Distant Thunder

by Larissa Ione

  “That’s downright diabolical. Brilliant, Ms. Rush.” While she attempted to not show her pleasure at his praise, he shifted gears. “One more thing,” he said. “We need a diversion. Something for the media to focus on besides this. Are there any skeletons in your opponent’s closet? Is there anything we can exploit to tarnish his brand or take the focus off you?”

  “Pfft.” Sebastian rolled his eyes. “We’re the only two running, and I’ve got a forty point lead.”

  “Yes, according to the polls taken before the scandal hit,” Oliver said, and Marylee hoped Sebastian was paying attention. “But you will most likely take a big hit in the next polls, and the minute Ginny Moreno gets in front of a camera and tells her sob story about being a young, innocent girl seduced by a worldly, powerful man who got her pregnant and turned her out into the cold, you lose the election. Get in front of this now. Release a statement by this afternoon or you’re sunk.” He turned to Marylee. “Speaking of Ginny Moreno, you need to make sure she’s legally silenced about this. The Alvarez girl too, if you can do it.”

  “I’ve got lawyers drawing up various nondisclosure agreements already.” Not that she expected either of them to sign them without a fight. Fortunately, she had a few tricks up her sleeve.

  “Good. One last thing, Sebastian. Marylee told me on the phone that the other potential father of Ginny Moreno’s baby is your deceased nephew? But he was believed to be sterile, so it’s unlikely? The press will be after that information. Will the Salts be willing to keep silent?”

  Marylee answered. “Payton has already assured me that her sister and her husband are willing to release a statement saying that Jacob’s medical records are private and that they won’t say anything further in the matter. Trust me, they want to see Ginny ruined for lying to them, but for Payton’s sake, they’re willing to keep this matter private.”

  “Perfect.” Oliver clapped his hands together and grinned like a bloodthirsty weasel. “Let’s go win an election.”

  Chapter Two

  Brittany Rush stood in the second floor family room and stared up at the grotesque head of a trophy buck her father had shot while on some sort of testosterone-fueled political strategy weekend.

  “Now I know how it feels to be you,” she muttered to the thing before casting a glance through the window at the mob of reporters gathered on the sidewalk below.

  It had only been three days since the Great Founders’ Day Disaster, but it felt like a month. For the first twenty-four hours after Dakota’s revelation, the town had been mostly shell-shocked. Then the story started spreading through social media, and last night after Marcus dropped Brittany off after dinner at Murphy’s, she discovered that someone posted the Founders’ Day Disaster on YouTube. The media had descended on Storm like locusts this morning, and her father, whom she’d only seen in passing since Founders’ Day, had adopted a shelter-in-place stance.

  Brittany had given him suggestions on where he could shelter in places that were much, much hotter than Texas, and then she’d run out the front door toward her car, only to be swarmed by reporters.

  “Ms. Rush, is it true that your best friend is pregnant with your father’s baby?”

  “Ms. Rush, how do you think this scandal will affect your father’s reelection campaign?”

  “Ms. Rush, did you know about the affairs your father was having with your friends?”

  Ugh. She and her mother shouldn’t have left Francine’s cabin so soon, and Jeffry certainly should have remained with one of his buddies. But when Marylee snapped her fingers and went into crisis mode, everyone came running and fell in line like good little minions.

  “This blows,” Jeffry said, looking up from where he was lounging on the couch with his iPad.

  “What blows?” She sank onto the love seat across from her brother. “The game you’re playing? Or the fact that we’re trapped like animals? Or maybe the fact that our father is a lying, cheating bastard who slept with our friends? Or the fact that my best friend is going to give birth to our little brother or sister?”

  Yep, she might be a little bitter. And it was ex-best friend.

  He tucked his feet under him on the couch and sighed. “Yeah.”

  “I can’t believe Mom thinks we need to be here for him—”

  She broke off as their mother, Payton, came around the corner with a tray of finger sandwiches and a pitcher of lemonade. They hadn’t spoken much about any of this, and Brittany wasn’t sure how to go about it. As far as she could tell, her mother hadn’t so much as shed a tear over the fact that her husband had knocked up a girl young enough to be his daughter and had probably slept with a dozen more.

