And I gave her a puzzled look but shrugged my shoulders. It wasn’t like Virginia not to go into work, but she was a professional and could make her own decisions.
“Okay,” I said, already headed up the stairs, trudging with slow steps. “Don’t wait for me for dinner.”
“We will, honey,” called my mom, her voice wafting up after me. “We will.”
Did she mean they’d wait or wouldn’t wait? I didn’t know because my mind was so fuzzy, so tired, that I fell into bed, asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.
PART III
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Stacey
“Get out,” growled Pax into the phone. “Get out of the house now.”
“What?” I gasped. “Why?” The ring of my phone had woken me from my nap and it was dark outside now, the twinkling of evening stars just visible from my window.
“Where are you?” he rasped. “Where are you exactly?”
“I’m in my old room,” I said puzzled. “You know, down the hall from your old room.”
“Stacey,” growled Peyton into the phone. “Don’t bother to pack up. Just get your purse and make your way out like nothing’s wrong. Say goodbye to your mom, our dad, and then get yourself to the airport. Come home,” he commanded.
I was speechless. I’d come to White Plains to relax, to escape from the strain of the big city, there were no paparazzi here, no one to treat me like a leper. But now my steps were on the phone telling me to get on a flight asap. Why?
“Brothers,” I said slowly. “You’re going to have to tell me what’s happening. I’m not a little girl anymore,” I said firmly.
There was silence from the other end.
But finally Pax answered.
“Stacey, we found your perp,” he said in a low voice.
“You did?” I asked, suddenly limp, dropping to sit on my bedspread. The strength rushed out of my body and I felt suddenly drained.
Taking a deep breath I asked, “Who is it? Just some random guy?” I choked out. “An obsessed fan?”
Silence. And then Peyton’s voice came on the line again.
“An obsessed fan of sorts,” he said. “It’s our dad, Gordon.”
This time the phone dropped out of my hand. Gordon Jones, my stepdad? The guy who was married to my mom? The guy who was probably downstairs right now, eating dinner at the kitchen counter?
I could hardly believe it and slowly, I picked up my cell again with trembling hands.
“How do you know?” I asked, my voice trembling.
“Sister,” said Peyton woodenly. “We wish it weren’t true, but it is. We found the missing tape and it’s Gordon in the room next to yours. He filmed you in the shower at your hotel.”
“But how?” I gasped. “How did this happen?”
“That’s the thing,” said my brother. “We got a hold of the hotel logs and a maintenance guy went to your room to fix the A/C around that time. That guy was Gordon,” he choked. “He filmed you.”
I came to life suddenly.
“Brothers,” I choked into the phone. “I have to go. I have to get out of here.”
“Go,” they agreed. “But be careful, sister. Don’t let him know we’re onto him.”
“I won’t,” I promised, my hand trembling as I hung up. Frantically, I began to pack an overnight bag, throwing things in haphazardly and then stopped, breathing hard. I couldn’t believe it. My own stepdad had filmed me nude? How could that happen? Was he filming me now? The realization made my skin crawl and feeling suddenly dirty, I grabbed my purse and ran down the stairs, coming to a halt in the kitchen.
“Honey what’s wrong?” asked my mom, taking in my flushed face and messy hair, still tangled from the nap. “What’s wrong?” she asked again.
“Nothing,” I said, craning my head, looking around furtively for my stepdad. Where was he?
Noting my distraction, my mom answered.
“Gordon went out to run some errands,” she said. “Why what’s wrong?”
And despite my promise to my steps to act normal, it all came pouring out.
“Mom, it was Gordon who made that video of me in the hotel!” I cried. “He posed as a maintenance man and came in and filmed me when I was in the shower. Your husband!” I almost screamed. “He did this, your filthy, disgusting husband, I hate him, I hate you. How could you?”
I expected my mom to be shocked, maybe even to fall into a faint. But she was silent, her eyes pleading with me.
