Targeted (A Jenny Watkins Mystery Book 9) Read online

  Targeted

  Book nine of the Jenny Watkins Mystery Series

  Driven

  Betrayed

  Shattered

  Exposed

  Trapped

  Vindicated

  Possessed

  Haunted

  Copyright 2016

  Dedication

  As always, I have so many people to thank. First, my family deserves recognition for their love and support throughout this whole process. Scott, Hannah, Seneca, Evan and Julia, I couldn’t do this without you.

  Next, I have to acknowledge the role Lauren Brennan played in this book. She was the winner of my “100th Amazon review” contest, so many of the character names and plot twists are at her request. (More thanks to Mark for cluing me in on some extras.) I only hope the book does her justice.

  My proofreaders, once again, are invaluable to me. Danielle Bon Tempo and Bill Demarest, you catch the mistakes I never would. Marla Musatow, thank you for giving me the thumbs up. I cannot express how much your input helps me with this process.

  The cover models you see are such good sports. Complete strangers to each other, Cassie Craze agreed to go to Sophie and Mia DeSantis’s house so I could take the photo. (I am so happy to know twins who could make this cover happen. )Thank you, ladies, for your willingness to help…especially when your “payment” is free books. LOL

  Lastly, thanks to you, my readers, for faithfully following Jenny Larrabee through her journey. I love to write about her, so I’m glad you like to read it

  And now, I hope you enjoy Targeted…

  Chapter 1

  “It’s all about expectations,” the counselor said.

  Dr. Krafts appeared to be in her late fifties; the pictures plastered all over her quaint little office implied she had several grown children of her own. Jenny had faith that she knew what she was talking about, not just as a highly-recommended psychologist, but as a mother who had been through the newborn years herself.

  “Expectations?” Jenny asked. Her exhausted brain was having trouble grasping anything that wasn’t expressly spelled out for her.

  “Yes,” Dr. Krafts replied, “expectations. People have a hard time dealing with situations when they anticipate something pleasant but are met with something that isn’t. I imagine you thought motherhood would look a lot different than what you are experiencing.”

  “You got that right,” Jenny muttered bitterly. Her filter hadn’t worked properly since the birth of her baby a few weeks earlier, and, as a result, her mouth always said anything that popped into her mind.

  “That happens a lot,” the counselor said matter-of-factly. “Many people—especially women—tend to romanticize what parenthood will be like. People will tell you it’s hard, and while you’re pregnant, you acknowledge it’s going to be hard. But the reality is, you don’t know just how hard it is until after the baby is born, and, at that point, you find yourself bewildered.”

  “Bewildered,” Jenny repeated. “Is that the polite term for wanting to punch everybody in the face?”

  Dr. Krafts let out a laugh. “I used the more technical term.” Tucking her hair behind her ear, she added, “Let me ask you this…Did anyone tell you what to expect ahead of time? Do you have any previous experience with newborns? Or did you go into this completely blind?”

  Jenny recalled a conversation she’d had with a woman named Kayla, who told her how difficult newborn babies were. “I did have a warning, I guess,” she confessed. “But, honestly, at the time, I just thought the woman was being negative. I figured she just didn’t want to be a mother as much as I did.” Jenny looked down at her lap.

  With a reassuring smile, Dr. Krafts said, “It’s okay. We all do it. It’s funny—we often ask people for advice, but then we disregard any advice that doesn’t align with what we are already thinking. I’ve seen so many cases where women have been told to leave their husband a hundred times over by a hundred different people, but they instead choose to listen to the one person who says, ‘Oh, he’ll outgrow it. Just give him time.’”

  Jenny didn’t say anything, silently acknowledging she had been guilty of that. She had been positive that she was going to love motherhood, and she completely dismissed anything that suggested otherwise.

  And now, here she was, so desperate to run away from home that she couldn’t breathe.

  Dr. Krafts uncrossed her legs, leaning forward to put her elbows on her knees. “So, tell me, what did you expect motherhood to be like?”

  Blowing out a breath, Jenny thought about the question for a while before answering. “I thought I’d like it, first of all, which I don’t.” Tears burned the back of her eyes with that statement; admitting the truth made her feel both vulnerable and unworthy. “I thought the baby would be an addition to what I already had going on in my life…like everything would be the same, only better.” She closed her eyes and shook her head. “Instead, nothing is the same. I can’t eat when I’m hungry or sleep when I’m tired or shower when I feel gross. My entire life has been turned upside-down.”

  “A baby will do that,” Dr. Krafts agreed.

  “What gets me the most,” Jenny went on, “is that my husband’s life has hardly changed at all. He treats parenting like it’s optional. I guess, to him, it is. After a couple of minutes of the baby fussing for him, he always just hands him off to me, no matter how fed up I am or how many hours straight I’d been dealing with it.”

  “Have you told him that you want him to be a more actively involved parent?”

  “Repeatedly.”

  “How have you said it?”

  Jenny didn’t understand the question. “I’ve told him, ‘You need to be a more actively involved parent.’”