  “I brought you something to eat,” Payton said, and if she’d heard Brittany talking, she was choosing to ignore it. “Your father and grandmother are finished with their meeting with Mr. Stayton, and they’re on their way up to talk to you.”

  “This should be good.” Jeffry reached for a sandwich as their mother put them on the coffee table. “I was wondering how long it would be before we got the circle-the-wagons lecture. Five bucks says he tries to convince us that everything Dakota said was a lie.”

  “I know you two are angry and confused and you have a lot of questions,” Payton said as she took a seat next to Brittany, looking all prim and proper in a subdued green dress and gray scarf. “But we’ll get through this. I promise.”

  Brittany wanted to believe her, but so much of her life was a lie, and right now she was having a hard time processing any of it. Her stomach growled, and she realized she hadn’t eaten since last night at dinner with Marcus. But even then, she’d only picked at her food, too upset by the unexpected confrontation with Ginny and Dakota to eat.

  The confrontation with Ginny had been bad enough, but she still couldn’t believe she’d actually struck Dakota. Brittany had punched her boyfriend’s sister. It was nearly enough to make her groan out loud.

  At least Marcus had been understanding, taking her side in public. In private…well, he’d shared a little more of his past and the abuse he and his mother had suffered at the hands of his father. Seeing his sister hit had been painful for him, even though he’d understood the situation.

  The fact that Brittany caused him pain in any way had been devastating, and she swore she’d never do that again.

  “Honey, you should eat something.”

  Her mother’s voice yanked her out of her memories and into more current and pressing problems. Like her cheating father and her empty stomach.

  She reached for a sandwich just as her dad and grandmother entered the room, and so much for her appetite. Marylee took a seat in the armchair near the door, while her father sank down in the recliner and proceeded to lay out a detailed plan for how they were going to handle the crisis.

  If Brit had taken Jeffry up on his bet, she’d have owed him five bucks, because sure enough, their father tried to convince them that Dakota made the whole thing up.

  Oh, but the best part of the whole charade and crisis mop-up plan had come when Marylee all but ordered Brittany to break up with Marcus.

  “I’m not agreeing to any of this,” Brittany said, looking her father directly in his lying eyes. “Do you realize how much this has disrupted our lives? I can’t go anywhere without being accosted by reporters or confronted by complete strangers, and I have to take a semester off college because I can’t drag this to school with me. So no, you don’t get to ask me to lose my boyfriend, too. I won’t talk to the press and I won’t confirm or deny anything, but I will not break up with Marcus. I’ll do my best to keep our relationship out of the public eye, but not out of consideration for you or your bullshit campaign.”

  She stressed the word, “bullshit,” not only because all of this was a stinking load of crap, but because her grandmother hated when Jeffry or Brittany used swear words. And Brit was just angry enough to take perverse pleasure out of seeing Marylee wince in disapproval.

  “I’ll do it out of consideration for Marc
us,” she continued. “He doesn’t deserve be stalked by reporters or photographed everywhere he goes with me.”

  Marylee’s expression went so tight Brit thought her skin might pop right off her face. But she and Sebastian agreed, reluctantly, to not press the issue any further, and then his campaign manager, communications director, and a couple of other staffers Brit didn’t even know came to rush him off for a press conference that was, no doubt, carefully orchestrated to appear totally spontaneous.

  Their mother got up to leave as well, but Brit grabbed her arm and pulled her back down to the sofa. “How can you go along with this? How are you not packing his bags and kicking him out of the house right this minute? He didn’t even apologize for what he’s done. He acted like it was just another day at the office. Why are you—why are any of us—helping him?”

  “Because this is what’s best for all of us right now,” Payton said crisply, as if reciting from a politician’s wife’s playbook. “There are only a few weeks until the election, and then we can relax.”

