Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 63970 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 320(@200wpm)___ 256(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63970 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 320(@200wpm)___ 256(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
Jared shrugged. “Dr. Kenny said it might not be good for you. He said you’re probably too close to the subject to be able to talk about it. He had some theories about you he was more than willing to share.”
“I will share my theories with him. I will share them right up his probably bleached asshole, and then we’ll see how he feels,” Kai vowed.
“Oh, he’s out if you’re in. I just need someone who can talk about the incident from a psychological point of view.” And that person had always been Kai. He had to be sneaky about making sure Kai said yes.
“Fine. I suppose I’ll have to do it. Are you planning on talking to the other people who were affected?”
“I already have talked to them. That part of the documentary was the most important. It was hard. I talked to each of the victims’ families.” He had to look away or Kai would see how haunted he still was. “It wouldn’t be right if I simply told his story and not theirs.”
“Why wouldn’t you tell me you were seeing the families? I would have come with you to make sure you’re all right. Those women, they were murdered because Squirrel had an obsession with you. A rational person would understand that doesn’t mean you’re at fault.”
“But a father whose daughter was killed because she’d had a brief affair with a TV star isn’t rational.” He had to take a deep breath. “It was terrible and I had to do it. It wasn’t until I showed him how I intended to portray Carrie that he even would meet with me. Mia had to talk to him.”
Mia Taggart had been involved. She’d had a friend who’d died at Squirrel’s hands. At the time she’d thought it was Jared himself doing the killing, crawling across the world like a spider finding his next victim.
The film was as much about Jared’s own blindness as it was Squirrel’s evil.
Mia had built a bridge between Jared and the victims’ families. She’d convinced them he would do the right thing by their daughters and sisters. He meant to make her proud.
“I don’t cut myself slack,” he admitted. “I knew something was wrong with Squirrel. I knew something was up with the way he treated women, but he was my buddy. Surely he was just blowing off steam. I didn’t think there was any way he could hurt one of them. I want this to be a wake-up call. Men…we can’t let other men off the hook when it comes to this. I know it’s an extreme case, but what would have happened if I’d taken it seriously the first time he catcalled a woman or talked about how he wanted to strangle the ones who nagged too much?”
Kai sent him a sympathetic look. “If I were in your place, I likely would have thought he was joking, too.”
“No, you would have known. You would have asked the pertinent questions. Kai, it’s okay. Part of making this whole documentary is about taking responsibility. I can’t forgive myself until I truly know the wrong I did. I think you told me that once.” He’d learned a lot from his brother. He’d learned that sometimes a man had to be patient. And sometimes patience didn’t work and a man had to press things forward a bit. “Now let’s talk about the other thing I need from you.”
“An invitation to Sanctum?” Kai asked, his lips curling up in a knowing smile.
There was a reason he needed the invitation. He’d run away from a lot of things when he’d left Dallas last time. “I gave up my membership when I walked away from Sarah.”
Kai studied him for a moment. “You’re ready to try this again?”
“I know she doesn’t want to talk to me, but she agreed to do the documentary. That has to mean something. I won’t hurt her. If she chooses to not play with me, I’ll probably go home and I won’t bother her again. She spoke to me on the phone a couple of months back about the project.”
“I’m surprised she didn’t mention it to me.” Kai was married to Sarah’s best friend. They were deeply entrenched in each other’s daily lives.
“I suspect she’s embarrassed.” He’d thought for a long time about why Sarah wouldn’t forgive him. “For a couple of months, we regularly talked. And then she stopped all of a sudden.”
“She stopped returning your calls?” Kai asked. “That doesn’t sound like Sarah. She’s not afraid of confrontation. What happened the last time you talked to her?”
He’d gone over it again and again. He’d replayed that phone call a thousand times in his head. “We talked about her day. She’d worked a long shift because of a massive traffic accident. She wanted me to tell her stories about celebrities I’ve met. I think she found that soothing. Especially the ones where they turn out to be assholes, and that’s a surprising number of them.”