so much blood."

Janine nods, but something in her expression suggests she's not entirely satisfied with the official version. "It must have been terrifying. Coming home alone, finding him like that."

"It was." The lie tastes bitter on my tongue, because the truth is I felt safer in that blood-soaked kitchen than I hadanywhere else in that house for sixteen years. "I keep thinking about how scared he must have been, how much pain he was in."

Another lie, because the confession tape upstairs documents exactly how much pain he was in and why he deserved every second of it. But Janine doesn't know about the tape, doesn't know about Kent, doesn't know that her traumatized niece is actually someone who watched justice being served and felt nothing but relief.

"The police think it might have been connected to one of his cases," I continue, sticking to the narrative Detective Rivas established. "Someone he arrested who wanted revenge."

"That makes sense," Janine says, but her tone suggests she's still processing something. "Your father dealt with a lot of dangerous people over the years. Made a lot of enemies."

Made a lot of enemies.The phrase could describe his professional life or his personal one, depending on how much Janine actually knows about the man her sister married. How much she suspected about what went on behind closed doors in that house on Oakwood Street.

The phone lights up again—another unknown number. Janine glances at it with growing irritation.

"Maybe I should just turn it off completely," she says.