  Relax? What a joke. “But nothing will change, will it? You’ll keep playing doting, loyal wife, and Jeffry and I will have to pretend our father isn’t a lying, cheating pig. What is wrong with you, Mom? He cheated on you! And not just once. Or twice. Why aren’t you angry as hell?”

  Payton shoved to her feet and rounded on Brittany. “I am angry,” she yelled. Well, most people would say her voice was merely raised, but for her, it was yelling. “Your father’s selfish, reckless behavior has humiliated us all. His ego is so enormous that he thinks he can get away with anything, and he never even pretended to be discreet. I mean, Dakota Alvarez? She’s a walking loudspeaker! What the hell did he expect?”

  Brit blinked, surprised not by what her mom had said, but by what she hadn’t said. “So you’re not mad that he cheated on you? You’re mad that he wasn’t better at hiding it? Seriously?” She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “How long have you known about his affairs? I mean, you said on Founders’ Day that you knew about them, but...oh, God, Mom. You’ve known for a long time, haven’t you?”

  Payton closed her eyes and let out a long, weary breath. “I pretty much understood what I was getting into when I married your father.”

  Brit felt like she’d been drenched by an icy bucket of water. For all these years she’d thought she’d grown up in a normal family. Oh, she knew things for her were different than most, in part because of their wealth and in part because of who her father was, but in general, she’d thought their family was fairly average. She’d believed that her parents loved each other. That they might not be very demonstrative, but there was still love there.

  God, was everything about her life a lie? Tears burned her eyes, tears of anger and helplessness and disappointment.

  “Did you ever love him?” she whispered, desperate for...for what? Confirmation that love actually existed? That she and her brother were conceived for reasons other than political gain or the continuation of a dynasty?

  Smiling sadly, her mom sank back down on the cushion and reached out to tenderly brush Brittany’s hair back from her cheeks. “Once. A long time ago. By the time I realized I didn’t love him anymore, it was too late. He was taking political society by storm, and I’d worked too hard to get him there.” She looked over at Jeffry, and her smile turned wistful. “Plus, I had two small children and I didn’t want to take away their stability. And...I wasn’t ready to be alone.”

  “You’re hot, Mom,” Brit said, trying to lighten the mood before she burst into a full-blown sob. Her mother had never shared anything as openly as she was doing now, and while Brittany was still confused about how she felt about everything, she felt like this was a huge step toward building a new, closer relationship with her mother. “You’d have had a boyfriend in no time.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so,” Payton said as she came to her feet, and maybe it was Brittany’s imagination, but she’d sounded...amused. “Right now, I have a husband to stand beside. I’d like it very much if you two could stand with him, as well. If not, I understand.”

  Jeffry barked out a laugh, and Brit shook her head. “I can’t, Mom. I won’t publicly condemn him, but I can’t support him, either.”

  “Ditto.” Jeffry plugged his headphones into his ears and turned away, tuning them both out in a way only teenagers could.

  “Well, if you change your minds, we’ll be downstairs.” Payton turned to go, but Brit jumped up and hugged her. She smelled like fresh flowers and clean rain, scents she’d forever associate with her mother, but in the last few days, she’d found the fragrance of Payton’s favorite perfume to be comforting and homey and consistent. With so much turmoil all around, it was nice to have something familiar to ground her.

  “You must have been so lonely,” Brittany murmured.

  “It’s funny,” Payton said softly, “but I only realized that recently. You kids are growing up and don’t need me anymore.”

  “Oh, Momma, I’ll always need you.”

  “And I’ll be here for you.” She squeezed Brit hard, wrapping her in a motherly embrace that made everything better. “I promise.”

  Chapter Three

  Dakota Alvarez stood in her nearly empty apartment and wondered how she was going to cope with living at home again. The apartment wasn’t big or fancy, but it had been hers.

  Until Marylee Rush bought the building a few days ago and evicted her.

  What a bitch. It was Marylee’s son who had been in the wrong, not Dakota. But somehow, Sebastian was getting off with nothing but a little media scrutiny. Dakota had lost her job, her home, and her dignity.