“Honey, I’m so sorry,” she said slowly, her voice small. “I suspected.”
Instead, it was me who almost fell down.
“You suspected?” I gasped, my breath coming in short, sharp pants. “How? Why? What?” I could hardly believe my ears.
“Please baby, just sit for a minute, just listen,” pleaded my mom. “Please just listen.”
I couldn’t even reply, remaining stock still at the kitchen table, too stunned for words.
“Honey,” she said slowly, “when I married Gordon I was desperate. I was getting older, but older just means less opportunity for a woman of my age,” she said, her eyes begging me to understand. “When I met Gordon it seemed too good to be true. A handsome, intelligent widower with a good job, who was okay with my busy schedule. I was desperate to get married again, to feel loved and wanted.”
“And he made me feel that way, honey, he made me feel desirable, like I was eighteen again. So I married him as quickly as I could, rushed him to the altar, made him take his wedding vows without really knowing him.”
“But the joke was on me,” she said bitterly. “Gordon,” and here she choked, “hadn’t gotten dating out of his system. He was used to being the man about town and still wanted to live that lifestyle.”
I was completely thunderstruck. Gordon had always seemed nice, but really boring. I knew he’d dated around before settling down, but I hadn’t realized he was a heartbreaker. My stepdad had to be at least fifty, for crying out loud. Wasn’t that too old to be a player?
But my mom continued.
“It’s my fault,” she said bitterly. “I was so desperate for male attention, so lonely working all the time, that I pulled out all the stops to get that marriage certificate signed asap.”
Here, I nodded my head. I remembered how she’d sprung the wedding on me. We’d had a week to plan, a week to put together the elaborate affair at the country club.
But my mom wasn’t done unburdening herself yet.
“And after the marriage, things were fine at first. He seemed like a loving, doting husband, happy to have me as a breadwinner, it relieved the financial stress with two sons going to college soon.”
“But things started getting weird. He was looking at other women, staring at them too long, and,” here she choked again, “looking at you too long,” she said, shame suffusing her face. “I confronted him about it and he said that nothing was the matter, made me feel bad about even asking. So I backed off,” she said in a small voice. “Or rather, I paid him. I paid him to stay away from you, offering Pax and Peyton full rides to school if he stayed away from you.”
Now this time, I was taken aback. My mom had paid for my brothers’ college educations to get my stepdad to stay away from me?
As if reading my mind, my mom nodded slowly.
“It worked, at least I thought it did,” she said. “You were fine here, right?” she asked anxiously. “Senior year worked out for you, you only had a few months before graduating. I figured if I watched you like a hawk, everything would be okay.”
“But it wasn’t,” she continued sadly. “After you left and started getting famous, the fixation just got worse. Gordon would videotape your games, watching them again and again,” her voice dropped off.
“When did you know?” I asked woodenly. “When did you know?” I asked again, my voice sharp.
“Honey, I didn’t know know,” she said looking down, her voice ashamed. “I just suspected because Gordon was gone around the time the scandal hap
pened. He told me he was on a boys’ fishing trip in Florida, but I think he followed you to Atlanta and made the video then.”
This was more than I could process, my mind spinning. My stepdad was a stalker who’d filmed a naked video of his own stepdaughter, and my mom suspected the entire time? The enormity of the situation made me nauseated and the floor zoomed at me suddenly. Reaching out blindly, I clutched the kitchen table to stop my fall, swallowing hard as my stomach heaved. I had to get out of here. Blindly, I picked up my purse and spun on my heel, turning towards the door.
“Please Stacey,” cried my mom, clutching my arm. “Please understand,” she pleaded, “he’s all I have. I was so lonely, I’m still lonely, please honey, please,” she begged.
