by Willow Rose
He reached for her arm again and grabbed it, but she pulled away. “Don’t touch me, you bastard. You don’t think I know what you and Wanton have been up to, huh? You don’t think I know what’s going on?”
John clenched his fist in anger. He spoke through gritted teeth. “Carol. I told you. What happened was once. It stopped. You have to trust me. We can’t keep doing this to one another. You have to start trusting me.”
“Trust you? Ha! That’s a good one. How can I trust you when you keep lying to me, huh?”
As she said the words, she turned the laptop so John could look at the screen. He stared at the picture of Samantha Durkin, first overwhelmed by deep sadness, then anger filling his body.
“You told me you barely knew her. What’s her picture doing on your laptop, then? In your private photos?”
John clenched his jaws, unable to contain his anger. This time, she had gone too far. He reached over and closed the lid of the laptop.
“Answer me, John,” Carol said, getting up on her feet but staggering as she tried to stand still and look into his eyes. Hers were wet and glossy, and he could tell she had been crying.
John stared at her, nostrils flaring. Carol slammed her hand onto the desk, making the small statue his daughter had made of clay for Christmas clatter.
“Talk to me, darn it, John. Why do you have a picture on your computer of the girl that Wanton killed?”
He stared at her, unable to speak, anger boiling inside him.
“Answer me, John! Or I swear I’ll…I’ll leave you now. I’ll go to our room, pack my suitcase, and leave. Right now.”
He shrugged with a snort. He didn’t have the strength to have this fight again. “Then go, Carol. No one is forcing you to stay.”
Her eyes met his. Hers wore a surprise to them.
“So…that’s it? You’re not even going to fight anymore? You’re not even going to try and defend yourself?”
“I have been fighting, Carol. I have been fighting for so long I can barely remember a time when we didn’t. But I can’t do it anymore. Now, will you please leave? I have work to do.”
She gave him a look of disgust, then snorted as she walked past him:
“I’ll leave you to do your…work. I’ll leave you with your girlfriend, Wanton. Maybe you should have married him instead of me, huh? It seems like you’re willing to do anything to keep him happy, even if it means making your own wife miserable.”
Without thinking, John took a step forward, lifted his hand in the air, then stopped himself, hand stuck in mid-air.
Carol stared at him, eyes wide, fear struck on her face. As she saw the hand stop, she composed herself.
“Go ahead,” she said with sudden defiance. “Hit me, John. I will go to the police and tell them what you did. That will only make the divorce easier on my part once I get ahold of my lawyer. Maybe I’ll tell them to take a look at your computer as well, huh? I have a feeling the police will be interested to know you have the picture of the dead girl on your computer. Don’t you? For all they know, you could have murdered her. I lied for you about your whereabouts that night. I told them we were together, but we both know that isn’t the truth, right? I haven’t asked questions because I promised you that I’d trust you from now on, but now I’m asking. Where were you the night that girl fell from Wanton’s penthouse? Did you kill her?”
John lowered his hand, realizing he was letting his anger run away with him. He needed to compose himself.
“You will not talk to the police,” he simply said, running the hand through his hair. “Because if you do, I will make sure you never see the children again.”
“Oh, yeah? And just who do you think the court will give them to, huh? Me or a murderer?”
“Get out,” he said and pointed at the door. He then grabbed his laptop and threw it at the wall behind her while screaming at the top of his lungs:
“GET OUT!”
Chapter 53
I popped open a bottle of Merlot I had bought in a little market that we stopped by on our way. I found two plastic cups in the bathroom, wrapped in plastic, and poured myself a glass. I looked at Kimmie, sitting on the bed next to me. Tristan was watching TV from the other bed. Kimmie hadn’t said a word to me since I told her off in the car.
“Do you want a glass?” I asked.
She didn’t look up at me, just kept staring at her fingers.
“Kimmie?”
I stared at her, then sighed. I sat at the foot of her bed.
“Kimmie? Do you want a glass of wine?”
She lifted her gaze and met mine, then nodded. I poured her one into the other plastic cup, then handed it to her. Her eyes avoided mine as she took it. I drank from mine while observing her.
“Listen, I’m sorry if I was too harsh on you back there. I got carried away.”
She didn’t look at me, so I continued.
“It’s just…well, to be honest, I really admire what you did. You standing up for yourself and telling me your story required a lot of courage. I know who it is you’re up against, and doing what you did was extremely brave of you. I think that’s why I want you to be proud of yourself and not feel guilty for it or regret it.”
That made Kimmie lift her gaze and look into my eyes.
“I think you’re ashamed of yourself,” I continued. “Of what you have done because you were in the apartment in the first place to get a job, and you’re beating yourself up over it. You feel bad for having told me what happened because of the consequences it has come with. But I need you to drop that. It’ll get you nowhere. The guy killed a young woman; he hurt you and tried to have you killed. He deserves to go to jail, or he will just do it again. And others will see him get away with it and think they can do stuff like that too. You’re doing something very important here, Kimmie. It’s one thing to speak up against a powerful man, but to speak up against someone who is also a public person, that’s an entirely different kind of beast. I need you to be proud of yourself for it.”
