Me And Mrs Jones (23 page)

Shit! Someone was inside his woman’s house and the rage he felt took over his body immediately. What if he hadn’t talked Renee into letting him drive her home? Worse was he could have still been at his parent’s house instead of coming back home tonight. Renee could have been here right now all by herself without him to protect her. There was no telling who Renee might have accidentally interrupted in her own home. Easing into the house, he closed the door behind him as quietly as possible.

With his back pressed against the wall closest to the front door, Travis listened for any sounds of movements and after a few minutes the faint sounds of footsteps came from upstairs. If he wasn’t mistaken, they were coming from somewhere near Renee’s bathroom.

Travis’ eyes darted around the room for any kind of a weapon and he finally spotted a small flower vase on a stand by the front door. Picking it up, he made his way over to the spiral staircase and tiptoed up the steps as quietly as possible.

He couldn’t give away his position too soon because the intruder could have a more deadly weapon with him than a glass vase. This couldn’t be the time or place he felt any kind of fear because he was protecting Renee. Pressing his back against the wall, Travis tried to blend into the darkness of the hallway as best as he could while listening for more noise.

A few minutes later he heard the sound of glass breaking and items being destroyed in Renee’s bathroom not ten feet in front of him. Inching his way along the wall, Travis paused against the side of the door. He could still hear the person in there tearing the place up.

Travis knew he might be making an idiotic move by charging into the bathroom, but he couldn’t allow the burglar to damage Renee’s bathroom more than he already had. He just prayed he wasn’t placing his own life into his hands with this plan.

Taking a deep breath, he rushed into the room and the overpowering scent of urine burnt his nose.
What the fuck!
Why did Renee’s bathroom stink of piss?

“Stop right there!” Travis screamed inside the darkened room. “The police are on their way.”

Something heavy came crashing down on the back of his head knocking him to the floor; however before he passed out someone kicked him in the side. “Stay out of my damn business.” Everything else around him went black after the final word was tossed at him.

****

“Travis, can you hear me? Baby, open your eyes. Look at me.”

The sound of Renee’s voice dragged Travis back from the cloud of darkness swimming around in his head. Groaning, he slowly opened his eyes and found her leaning over him, his head resting in her lap.

“What happened? Where am I?” he croaked out as the bright lights hurt his eyes.

“You’re still inside my bathroom. The ambulance is on its way. I called the police the second you rushed into the house. Sheriff Arness is downstairs with some more officers. He wanted me to leave you here, but I couldn’t. I had to stay with you until help came.”

“Someone hit me,” Travis whispered as the memory slowly started coming back to him.

“Yes, it was Robert. I saw him darting out of the house about ten minutes after you went in. I was hiding in the car, so he didn’t see me. Sheriff Arness has someone looking for him now. He tore up my bedroom and completely destroyed my bathroom.”

“Why did he care about the bathroom?” Travis moaned as he tried to touch the back of his head, but Renee brushed his fingers away.

“Robert knew how much time I spent redecorating in here. I was involved with every aspect down to the paint on the walls. He always complained about how much time I spent in this room away from him. I told you he hated anything I considered special to me. But don’t worry about him anymore; we need to focus on you. When I rushed in here and saw your lifeless body on the floor with blood pouring from your head I thought my entire world was over and then I noticed you were breathing.”

Raising his hand, Travis brushed his fingers over Renee’s smooth cheek. “It’s going to take more than your ex-husband to get rid of me. I didn’t come back to you to get killed in a bathroom filled with the smell of urine.”

Laughing, Renee grabbed his hand and held it between hers. “No, I don’t think that’s the way you want to go out either. Can you imagine what the obituary in the newspaper would say?”

“Yeah, I can see it now.
Up and coming artist Travis Cole dies on lover’s urine covered bathroom floor
,” he laughed then grabbed the side of his head. “I might have even made the six o’clock news.”

