I Knew You Were Trouble: A Jessie Jefferson Novel (13 page)

Me.

Me.

Me.

I’m completely and utterly screwed.

I read the story online because Stu hasn’t left the house to buy the paper yet. Wendel was the one who called to tell us about it.

I skim over the words as my blood pumps with adrenalin.

Source? What source? I meet Stu’s eyes. ‘Who told them?’

He shakes his head. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Does Johnny know? Does Wendel? Why hasn’t Johnny called?’

‘It’s the middle of the night in LA,’ Stu replies. ‘Wendel hasn’t told him yet.’

I feel a spike of loneliness. I wish he would. I wish he’d call his flipping client and wake him up so he can reassure his goddamn daughter.

‘What’s the time here?’ I think to ask.

‘Six a.m.,’ Stu replies.

No wonder my head and eyes hurt so much. Add that to the anxious pain in my stomach and I’m really not doing so well.

The phone rings and we both jump. ‘Here it goes,’ he says resignedly.

‘It might be Johnny,’ I say, but he puts his hand on my arm to keep me seated at the table while he answers the phone. I wait with baited breath, and then he says: ‘No
comment.’ My heart sinks as he ends the call. I notice that the curtains in the kitchen are still drawn.

‘Are they… Is anyone outside?’ I ask with stunned horror.

‘I’m afraid so,’ he admits.

‘Oh, God,’ I say with a gulp. This is it. This is really happening. I won’t be able to stay here…

‘Oh, God!’ I say again, pushing my chair from the table and running up the stairs into the spare room. ‘Mum,’ I say out loud, as my voice shakes, and then my whole body.
I sit on the bed among her things, enveloped by the smell of her, and Stu leaves me alone as I begin to cry. This is it. I’m going to have to leave this house. Leave Mum.

Johnny is on the other end of the phone half an hour later. Stu decided ‘to hell with Wendel’ and called him himself, rousing him from his sleep.

‘You need your dad,’ he mutters, wincing slightly. He hands over the phone and I sit up from my foetal position in the spare room. Johnny is
angry
.

‘Meg and Annie are already in the office,’ he tells me.

‘Do you think they’ll find out who the source is?’

‘Honestly? No,’ he says, a hardness to his tone. ‘Do you have any idea?’ he asks me.

‘No. I mean, hardly anyone knows,’ I say, feeling a wave of sickness engulf me once more. ‘I’ve only told Natalie, Libby and Tom.’

‘Natalie and Libby hadn’t said anything so far,’ he says, and I hate where he’s going with this.

‘It’s
not
Tom,’ I cut him off, my voice rising. He can’t make me doubt Tom. ‘It could be anyone.’ I will him to believe it, clutching at straws.
‘There are girls in my school who teased me that I looked like the picture in the papers. Maybe they’ve realised it really is me?’

‘I doubt that,’ Johnny states. ‘Is it possible that one of your friends told one of their friends? You need to know who you can trust.’ He’s speaking from
experience.

‘No!’ But, deep down, I’m not so sure. I’ve always been worried that Libby would tell Amanda, and Natalie and I haven’t been as close recently. Our other friend,
Em, is a huge Johnny Jefferson fan. If she knew, I’m not sure she’d be able to keep quiet. Word would spread like wildfire until someone blabbed to the press.

‘Are you absolutely certain about Tom?’ Johnny asks again, and at that moment I really don’t like him very much.

‘It’s not him!’ I say angrily. ‘He wouldn’t have told anyone! He cares about me too much!’ A lump springs up in my throat. It can’t be him. He’s
made me happier in these last few weeks than I’ve been in months. I’ll be heartbroken if he has anything – anything at all – to do with this. Could he have told Chris? No,
he wouldn’t. What about his mum? Becky?

Oh, God, no, please no.

‘I’ve gotta go,’ I say to Johnny.

‘You know you can’t leave the house,’ he says sharply. ‘I’ll send security for you. You and Stu can relocate to my place for now.’

I start to cry.

‘Jessie,’ he says gently, and his voice is torn. ‘You’ve
got
to.’

Stu comes back into the room and takes the phone from me. I barely hear his half of the conversation because my head is spinning so much. I’m going to have to leave my home, and I have no
idea how long it will be before I’ll be allowed to come back.