Kimmie’s eyes stared into mine, and I smiled. I lifted my glass and tapped it against hers.
“I want you to own it. You’re badass, Kimmie, and I want you to tell yourself that. Or I’ll have to rename you from now on. Kick-ass Kimmie will be your name.”
That made her chuckle.
“I guess I can drink to that,” she said. “Kick-ass Kimmie.”
We both sipped our wine. It didn’t taste very good, but it wasn’t too bad given the circumstances—it kind of fit somehow.
A silence grew between us. Kimmie fiddled with the plastic cup between her fingers while I took a couple of sips more from mine. Tristan was watching a very loud game show on TV.
“But you’re right,” Kimmie finally said. “Telling you what happened was the hardest thing I ever had to do. I hate myself for going with him up to that apartment, and I keep thinking that if only I hadn’t…then, well, maybe that girl would be alive, and maybe my life wouldn’t be like this. I can’t believe I fell for it and went with him.”
“It wasn’t the first time, was it?” I asked.
She looked down and shook her head. “We had an ongoing thing back in the day—when I was a reporter, and he was a news director.”
“An affair?”
She scoffed. “I wouldn’t even call it that. It wasn’t like he took me out to dinner or even asked me where I was from.”
“So, just sex.”
She shrugged. “Times were different back then. It was just the way it was. No one questioned it. Today, the young generation does. They know how to speak up for themselves better. I guess a lot of people just had enough, you know? It’s been going on for way too long. It was time for someone to stand up, you know?”
“I have deep respect for the fact that you did,” I said.
Kimmie nodded and sipped her wine. “I just wish it didn’t have such big consequences for all three of us.”
I wrinkled my forehead. “What do you mean…all three?”
&nbs
p; Kimmie’s eyes became wide. “You know, Samantha and me and…Tristan.”
Chapter 54
Rachel’s hands were shaking as she sat down in the restaurant. She was the first one there and ordered a glass of wine right away. She had taken a double dose of Prozac this morning, upping her dose to the maximum in order to get through the day. Now, as the waiter brought her the wine, she gulped it down so fast it almost hurt her throat, then asked for another one. She fiddled nervously with the glass, tapping her fingers on it while waiting for the others to arrive.
She almost hadn’t come. When she woke up this morning, she had felt such deep anxiety that she had felt sure she would die. Her heart had beaten so fast, it had hurt her chest, and she had to sit down because she was so dizzy. Now, she felt like it was happening again. Her fingers were buzzing, the room spinning, and she felt her breaths getting shorter.
Easy, now. You can do it. Just breathe, Rachel. Deep long breaths. The wine and medicine will kick in soon and make you relax.
Rachel closed her eyes and tried to calm herself. She kept telling herself she was doing something good—for future generations. She was not doing this for herself, but because it mattered—because it was important.
So it wouldn’t happen to someone else.
“Rachel!”
She opened her eyes and looked at Crystal. She was flanked by two other women, looking every bit as anxious and scared as Rachel felt. Rachel wanted to run away, just pick up her purse and walk out of there.
“Okay, girls, go ahead and sit down. Rachel, this is Olivia, and this is Winnie.”
Rachel forced a smile and nodded at them. They shared a gaze for a few seconds before they sat down. She could see the anxiety in both of them and knew exactly how they felt.
“I see you’ve already gotten some wine,” Crystal said with a soft smile. “I’ll order some more. Let’s have a couple of bottles. We girls need it, huh?”
Rachel nodded nervously, then emptied the second glass. The wine was beginning to do its magic in her along with the medicine, and soon she felt calmer. She had been so worried about this meeting, but these girls seemed to be just as scared as her, and they didn’t seem to judge her in any way.
“Winnie, how about you begin? You tell the other girls your story,” Crystal said as the wine had arrived and they had ordered entrees.
Winnie looked flustered into her wine. She gave Crystal a nervous smile, then started.
“I had been at WBC News for about a week when Richard Wanton stuck his head inside my editing suite. He was the news director back then; it was like seventeen years ago. When he came in, he said he wanted to welcome me and told me that I needed to meet with my new colleagues and that they were a group of people meeting up at a bar not far from the station after work. I could just stop by once I was done for the day and say hi. Get to know everyone. I was, of course, very flattered—Richard Wanton, the former anchor and now news director, asking me to come out and meet up with other journalists. I was young and new, and it was a dream for me. Of course, I’d come.”
Winnie paused and drank from her wine.
“But what happened when you got there?” Crystal asked. “You can tell them. We’ve all been there.”
Winnie nodded, then swallowed. “When I got there, it was just Wanton and his close friend John Savage, who later became the news director of the network when Wanton became the CEO of the news department of the entire network. Those two have looked after one another always and covered for one another. Anyway, he was there too, and I thought it was very strange that there was no one else. They told me no one else could make it, and I believed them and sat down. We got a couple of beers, and along the way, I soon realized that they had ordered a hotel room for the three of us and that it was expected that I go with them there.”
Rachel almost choked on her wine when hearing this.