“Stop joking around,” Renee said, taking his hand back. “I was really concerned about you. Especially when I just realized how much I love you.”

Travis stopped laughing and his blue eyes darkened with emotion. “Do you know that’s the first time you’ve told me that?” he asked.

Enthralled by what she saw, Renee couldn’t help but stare back at Travis as he studied her intently for a moment. His eyes told her everything that he felt and she wanted to know. Travis loved her as much as she loved him. What they had was something good and worth fighting for no matter who might have a problem with it.

“Yes, I know,” she admitted. “I was going to tell you tonight before all of this happened.” Renee wanted to tell Travis so much more but the sound of footsteps coming down the hallway stopped her. Looking up, she watched as the paramedics raced into the room followed by Sheriff Arness.

“How long has he been awake?” The young male paramedic knelt down next to her.

“About twenty minutes,” Renee answered.

“Ma’am, we need you to move so we can get him ready to transport to the hospital,” the female paramedic told her.

“I don’t want to leave Travis,” Renee said.

“Renee, come on let the paramedics do their jobs,” Sheriff Arness said as he took her by the arm and helped her up from the floor. “We can follow them to the hospital in my car. Anyways, I need to talk to you about what happened tonight. The sooner we finish with the questions the faster you will be at the hospital with Travis.”

Moving to the side with Sheriff Arness, Renee watched as the paramedics loaded Travis on the stretcher, secured him into place and then rolled him out of the room but not before he waved good-bye to her.

“I have to get out of this room. The odor is getting to me,” Renee complained as she left the bathroom and went outside in the hallway.” Rubbing her hands up and down her arms, she spun around to face Sheriff Arness.

“What kind of questions do I have to answer? I didn’t see that much. All I really saw was Robert running out the front door and around the side of the house. I still don’t know how he even got inside of here.”

Renee watched as Sheriff Arness wrote her statement down on a little black pad in his hand. “Do you know why Robert would do this to your house? Does he have any mental problems?”

“Robert is as sane as the both of us, Sheriff Arness. He’s just a mean son of a bitch. He goes off the deep end when things don’t go his way. I still can’t believe I never saw this side of his personality sooner. I know he suffers from a God complex.”

“Have you looked around to see if he took anything of value out of the house? I can’t believe he just came here to destroy your bedroom and bathroom. He must have wanted something and did all of this destruction to cover it up,” Sheriff Arness pointed out.

“I haven’t had a chance to look around to see if he took anything,” Renee answered. “I really don’t have anything of value but my parent’s wedding rings.” A disturbing thought hit her mind. “No. He wouldn’t do that.” Spinning around, Renee raced back towards her bedroom and into her second walk-in closet. She froze in her tracks when she spotted her mother’s small Swan jewelry case tossed onto the floor. There was no need to even wonder if the rings were inside or around on the floor. Robert had taken them.

“Robert stole my parent’s rings,” she whispered. “Sheriff Arness, you have to get them back. They were the only thing I wanted after they got murdered and Robert knew how much they meant to me. He did all of this to punish me.”

“I’ll get them back for you. I promise,” Sheriff Arness swore as he placed his hand on her shoulder.

Renee knew Sheriff Arness was making her a promise that he wasn’t going to be able to keep. Right this second, Robert was probably already selling the rings and getting what money he could from her family heirlooms. Out of everything Robert had done to her over the past several weeks, her ex-husband knew this act of betrayal would cut her deepest.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Three weeks later

Construction workers walked around Renee as she stood in the middle of her gallery watching as new walls went up to replace the ones destroyed by the fire. She never thought she would get to this point of work on her gallery.

After Travis’ attack by her ex-husband, she had spent more of her time at his bedside waiting until the hospital gave him his release papers. Luckily, he hadn’t gotten a concussion from the blow to the head, but the doctors decided to keep him a couple to days just to make sure everything else was okay from the vicious kick to his side.

His parents’ even flew back in for a couple of days to make sure everything was going okay. She invited them to stay at her house for the two days, but they declined saying they wanted to enjoy the luxury of having room service.