As soon as Stu ends the call, he stares down at me kindly.

‘Go pack a suitcase,’ he says. ‘Two if you like. Just your most important things.’

My most important things, I already know, are my memories, but I’ll also take my photo albums and Mum’s dressing gown that still smells of her. My other stuff can be packed up at
another time.

Stu leaves to pull the plug out of the wall before the phone calls start up again, and I return to my room to ring Tom from my mobile.

‘Don’t use your mobile,’ Stu’s voice calls from the landing outside my door.

‘What? Why?’ I exclaim.

‘It could be tapped,’ he says, poking his head round the door. ‘You don’t want to give the press anything else to gossip about, do you?’

‘But I have to call Tom!’

‘It’s not a good idea, Jess.’

‘It wasn’t him,’ I say angrily, just in case Johnny has got to him.

‘I’m not saying it was,’ he replies firmly. ‘But Johnny has someone coming within the hour and you can call Tom once we’re at his place where we know the line is
secure.’

‘I can’t not call him! He’ll be worried if he wakes up and finds out about all of this!’

‘Send him a text. But that’s it. I’m warning you, Jess,’ he adds when he sees me wavering. ‘Don’t make this worse for yourself – or him.’

I nod tightly and he leaves the room, giving me privacy to type out a text for Tom:

I keep it neutral – just in case the press have ways of tapping into text messages, too.

The car arrives an hour later. By then I have my bags ready in the hall and my sunglasses on the top of my head, ready to put on. Not that it matters. The picture of me on the
front of the paper is enormous. It’s a close-up so I can’t see what I’m wearing, but I don’t recognise it. I don’t know when it was taken. I’m smiling and
looking almost straight into the lens. Wendel says it’s likely to be a pap shot and I wouldn’t have even known they were there. It could have been taken anywhere, on the street, at the
park, and I was completely oblivious to them waiting and watching. It makes me feel sick. Sicker than I already feel.

‘OK?’ Stu asks me, clearly not expecting an answer. I don’t give him one. A burly man dressed in a black suit with an earpiece strides in and takes my bags. Another man is
right behind him.

‘Miss Jefferson?’ he asks me.

‘Pickerill,’ I correct him, putting my sunglasses in place and feeling Stu’s eyes on me.

‘This way, please,’ he says firmly, and then I’m being shoved out of the door and herded towards the car while the sound of cameras clicking and people jostling reaches my
ears. Seconds later I’m in the car with Stu beside me.

‘Bloody hell!’ he exclaims, and I’m surreally aware that I hardly ever hear him swear.

Stu won’t have seen anything like that before, but I got a taste of it when I was in LA with Johnny. The frenzied attention he receives from the press, not to mention his fans, is
mind-blowing.

The two men in black are suddenly in the front seats and the car moves forward. The windows, they assure me, are completely blacked-out from the sides, but they can barely get the car past the
pushy paps taking shots from the front.

‘Haven’t they ever seen a celebrity’s daughter before?’ I ask out loud.

‘Not one with your story,’ the second bodyguard replies.

I glance out of my window, back at our tired old house, its front garden overgrown with weeds and one of the curtains in the living room hanging slightly off the rail.

No, I don’t suppose they have, I think, a touch bitterly, before turning my eyes to the front and the life that lies ahead.

It’s very strange to be back in Johnny’s house without the warmth and chaos that his family’s presence brings. My family’s, I guess.

When Bruce – the second bodyguard – finally closes the door behind us to give us some privacy, Stu and I just stand there in the hall, not really knowing what to do.

We’ve been told the housekeeper is on her way to get the house ready for us, but it all looks pristine to me.

‘Cup of tea?’ Stu asks.

I nod and follow him into the kitchen. Bruce took our bags upstairs, but I’m too shell-shocked to go and explore. I wonder which room Stu will be staying in.

Stu opens the fridge and peers inside, but of course there’s no milk.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ I tell him. ‘I’m sure Helen will be here soon.’

Johnny’s Henley housekeeper is only part-time when he’s abroad. I hope she doesn’t mind coming into work for my sake. This is so weird.

‘Can I go and call Tom?’ I ask Stu. Bruce confirmed that the phones in the study have secure lines.