But I just shook my head wordlessly. My mom had betrayed me, working for her own interests instead of protecting her daughter. With a silent shake, I threw off her arm and let myself out the front door, closing the door quietly.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Stacey
“How did you find out?” I asked stiffly, sitting in the living room of Pax and Peyton’s condo. It was luxurious, a triplex overlooking Central Park. But the obvious luxury seemed miles away, I was locked in a dark place, a hell without feeling.
“Stacey,” said Pax slowly. “We put it together piece by piece.”
I took a deep breath.
“Well, what was the first piece?” I asked as calmly as I could manage.
“The missing footage,” said Peyton reasonably. “There was no reason for that footage to be missing, but our IT guys located a back-up stored on a different server.”
“And what was on the back-up?” I asked, my voice slightly unsteady.
“That’s the thing,” said Pax, “it wasn’t what was on it as what wasn’t on it. The footage should have shown a maintenance man walking down the hallway to your room to fix the A/C. But instead, a maintenance worker showed up only seconds after you called, seemingly popping up out of thin air.”
I shook my head, confused.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“There should have been footage of a maintenance worker walking from the elevator to your room. That’s two hundred feet minimum,” said Pax slowly. “Instead, he enters your room from the left side of the camera. He was probably in the room next to yours, which isn’t caught on the security footage.”
I shook my head slowly.
“But that’s hardly conclusive evidence that it’s your dad,” I said.
“Still,” continued Peyton, “he was wearing a baseball cap, which is out of order for most maintenance workers. Only the gardening and landscaping staff wear baseball caps to stay out of the sun, so we couldn’t see his face.”
“Exactly,” I said again, looking at them hard. “Hardly conclusive evidence.”
“But we started putting two and two together,” said Pax slowly. “Our sources pressed the Enquirer about the tape, and finally someone fessed up that they’d bought it from an entity organized in Panama.”
“Panama?” I asked dumbly. “That seems pretty crazy. Why Panama?”
“That’s the thing,” said Peyton grimly. “Here’s where we caught our lucky break. Have you heard about the Panama Papers?” he asked.
Dumbly, I nodded.
“Sure, someone leaked papers from a law firm in Panama that helped rich people do a lot of illegal things like transfer money to secret bank accounts, hide funds,” I said. “Why, what does that have to do with this?”
“Unfortunately, that’s how we figured out it was our dad,” ground out Pax. “The corporate entity that sold the tape to the Enquirer is registered in Panama … to him.”
I was dumbfounded. Gordon was smart enough, savvy enough, to create a fake corporation located in Panama? This was way beyond what I thought possible for a mid-level manager.
“Honey, it gets worse,” said Pax slowly. “The company is registered to Gordon, but it shows your mom as named representative.”
And then my world really collapsed. Virginia said she didn’t know anything about the video, merely that she suspected my stepdad of videotaping me. Instead, it seemed my mom was part of the plot, helping him register a fake company, providing him cover and a means.
And in a sick way, it made sense. Only rich people had the resources to create a web of fictitious corporations, obscuring their identity. And you what? Virginia probably did this all the time. As a career banker, she set up shadow accounts for her clientele all the time, helping them evade taxes, hide assets, commit all sorts of financial crimes. It’d be no trouble to set up a fake Panamanian company for herself … and for Gordon.
Putting my head down, I began breathing deeply, drawing in air through my nose, breathing out through my mouth. My head felt light, the world spinning around me as I struggled for oxygen. How could my mom have betrayed me? The hurt was searing, my heart ripped open as I registered the depth of her lies.
A big hand dropped gently on my back, massaging my spine.
“Stacey, it’ll be all right,” said a deep voice gently. “We’ll find a way.”
“Yes sister,” intoned another masculine voice. “Take it easy for now, because we’ll figure out what’s next ... and how to make them pay.”
And with that, I knew Virginia and Gordon were doomed. Pax and Peyton would make sure of it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Pax
“Does it have to be here?” Stacey whispered to us. We were outside the Union Club while a glitzy party roared inside. We could hear the clink of champagne glasses, the boom of music filtering out into the balmy New York night.