  Of course, some would argue that she’d never had any dignity to begin with. But those people were mostly senile old biddies with nothing better to do than play bingo and gossip in coffee shops until their Depends started leaking.

  Someone knocked at the door, interrupting her pity party. Dusting off her hands, she stepped around boxes to get to the door, but the moment she opened it, she wished she hadn’t.

  “Hello, Ms. Alvarez.” Marylee’s dried-up hag voice grated on every one of Dakota’s nerves.

  “What do you want?”

  Marylee strode inside without waiting for an invitation. “I thought I’d take a look around my newly acquired property.”

  “Legally the apartment is still mine until five o’clock this afternoon.” Dakota gestured to the hallway. “So get out before I call the police.”

  The old bat turned around, her eyebrows arched so high they looked like they were trying to crawl into her stupid, pulled-back gray hair. “Go ahead. I own this building, and you’re a known troublemaker from a...shall we say, questionable family. I’m sure the police would love to sort this out.”

  The burger Dakota had eaten for lunch turned into a sour lump in her stomach. “What do you mean, a questionable family?”

  “Please, even you can’t be that stupid.” She reached into her leather designer bag and withdrew a stack of papers with those little colored flags poking out from the pages. “You need to sign these.”

  “I’m not signing anything,” Dakota slammed the door, giving up on the hope that the horrible woman would leave. “I want to know what’s so ‘questionable’ about my family.”

  “Oh, you poor, poor child. You really don’t have two brain cells to rub together, do you?” She raked Dakota from head to toe with her gaze, shaking her head in exaggerated pity. “All you have going for you is a tight, young body, a pretty face, and the fact that you’re easy. I can see why a man like Sebastian would appeal to you. You must be so desperate for a man who will take care of you, because once your looks are gone, all you’ll have left is being easy. How will you survive then, if not on your back? It’s sad, really.”

  Dakota’s jaw dropped. Actually dropped. She closed it with a snap of teeth. “You...bitch,” she spat. “Who the hell do you think you are?”

  Marylee tossed the papers onto the kitchen counter. They landed with an ominous t
hud. “I’m the bitch who will keep you out of jail.”

  “Jail?” She crossed her arms over her chest and huffed. “For what?”

  “Theft of Jacob Salt’s medical records.”

  “Oh, please.” Dakota rolled her eyes. “This stupid girl without two brain cells to rub together already looked up the penalty for that. It’s a misdemeanor with a small fine. I’m not going to lose any sleep over it.”

  Marylee’s smile was pure evil. The kind of evil Pastor Douglas was always going on about in church. “My son knows every prosecutor and judge in a hundred mile radius and throughout most of the state. Do you truly believe you’ll get off that easy? Do you think you’ll only be charged with stealing medical records? How about fraud? Violations of medical privacy. Trust me, by the time we’re done with you, you’ll have a criminal record as long as your brother’s.”

  Dakota’s mouth went dry as real fear settled in. Marylee could be lying, probably was lying, but did she really want to take that chance? The Rushes were corrupt, vindictive people, as evidenced by the fact that Dakota was now jobless and homeless, and Marylee was attempting to blackmail her.

  Forcing herself to stay calm, she walked over to the pile of papers and shuffled through them.

  “I’ll save you the trouble of trying to read all those big words,” Marylee said, and Dakota bit her cheek in a desperate attempt to keep from going off on the woman. “By signing, you’ll be agreeing to not take legal action against Payton Rush or Hill Country Savings & Loan. You’ll also agree to keep your fool mouth shut about your relationship with Senator Rush. Your answer to any question even remotely related to him, the Rushes in general, Ginny Moreno, or her child, will be, ‘No comment.’”

  As if. Dakota turned away from the papers. “I don’t think so. I have a pretty good case against the bank for wrongful termination. I’ll be rich. Then I won’t need to rely on my looks to land a man,” she said, hoping Marylee wasn’t immune to sarcasm.