  Once again, the counselor laughed. “What I mean is, did you say it when you were in the throes of an emotional moment? Or did you sit down and have a rational conversation with him?”

  “Both, I think,” Jenny said. “Although, it comes out more when the baby is screaming and I’ve had it.”

  “Sadly, that’s probably the worst time to bring it up. If you’re fed up, the words may come out sounding more like a demand than an expression of your needs. And if you sound like you’re being demanding, his natural reaction may be to put his defenses up.”

  “I understand that,” Jenny replied. “I am aware that when I say things, I often sound like I’m nagging. I do remember one particular conversation, though, where we sat down and had a nice discussion about it. He told me that he didn’t parent much because he felt like he was bad at it. He said he couldn’t ever get the baby to stop crying, but I assured him I couldn’t either. I explained to him—very calmly, I might add—that I needed some breaks from the baby, and I asked him to help with that, even if he didn’t feel like he was the best father in the world. I thought I’d gotten through to him…that night he actually got out of bed and helped with the baby. But then he went right back to his old ways.” At that point, Jenny let out a snort.

  “What was that about?” Dr. Krafts asked, referring to the sound Jenny had just made.

  Shaking her head and releasing a sigh, Jenny admitted, “He told me that the reason he wasn’t helping with the baby more was because I wasn’t having enough sex with him.”

  The counselor remained quiet for a moment before asking, “And what do you think of that statement?”

  “I think it’s a crock of shit, that’s what I think.”

  Leaning back in her chair, Dr. Krafts seemed to be formulating her words. “Okay,” she said calmly, holding up her hand, “I want you to be aware of something.”

  Jenny braced herself, sensing that this comment was not goin
g to be something she wanted to hear.

  “Your husband expressed a need to you with that statement. I understand you may not see the validity of his argument—I mean, with all that you have going on, who cares about sex, right? But to a man, it’s different. Sex is very important to them, on a lot of levels. They like the physicality of it, of course, but I think it also makes them feel desirable. If you don’t have physical relations with him, it’s as if you are rejecting him—and rejection can hurt.”

  Jenny could feel irritation stirring inside of her. She did not want to be told Zack’s point was valid. After working herself to exhaustion since the day the baby was born, was she really being told by a professional that she wasn’t doing enough? “So, you’re saying I should put out more?” There was more bitterness in her tone than she had wanted.

  “I have no idea how much you’re putting out,” the doctor said with a smile, “so I can’t really comment on that. Instead, what I’m saying is, if you want your husband to listen to your needs when you express them, you have to be willing to listen to his. To him, this perceived lack of sex is very real and, apparently, upsetting enough for him to bring up. Whether you agree with it or not is of no consequence. It’s what he’s feeling, and he expressed it to you. It sounds to me like you dismissed it, much like he dismissed your request to help with the baby—and you know how that felt when he did it to you.”

  Jenny remained silent.

  “It’s less about what’s being said, and more about being heard,” Dr. Krafts went on. “I think neither of you are feeling heard right now, and that’s a terrible way to feel.”

  “I did hear him,” Jenny replied, “and I told him I’d have more energy to fool around if he took care of the baby more.”

  “I understand that,” the counselor said compassionately. “Believe me, I do. But what you’ve said to him, essentially, is that you’ll start listening to him only after he starts listening to you. It’s almost as if you’re holding his request hostage.”

  “I’m not holding it hostage.”

  “Not intentionally.” The doctor’s tone was matter-of-fact. “Just like I imagine he’s not intentionally hurting you by neglecting his responsibilities as a father. But you two are having a standoff right now, and one of you needs to be the bigger person and compromise first.”

  “But why does that have to be me? I feel like I’ve already done way too much compromising.” Her previous marriage flashed in her mind, where she was always the one making the concessions. The last thing she wanted to do was get into that situation again.

  The doctor shrugged. “It doesn’t have to be you. But you came here today because you want things to be different at home, right?”

  Once again, Jenny didn’t say anything.

  “I say this to my clients all the time,” Dr. Krafts said softly. “Would you rather be right, or would you rather be happy?”

  Letting out a little laugh, Jenny remarked, “Can’t I be both?”

  “Not always,” Dr. Krafts replied with a smile. “But think about it…do you really want to be married to somebody who’s always wrong?” After being met with silence, she continued, “Remember, he’s not the enemy. He’s the person you married, and I assume you married him because you love him.”

  Jenny responded in a whisper, “I do love him.”

  “So, my advice is to reach out to him. Offer the olive branch. If you find that you are doing your part and he still refuses to do his, then we can figure out what to do next. But if you honor his requests, there’s a chance he will respond in kind. And wouldn’t that be great?”

  Wouldn’t that be great? Jenny asked herself. While the help would have been fantastic, the thought of fooling around with Zack was alarmingly unappealing. She was unsure whether it was hormones or exhaustion that was causing the problem, but she had absolutely no sex drive whatsoever. On top of that, Zack hadn’t been all that attractive to her lately. It was hard to feel attracted to him while she was up in the middle of the night—again—and she could hear him snoring from the other room. And he certainly wasn’t desirable as he lay on the couch watching television while she dealt with fussing baby all day long.