The doctor released Travis from the hospital the day after his parent left and despite his protest that he was well enough to go back to his own apartment, she had dragged him home with her.

The first couple of days had taken some getting use to having a man in the home. However, after a couple of weeks she and Travis had gotten into a perfect routine with each other. Honestly, she didn’t want him to move back into his apartment.

She loved having him around all of the time. It was like Travis was what she had been missing from her life and home all along, but now all she needed to do was talk him into moving in permanently with her.

“Mrs. Jones, you really should leave. I don’t want you getting hurt while we’re working,” the construction foreman told her as he walked towards her. “I can give you a call after all of the interior is up.”

“Can I just have a few more minutes?” Renee asked. “I’m still in shock all of this is happening. I thought I would be saving up for at least another six months before I could rebuild this place.”

“Victor Mature and I have been friends for years, so when he brought the idea of doing this for you at his expense I couldn’t tell him no. You must have made an impact on him because Victor doesn’t do stuff out of the kindness of his heart a lot.”

“I think he’s just ready for it to be done, so he can invest in more of my boyfriend’s paintings. He’s a big fan of Travis’.”

“Okay, you can stay here for another minute and then you’ll have to leave,” Mr. Hudson told her and then walked away.

“Thanks,” Renee yelled after him.

She honestly wouldn’t be able to stay much longer because she was meeting Travis for lunch at a new little restaurant around the corner. Since he’d got back on his feet, he’d been going nonstop.

Something was up with him, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. He was keeping a secret from her because every time she would walk into a room he would get off the telephone in a hurry.

“Excuse me, Mrs. Jones.”

Turning around, Renee found one of the construction workers standing behind her. She had seen him working here off and on all week. She just couldn’t remember his name.

“Yes, how can I help you?” she asked.

“There’s a gentleman outside and he wants to talk to you about some paintings for your next showing. He asked me to come and get you. I wasn’t sure if you were still here or not.”

Renee could barely contain her excitement. “Thank you. I’ll go and see what he wants right now.” She walked around the construction worker. She was running short on some artwork. Her basement at home was partially filled with new paintings and sculptures, but she could always use more.

Walking outside, Renee glanced around but she didn’t see anyone there. Shit! Had she taken too long to get out here? She hated to think that she might have lost a potential new client. She’d gotten out here as fast as she could.

Just as she was about to turn around and go inside the gallery something hard was pressed into the middle of her back.

“Don’t scream or I’ll shoot you,” Robert whispered against the back of her head. “I want you to walk slowly to the car in front of you. Get in and slide over to the driver’s side.”

“Robert, what in the hell is wrong with you? Where have you been? Sheriff Arness has been looking all over for you after your attack against Travis. Just let me go and we can talk about this.”

“No,” he snapped pressing the gun deeper into her spine. “Now, it’s best that you do as I tell you. You wouldn’t want me to do anything you might regret later.”

Arguing with Robert wasn’t going to help the situation at all.

“We’re going on a little trip. So, get your ass in the car.”

Glancing around, Renee tried to find a way to get someone’s attention, but everyone was too lost in their own personal space to even realize that she was in danger. She would have to find a way out all by herself.

“Can’t you tell me where we’re going?” she asked, walking slowly towards the car parked at the curb.

“Why don’t you stop asking me so many questions?” Robert snapped as she opened the door. “Don’t try anything funny either because I don’t have a problem shooting you. It’s best that you remember my warning because if you don’t you won’t get to revisit the place where you and lover boy had so much fun.”

“Okay, I won’t.” Getting into the car, Renee slid across the passenger side until she was behind the wheel. Robert got into the car right behind her and slammed the door shut.

From the corner of her eyes, she noticed how filthy Robert looked. His body smelled like he hadn’t taken a bath in days. He couldn’t have been hiding out at home because there was no way Robert would have stayed looking like this.