“I got up and hurried away,” Winnie said. “I didn’t want any of that because I was married and just had my first child. But this meant my career was pretty much tanked after that. I never got the good stories again and never was promoted. When I wanted to become a live reporter, I went to Wanton’s office, and he told me that I would have the job in a month. And within that same month, we’d have slept together.”
Rachel stared at her, barely breathing as tears piled up in Winnie’s eyes. “I didn’t know what to do.”
Winnie paused again and used a napkin to wipe her eyes. “So…I did it. And I have hated myself for it ever since. A few months later, I had to quit because I couldn’t stand it anymore. I told my husband, and we decided we had to move far away. I stopped working as a reporter and found another job. I could no longer work in this business. It had been ruined for me.”
“It’s okay,” Crystal said and placed a hand on top of Winnie’s. She smiled gently at her and looked into her eyes. “We’ve all been there. All of us around this table have tried this on our own bodies. But we’re done keeping quiet about it, right? Telling each other our stories serves to help us tell our own, and only that way can we get the courage to speak up and hopefully stop this from happening again. It’s unpleasant to do, but someone has to be the first, right?”
Rachel nodded, finally breathing again, feeling how the tension in her body eased up, how her shoulders came down, and her pounding heart was calmed down for the first time in a very long time. Hearing Winnie’s story made it easier for her to tell her story again, and she soon did, feeling great relief not to be alone, almost uplifted even. Like telling it made her free of the burden it had become inside of her. They were now a small flock of women doing this together. She wasn’t alone anymore. And for the first time, she actually believed they could make a difference.
They ended the dinner by encouraging each other and a big group hug. Then, Crystal pulled out a phone and took a picture of all of them sitting together at the table. One she said that would remind them of how it all began.
“Once this really goes down, and we go public with it, you’ll look back at this moment and remember how scared you felt, then be proud of yourself for not backing down even when faced with that fear. That, my girls, is real courage.”
Chapter 55
Kimmie’s eyes were avoiding mine. It was obvious she was hiding something. I stared at her, scrutinizing her every move. She grabbed the wine bottle and poured herself some more, then gulped down a big portion. She lifted the plastic cup to drink more when I placed my hand on her arm.
She lifted her glare to look at me.
“There was someone else there,” I said.
Kimmie lowered her eyes to her plastic cup, then drank from it again—big sips that she swallowed fast.
“In the apartment,” I continued.
She didn’t look at me but emptied her cup and filled it up again. The bottle was shaking in her hand as she poured from it.
“Kimmie,” I said. “Who else was there?”
She shook her head. “No one.”
“You talked about three people, and I don’t think you meant Tristan. You were talking about someone else. Who?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kimmie said and drank again. Her words were getting slurred; she was tipsy now.
“Yes, you do. Of course, you do. You need to tell me this now, Kimmie.”
“Why? It doesn’t change anything.”
“Yes, it does. It changes everything. Are you kidding me? We need to tell the FBI about this person. We’re talking about a possible witness to murder here, don’t you see? We’re about to go to trial. I don’t understand why you’d not tell us about this?”
I paused and sipped my cup.
“Unless this person won’t support your story, of course,” I added. “Is that why you haven’t told us?”
Kimmie shook her head. She was getting desperate now; I could tell by her fingers fiddling with the cup.
“But I don’t think that is why, Kimmie. I think you’re covering for this person for another reason, am
I right?”
Kimmie bit the side of her cheek, then nodded.
I threw out my hands. “So, you’ve been lying about this. How am I going to protect you if you’re lying to me? I thought you told me everything that happened in that apartment. What else did you hide from me?”
Kimmie drank, emptied her cup, then poured the rest of the bottle into it. She emptied it, then tried to stand up, but almost fell as she did and had to lean on the nightstand.
“Kimmie, where are you going?”
“To get more wine,” she said and lifted the empty bottle, almost tipping it over. “We’re out.”
“No, you’re not running out on me now,” I said. “We need to talk about this. I need to know who this person was. Could it be a possible witness?”
Kimmie paused and looked down at me. Her eyes were glossy.
“I…I…”
“Kimmie, come on. Just tell me who it is.”
She shook her head. “I…I gotta go get this…”
Then, she hurried toward the door.
“Kimmie, stop!”
She paused by the door, hand on the handle.
“Kimmie, you can’t go anywhere. You might be seen.”
She scoffed, turned the handle, and opened the door, then stormed outside.
Chapter 56
THEN:
He was ignoring her. For weeks, he had avoided her looks and not even smiled at her when accidentally meeting her in the hallways at the TV station. He had written no messages to her and didn’t call anymore. Sam had thought it would feel like a relief, that this was what she wanted, but somehow, it filled her with this strange anxiousness. Especially every time she saw him. Wanton’s coldness and silence toward her made her feel like she had done something wrong—like she had messed up. She had come to like his messages that always opened with “hi, gorgeous.” And career-wise, things were going downhill. She was no longer getting any stories, and the ones she tried to push through with were shot down just as fast as she was able to present them. She never got any credit for the mayor story, even though it became a big deal, one that people still talked about. No one knew it had been hers, and they never would. Samantha was beginning to fear that she had ruined her own career.