Karen Rose - Have You Seen Her?

"They're a match, aren't they, Kent?"

Kent nodded. "Whoever was in the Clary clearing was in Jenna's apartment that night."

Steven thought of the girls, all pretty, long-haired brunettes with eyes almost the shade of Jenna's. "She was his target all along," he whispered.

"Did she call back yet?" Davies asked.

Steven shook his head, worry and panic eating him up inside. "Allison says she and Seth left a half hour ago. Seth didn't say where they were going."

"Please tell me the man has a cell phone," Davies said grimly.

Steven felt a hysterical laugh bubbling up from his gut. "Oh, yes, he does, but he's got it turned off. Allison said he and Jenna were going to have a talk and he didn't want any interruptions."

Davies clenched his jaw. "If she's with Seth, she's all right. Try not to worry."

Steven's own cell phone jingled. "Thatcher… Thanks, Liz." He disconnected and looked at his team, now gathered around him. "We have a warrant. Let's go pay the Parkers a visit."

Friday, October 14, 5:45 P.M.

Seth stopped the car next to the grave Jenna hadn't seen in two years. "Get out, Jenna."

She glared at Seth from the corner of her eye, her temper simmering. "I will not. I will not sit on that little iron bench and talk to someone who's dead. Dead, Dad. D-e-a-d, dead."

Seth got out of the car and opened her door, then bent forward until they were nose to nose, and said firmly, "Then sit on the little iron bench and talk to me." He pulled her out of the car and onto the bench, looking at the marble gravestone.

"It's pretty," she said softly. Adam Nathaniel Llewellyn ,

Beloved . Followed by the date of his death, which until recently she'd considered the worst day of her life. There were things almost as bad as dying, she was coming to realize. Hurting a little boy so that he stayed up all night crying was almost as bad. Leaving your husband and children with a surly note was worse. Not trusting the woman you claimed to love and leaving her to be beaten… On that one she wasn't sure.

Seth sighed. "So what are you going to do, girl?" He was on his knees next to Adam's grave, straightening the flowers someone had planted there. Most likely Seth or Allison.

"About what?"

He fussed with a hearty orange chrysanthemum. "Well, about your living quarters for starters."

Jenna lifted a brow, found it hurt to do so, and let it drop back down. "Are you evicting me?"

He glanced up at her, a twinkle in his eye. "Well, there is Wednesdays. I don't think I want to be at the table when you sit down to Allie's meat loaf again."

Jenna laughed, then surprised at the sound, let it trail away. "I love you, Dad."

"Of course you do. I also heard you tell that young man you love his father."

"You were listening!"

"Of course I was. You never tell me anything. I have to get creative if I want to know what's happening in your life. Evelyn's doing much better by the way," he added, jerking the thunder from her ire. "The doctor says she can come home tomorrow."

"Well… good," she mumbled. "Glad to hear it."

"Thought you would be." He sat back on his heels and surveyed his work. "Not bad."

Jenna looked at him, her heart softening. "It's the most beautiful grave in the cemetery, Dad."

He smiled. "Thank you. But this place still creeps you out, doesn't it?"

She choked on a chuckle. "Creeps me out? You been listening to Charlie's conversations, too?"

"Gotta know what's going on with my girls. So what will you do about Steven, Jenna? He hurt you and for that I want to make his face look worse than yours, but he didn't mean to, I could see it in his eyes. Will you throw away happiness for the pleasure of holding on to a grudge?"

She narrowed her eyes at him. "It's no pleasure, Dad."

He shook his head at that. "Sure it is. Not the same kind of pleasure as a gallon of Rocky Road or a night of really good sex-"

"Dad!"

"But it's a pleasure all the same," he went on as if she hadn't interrupted. "It's control, or the appearance of it, anyway. You, my dear, are a control freak."

She opened her mouth to utter a denial, then closed it. It was a fair cop. "So?"

"So you can't control everything. You, Jenna, really, really try, but you can't. You try to control your grief over my son here." He patted the headstone. "You've never really let him go."

" What ? I'm not the one who visits his grave every weekend or serves his favorite dinner on his death day. I've let him go. You're the ones holding on. And that's what creeps me out."

"I have to admit, I don't like the memorial dinners either," Seth said, propping his chin atop the headstone. "My wife started them and Allie just kept it up. But those aren't because we can't let him go, Jen. We're just remembering him. You're the one still wearing his ring on your finger."

"I am not," she said, holding out her bare left hand, then realized she'd fisted her right. Her right hand where she still wore Adam's ring on her thumb. She held out her right hand and shifted it side to side, watching the waning light play on the Celtic curves. "I guess I am."

Seth lifted a white brow, then held out his hand, palm up. "So take it off." When she didn't move he dropped his hand. "I can imagine loving a woman with another man's ring on her finger would be pretty hard. Might even make him wonder down deep if she really cared about him or if she was still holding a torch for her lost love. Which are you, Jenna?"

"I…" She shook her head. "I don't know."

"Fair enough."

"But, Dad, it's not the same thing. Adam never would have thought the worst of me."

''Sure he would, and he did," Seth said firmly and stood up, brushing grass from his knees. "Why do you think he took up karate? He hated karate. I'll tell you why. He was jealous of Mark."

"Mark?" Jenna asked incredulously. "That's ridiculous. Mark was Adam's best friend. Mark and I were only friends."

"He knew that. He also knew you'd be true to him, but he wanted to be there, just be certain."

"That's just ridiculous," she repeated, then thought back. It made sense. It really did. Adam did hate karate, but he went, every single week. "Maybe it isn't so ridiculous," she amended.

"My son wasn't perfect, Jenna, but he loved you more than his own life. When he passed it was like losing the best part of me. But he left you behind and I love you like you were my own daughter. If you could make meat loaf worth a damn I might even love you more."

Jenna snickered, as he'd wanted her to.

"I never wanted you to come to Adam's grave and pine for him. I wanted you to go on and find someone who could make you even one-tenth as happy as my son would have."

He cleared his throat gruffly. "So say good-bye to my son and get on with the job of living. If it's with Steven, then put your grudge aside, because your excuse is a terrible one. If it's not him, then make it somebody else real soon. Dammit, girl, I want more grandchildren and I'm not getting any younger."

Jenna stood up and put her arms around him. "I love you, Dad."

"I know you do," he barked, then quieted. "Do you love Steven, Jenna?"

Jenna considered very hard, but the answer was amazingly simple. "Yes, yes I do."

"Then go to him and tell him so."

"I will, but I need to say something here, first. Would you give me a minute?"

He smiled. "I'll check the graves over there. Their families don't come often as they should."

And as Jenna watched him hike over the hill, she knew Seth Llewellyn did what he did out of respect and love, not out of a morbid eccentricity. She stared at Adam's headstone. "But Allison is eccentric, Adam. The memorial dinners creep me out and her meat loaf is like slimy cardboard. But they love you and they miss you." She tugged a stray weed Seth had missed. "And they've gone on, mostly. So now, I guess I will, too." She pulled off his ring and set it on top of the headstone. "Seth can keep this or maybe give this to Charlie when she's older. I'll always love you and you were never store-brand vanilla. Maybe Heavenly Hash." She chuckled at the whimsical thought. "And Steven is rightly classified as Rocky Road." She ran her hand across the letters of his name lovingly. "We'll smooth out the rocks. Don't worry about me. I'm fine. I'm really fine."