  Truth be told, Jenny didn’t feel like Zack deserved sex. It was as simple as that.

  “Besides,” the doctor continued, breaking Jenny out of her train of thought, “there are worse things in the world than your husband wanting to sleep with you. He still finds you desirable, which is something a lot of married people feel like they can’t claim. And remember—sex is supposed to be enjoyable. Perhaps you can even learn to like it again if you stop considering it a bargaining tool.”

  Jenny cringed internally. When the doctor put it that way, it seemed like a silly thing to be upset over.

  “Well,” Dr. Krafts added, “our time is just about up. We can schedule another appointment for next week, if you’d like.”

  Jenny did just that, and then she headed outside on auto-pilot as her brain replayed what had been said during the session. She climbed into the car and turned the key, trying to figure out exactly when sex went from being pleasurable to being a chore that caused her to be resentful. It was the third trimester, she decided, that made the difference. In her second trimester, she couldn’t get enough of Zack; when she wasn’t with him, she thought about being with him, looking forward to their moments alone together.

  It was, essentially, the opposite of how she felt right now.

  She imagined what it would have felt like to be in the throes of her second trimester, only to have Zack repeatedly turn her down for sex. He would have been right there in the bed with her, mere inches away and looking very appealing, but refusing to let her touch him. She had to admit that would have been painful, and she imagined after a few months she would have become resentful, too. She probably would have wondered what was so unappealing about her that made Zack not want to be with her. It might have even made her feel detached from him, reluctant to do him any favors considering that he didn’t seem to have any regard for her needs.

  “How is this happening?” Jenny said out loud as she pulled out of the parking lot. “How am I turning into the bad guy here?”

  There is no bad guy, she thought. There was no good guy or bad guy in a healthy marriage. There was no right or wrong. There were only differing opinions and, in this case, misunderstood actions. She drew in a deep breath as she considered the doctor’s words. The olive branch needed to be extended, and she could either offer it or wait for Zack to do it. If she waited for Zack, there was a chance they’d be in a stalemate forever.

  The reality was, she had married a simple, goofy guy who made her laugh and respected her talents. He had a host of wonderful qualities, but maturity was not necessarily among them. She’d need to be the adult in these situations, whether she wanted to or not. It was part of the price of admission for being married to Zack.

  She thought back to Zack’s behavior when they’d first met and were nothing more than friends. He was chronically late without apology or warning. He used to show up with food for himself and nothing for her. She told him back then about how important punctuality and consideration were to women, and he really made an effort after that to be more chivalrous.

  He had not made a similar effort after the last discussion they’d had about caring for the baby. A small twinge of fear hit Jenny as she drove down the road—perhaps, back in the beginning, he was trying to impress her, and now he wasn’t anymore. Maybe he was feeling disconnected from the marriage, possibly with one foot out the door already. The thought scared her, which, ironically, brought her some comfort. She must have still cared if she was upset by the notion of losing him. At times, lately, she was beginning to wonder if she had any feelings left for him at all.

  She would need to remember that he wasn’t a given. She couldn’t take him for granted, or else she might wake up one day and find him packing his bags. Gripping the steering wheel tighter, she made a vow to reach out to him a little more and stop re
garding him as the enemy. She had married him because he made her happy and she loved being with him.

  She had to get that back.

  Jenny walked into the house to find Zack lying on the couch watching television. She closed her eyes before she spoke, knowing the answer she was about to receive. She spoke sweetly nonetheless. “Hey, honey. Where’s the baby?”

  “He’s with your mom,” he replied. “I couldn’t get him to stop crying, so I brought him downstairs.”

  Had she heard those words two hours earlier, she would have been consumed with hate and anger. However, she now realized that this marriage was a work in progress, and she needed to be accepting of his shortcomings.

  Or, at least, she needed to try.

  Placing her purse on the coffee table, she pointed to the spot next to Zack on the sofa. “Can I sneak in there?”

  He scooted to the side, allowing Jenny to lie next to him, her head resting on his shoulder. She closed her eyes again, remembering a time when this was her favorite place to be. She sniffed his scent as she listened to the sound of his heart beating. This was her husband. This was the man she loved. This was not the enemy.

  “How was counseling?” he asked.

  “Good,” she replied. “Informative. She taught me that I’ve been unfair to you.” She gently ran her fingers up and down Zack’s chest. “And you’ve been unfair to me. And if we want the marriage to be happy, we both need to be a little bit better to each other.”

  “How so?” he asked without contempt.

  “Well, we each need to be more accommodating. We both have needs that aren’t being met. Yours are sexual in nature, so I’m going to start putting in more effort to make sure those needs get satisfied.”

  “For real?” he asked, lifting his head off the couch. “I like your counselor.”

  “Not so fast, there, chief. This is a two way street. You’re going to have to help with the baby more.”

  He made a grunting sound, which Jenny interpreted to be displeasure. “I’m not sure how helpful I’ll be,” he replied. “I mean, you’d still have to get up in the middle of the night with him. I can’t feed him.”