Midnight Angel [Jenlisa FF]

~'~'~ Chapter 11 ~'~'~

The relentless, shrilling ring of her telephone greeted Lisa when she walked back into her house. She sighed out loud at the intrusion. The last thing she wanted was to talk to anybody. There were too many things whirling around in her head to have a coherent conversation with whoever was calling. The visit to Kim's house, and the resulting revelations, had left her emotionally wrung out. Even as a bystander, hearing about the murders, and then seeing Jennie, had torn at her.

Lisa contemplated letting her machine answer the phone, checked the caller ID, and sighed again.

"Hey, Rosé," she greeted after picking up the receiver.

"Lisa!" Rosé returned, her voice mildly chiding. "I've been trying to call you all night!"

"Sorry," she apologized. "I was out and just got home."

"Out? It's kind of late, isn't it?" Rosé asked.

"I was...meeting some friends." It wasn't a lie. Precisely. Lisa was with people who were sort of friends.

"You're made some friends? That's great, Lisa! Tell me all about them!" her sister ordered.

Lisa held back a chuckle. Rosé would likely want to make sure she was hanging out with nice people. She loved to worry. So, she told her the basics of what she knew about the group she'd been with. Jisoo and Jin were engaged, and they owned a café in town, and Jackson was a friend of theirs who worked in construction. They were a little younger than she was, but nice people. Thankfully, Rosé accepted the descriptions.

"I'm glad you're not sitting home all the time, or working too much," Rosé babbled happily.

"I don't think there's much chance of being bored around here," Lisa replied then hoped her sister missed the sarcasm in her voice. Better change the subject, she thought. "Your finals start soon, right?"

"Yeah," she sighed out. "My first one is in two days."

"Shouldn't you be studying then," she teased, all the while knowing her little sister was an obsessive studier.

"I'm taking a break," Rosé told her. "I'm afraid my brain's going explode soon."

"Wouldn't want that to happen," Lisa said with a laugh.

"Anyways," she continued. "I just wanted to see how you were doing. I better get back to my notes."

"Okay. Good luck with your finals," Lisa told her then said her goodbyes.

After hanging up the phone, Lisa simply stood in the center of her kitchen and wondered what she was supposed to do next. None of her plans for moving to the supposedly quiet, small town of Cambria had surrounded around becoming involved with a murder mystery and meeting a believed-dead woman. No, that really hadn't been part of her plans. All she'd wanted was a peaceful, steady life after years of travel.

Well, she wasn't exactly getting that, was she? So, what was she supposed to do now? She'd heard the story of the murder of Kim family. She'd found out that Jennie was alive, being hidden in her house because her father, and the police, believed she'd killed her family. Lisa knew it all now. It shouldn't matter to her. None of it. But it did.

Lisa remembered the way Jennie had stared at her up in her third-floor prison. She remembered how sad and full of grief her eyes had looked. And she remembered how Jennie had stared through the window, gazing out at a world she was no longer really a part of. There was a distinct urge in her to gather her close, hold her, and tell her everything would be all right. But she didn't know if it would be, and that was a promise she couldn't make.

What she needed, Lisa told herself, was to stop thinking about this entire situation for a while. She was obsessing over it, and obsession was almost never good. Time for a break, or time for some work, actually. So, grabbing a bottle of ice tea out of the refrigerator, Lisa trekked through her house and into her office. She would go over some prints for the Chumash article. That would, hopefully, take her mind off...everything else.