“Yes,” I ground out. “The better to catch them unawares.”
And with that, I took her hand and we made our way up the stairs to the ballroom. It was the wedding of Andrew Ross, one of Virginia’s business associates, a billionaire who’d allegedly bilked the government of millions in a Medicaid scheme. No wonder security was heavy.
But my brother and I had decided this was the best time to confront our parents. They’d been avoiding our calls, totally mum on the subject, as if freezing us out would be the solution. Even worse, I suspected that they’d hired a PR firm to deflect any blows, should it come to that.
Peyton went first, stepping into the ballroom. Despite the fact that it was raucous party, alcohol being swilled like water, the crowd noticed him. Or noticed us, I should say. After all, who doesn’t look when two six five NFL stars enter a room, towering above the crowd, dominating, domineering in our tuxes?
Plus, we had Stacey with us and she was a celebrity herself now. Her blonde hair was done in an elaborate updo and she wore a green cocktail dress, elegant, perfect, showing off that tiny waist, her long legs.
I felt her stumble a little, gasping, and I bent to whisper in her ear.
“Don’t worry honey,” I encouraged her. “We’re doing the right thing.”
But I could tell she was still hesitant. She didn’t want a public confrontation with our parents, but we’d persuaded her that it was the only way.
“If we don’t,” Peyton had warned, “they’ll make it go away somehow. Gordon will never serve time, no one will know that this ever happened.”
“But how can they make it go away?” she asked, puzzled. “I don’t get it, you can’t make something like this just go away.”
And I shook my head.
“Honey, the world works differently for rich people,” I chided gently. “Just look at the Panama Papers. How many people skirted U.S. laws by using webs of corporations to move money and shield their real identities? It happens all the time.”
And Stacey nodded unhappily. She understood. There was every reason to believe that Virginia’s money would make this all disappear somehow.
So we made our way into the ballroom, a hush descending as voices followed us, stares eating up our forms.
“Isn’t that…?” asked one voice.
“Yeah, it’s the Jones boys,” said another hushed voice. “What are
they doing here? Andrew Ross knows them?”
“Andrew Ross knows everyone, billions will buy you famous friends,” a voice replied venomously.
That was harsh, but if the crowd wanted to skewer the groom at his own wedding, that wasn’t my business.
We saw Virginia and Gordon standing over to the side, chatting steadily with an older couple. They didn’t acknowledge us as we approached, only looking up at the last minute when it was impossible to ignore us, impossible to pretend not to see.
“Boys,” boomed Gordon, his arm around his wife. “I didn’t know you knew the Rosses, we didn’t see you at the ceremony. This is quite the family affair isn’t it?”
Virginia tittered hesitantly and clung to her husband’s arm.
“Honey,” she said looking over at Stacey nervously. “You look beautiful, that color suits you well.”
“Really?” asked Stacey slowly. “Really Mom? After everything that’s happened all you can say is that I look beautiful?”
“Honey, this isn’t the time or place,” said Virginia, her eyes darting around nervously. “Not here.”
“Why not?” asked her daughter, looking around, making sure people were looking. “Why not?”
“Because,” her mom said, her voice lowered, dropping almost to a whisper. “All my business associates are here. My clientele, baby, the people who pay me.”
“That’s why we chose this wedding,” I rumbled, not bothering to lower my voice. “That’s why we’re here.”
“Baby, please no,” pleaded Virginia. “Not now. I’ll do whatever you want, later, after the party, I promise, just not now.”
Stacey was hesitant for a moment, considering.
“No, I’m sorry Mom, what happened to me was despicable. I’m sick of being the victim, forced into a dark corner. People have to know.”
And our sister took a step back, making sure all eyes were on her.
“Everyone,” she announced, “I think you know that I’m Stacey Light, the sportscaster. Earlier this year, a man snuck into my hotel room and videotaped me in the shower, selling the tape to the Enquirer.”
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