‘Sure,’ he says. ‘I might put the telly on for a bit.’

I feel nervous as I dial Tom’s number. It only rings once before he picks up.

‘Are you OK?’ he asks with such concern that my eyes prick with tears.

‘I’m a bit freaked out,’ I reply weakly.

‘What happened? I thought you were safe. I didn’t think…’ His voice trails off.

‘Someone must’ve told them.’

‘But who else knows?’

‘Only Libby and Natalie. You didn’t—’

‘No!’ he exclaims, sounding alarmed. But I have to ask. Despite my unwavering belief in him when I was speaking to Johnny, I can’t help the toxic doubt that is creeping in.

‘Not even your sister?’

‘Jessie, it
wasn’t
me,’ he says firmly. ‘Christ, did you think that it was?’ He sounds hurt.

‘No, I didn’t! But I had to ask.’

‘I didn’t even tell my mum!’ he exclaims. ‘Her face nearly fell off a cliff earlier.’

Relief surges through me. I believe him.

‘You don’t have any idea, then?’

‘No,’ I admit. ‘You were the third and last person I told.’

‘Johnny doesn’t think it was me, does he?’

‘Um…’

‘Oh, shit, he does.’

‘He doesn’t know what to think.’

‘Bloody hell,’ he mutters. ‘Great way to impress your dad,’ he adds in a sullen voice.

I can’t help but smile. ‘I think we have worse things to worry about right now,’ I say gently.

‘Sorry,’ he says quickly.

I laugh a little, but the smile quickly falls from my face. ‘I can’t quite believe this is happening. I don’t know when I’m even going to see you next.’

‘What? Why not? Won’t you be at school?’

‘Not this week, apparently. I don’t know when I’ll be allowed to come back. When this all dies down, I guess.’

I feel like a caged animal that week. I stay inside because, despite what Johnny said about it being illegal to print photos of people taken on their own private property, I
hate the thought of the press spying on me. Stu has to return to work and the bodyguards stay out of my way, so I feel very alone.

I speak to Tom every day before and after school, and I’m pleasantly surprised when Libby calls me every evening. Apparently I’m all anyone is talking about. I feel bad that Lou
found out about me along with everyone else, but she says that she understands.

The story hits the nationals, and the local paper runs pieces every day, quoting various sources. I recognise some names, including Nina’s and Michelle’s, but then the headmaster
sends home a letter forbidding anyone else from talking to the press.

Towards the end of the week, there’s a story about Tom which makes me freak out even more. There are no direct quotes from him, of course, but I hate that he’s being dragged into it
all. I hope his mum isn’t too angry.

‘She’s not,’ he tries to reassure me when we speak on Friday night. ‘Honestly, Jessie, it doesn’t matter. They’ll get bored soon and will leave us
alone.’

‘What do you mean? They’re not harassing you, are they?’

‘There’s at least one man waiting outside the driveway, but it’s fine,’ he says.

‘What?!’ I had no idea anyone was ‘doorstepping’ him. That’s the technical term, apparently.

‘It’s fine.’ He laughs. ‘He’s just a fat nacker with nothing better to do. And I think Mum might find it all quite exciting, if I’m being honest.’

I sigh and he chuckles quietly.

‘What are you up to tomorrow?’ he asks.

‘Nothing,’ I reply miserably.

‘Want some company?’

‘Are you kidding?’ I respond excitedly. ‘Will your mum let you come over?’

‘She reckons it can’t hurt, now that the press know about me.’

She had wanted him to keep his distance, earlier on in the week.

‘Oh my God, that would make me so happy!’ I exclaim. ‘I feel like I’m going insane here.’

The next day can’t come soon enough, and my heart jumps when I see Caroline’s car pull up at the gate. I almost fall flat on my face in my eagerness to get
downstairs, throwing the door open before Tom can even press the doorbell.

‘Hey!’ he says with a laugh, as I practically knock him over.

‘Hello!’ Stu chirps, coming out into the hall to join us.

I break away from Tom to say hello to Caroline, and Stu offers her a cup of tea that she doesn’t refuse. Her eyes dart around the hall as she follows us in, and it strikes me that being in
Johnny’s house must feel very surreal to her. Tom, too, no doubt.