Chapter 44

Maeve's POV

Safe.

That's how I felt when I realized Michael was kneeling in front of me. My eyes started burning while staring at him. I didn't dare to blink, too afraid that he'd disappear again.

My hands grabbed his face, making sure this is real and that my mind wasn't playing tricks on me. And when I pulled him closer and his strong arms immediately found their way around my body, I started to let loose as I felt my body mold into his.

Losing all track of time, it was just him and I in this moment. At some point I felt him get up but with me in his arms and next thing I knew, he let me down gently on the hospital bed.

But I was too weak to even react. He was here with me and feeling this safety made me finally close my eyes without seeing Jared getting to me.To Michael's humming, I finally fell asleep.

Michael's POV

Maeve was asleep in her hospital bed when I stood by her side, softly stroking her cheek.

My eyes scanned her skin, I inspected every bruise, every cut that was visible to me. My mouth ran dry as I got a closer look at her throat, it wasn't hard to guess that she has been choked. I forced myself to move on from this injury and focus on her face instead. The dried blood was still on her head and nose, she probably refused every attempt they tried to clean her. Right now, she didn't want to be touched by strangers and I am glad that they respected her wishes as much as they could.

However, because of Maeve's instability the police couldn't question her yet, meaning the person that did this to her, was still running around freely, probably getting a good head start.

Even thinking about this man to get away with what he did to my wife, made my blood boil but I knew that Maeve needed this sleep and afterwards she'll hopefully be ready to get questioned.

A knock on the door interrupted me from looking at all her injuries as I walked to the door. It was Bill, he wanted me to come outside for a second to discuss something with me but I didn't want to leave my wife alone.

"It's about Jared..." he said and his eyes told me it's urgent so I gave in.

He lead me into an empty waiting room.

"What is it? Did you get a hold of him?" I asked but he shook his head.

"The alarm yesterday was triggered by a window breaking." He told me.

"Okay? And what does this have to do with Jared?"

"The police already questioned Maeve's neighbors and one of them said, he saw Jared leave early this morning, she also said he seemed stressed..."

"So he was there! I was right with my feeling towards him!"

"Michael, there's more!" Bill sat down on one of the chairs and I did the same before he spoke again.

"The only thing, we knew about his previous job with the army was that it didn't work out and I did check him but I didn't do my job thoroughly..." Bill kept his head low.

"What do you mean?"

"I checked for any criminal record and there were none but I didn't check why the army didn't work out for him..." my body tensed as I rested my hands on my knees, they gripped tight.

Bill met my eyes. "Dishonorable discharge" he whispered as if he felt ashamed that he only found out about this now, years after hiring him. By now, Jared was part of the family, or at least I thought so.

"What for?" I asked carefully, not knowing if I really wanted to know the reason, he dropped out of the army.

"Stalking and attempted sexual abuse" Bill kept his head low while I closed my eyes and in my mind it played all the times were I felt Jared staring a little too long at my wife.

The night of the Grammy's in 1993 came to my mind were Jared brought us towels after Maeve and I had 'fun' in the pool. I promised her that he didn't see anything but now I think he saw everything.

As I recalled yesterday's evening where Maeve and I were kissing in the kitchen, I remembered the alarm going off just when things were getting heated. He probably broke a window because he was watching us and got angry.

"Jared broke the window" I came to the realization and Bill nodded along.

This made me wonder, how often he'd be standing outside our house, watching us because normally no one would come near the main house in Neverland at night and since the children sleep in our bed most times, Maeve and I, we'd use either the kitchen or the living room to have some 'adult time'.

By doing so, we probably gave him lots of input to fed him with pictures of my beautiful wife in intimate situations that were only meant for my eyes to see.

"The other security guards said that Jared preferred to do the nightly safety check on his own, although we normally do it in teams of two and apparently he also was taking his time..." Bill looked at me. "When you were gone, he'd often sit on the patio with Maeve, or there was this one time where he stayed after the silent alarm went off..."

"And you are telling me all of this just now?" I was angry. This whole situation seemed to have been avoidable.

"It never seemed relevant, but he was spending a lot time with Maeve, even on his days off."

*****

After my conversation with Bill, I stayed at Maeve's side for the whole night, holding her hand while she was sleeping that was becoming more and more agitated.

However, my mind couldn't stop thinking about Jared and how he fooled all of us. Was I really that blind to not notice the feelings he developed towards my wife? For years they've been friends and them spending time together, especially when I was away, wasn't something out of the ordinary.

What hurt me is the fact how Maeve would always talk highly about him, she valued him, she valued his friendship and to her Jared was the only friend for a really long time.

But he betrayed her, he used her and threw her away afterwards. I couldn't imagine how Maeve feels about all of this.

Speaking of her, I took another glance on her face but to my surprise she was awake. Her eyes stared blankly at the ceiling.

"Maeve" I whispered, my hand was still holding hers as I squeezed it tight.

"I'm so sorry this happened to you" my voice broke a little as I tried fighting back the urge to cry but when I noticed thick tears rolling down my wife's face, I couldn't hold back.

We've sat there for a while, both crying silently until I felt her hand wipe my tears away. Our eyes met and I noticed her tears stopped as she held her blank expression again.

"I should've made you stay" I whispered while leaning into her touch.

"Michael" her voice was low and if I didn't see her mouth moving, I would have thought I only heard her in my imagination. "Please take me home."