Girl of Vengeance

by Charles Sheehan-Miles

  “We’re not here in any official capacity, Adelina. Secretary Perry officially relieved me of duty a couple days ago.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “And unofficially?”

  “Unofficially, he’s very suspicious of … the entire situation. So when the IRS and the special counsel took over the investigation, he cut me loose to find out what I could find out.”

  She nodded slowly then said, “That sounds like him. I appreciate your candor.”

  “You know the Secretary?”

  “Of course,” she said. “He and Chuck Rainsley are very close friends. And I was once friends with Brianna Rainsley. So we came into contact with each other a great deal in the 1980s.”

  Bear and Anthony looked at each other. Well, that verified one question. But they still had plenty more. “All right,” Bear said. “Will you talk with us?”

  “I’ll be happy to. On the record or off. If Anthony here wants to print my story in The Washington Post I couldn’t be more pleased.”

  Anthony grinned. “I’d love to get your story.”

  “In the meantime,” Bear said, “I’ve got a number of very specific questions I’m hoping you could help us with.”

  She nodded. “Please, go ahead.”

  “Would you rather talk in private somewhere?” He nodded meaningfully toward Jessica.

  Adelina looked at her daughter. Something unspoken passed between them, then Adelina looked back at Bear. “It’s fine. We can talk in front of Jessica.”

  Bear raised his eyebrows. “All right. I’d like to start with Nick Larsden. Have you heard of him before? Had any encounter with him?”

  “No.” Her tone was flat as she answered the question.

  Anthony said, “Mrs. Thompson … I was with Julia when she broke into your husband’s office. I saw the police report. And … I saw the diary.”

  Adelina winced. Then she said, “Then you know what he did to me.”

  Anthony nodded. “It’s true?” he asked.

  “Yes. I was sixteen when he raped me the first time.”

  “Have you ever heard of anyone who went by the name of Oz?” Anthony asked.

  Adelina froze at the name. Her eyes widened and her skin went pale. “Oz?” she asked.

  Adelina. May 6.

  Oz.

  Of course. Why hadn’t she realized it before? The name sent chills down her spine.

  Jessica looked at her, as did the two men, and it was obvious they could see her reaction.

  She sighed and said, “Yes, I’ve heard the name. How did it come up?”

  Anthony and Bear looked at each other, then Bear said, “Nick Larsden said he was hired by someone named Oz.”

  Adelina swayed on her feet, then said, “I need to sit.” She stumbled across the room to one of the chairs and fell into her seat. Anthony and Bear followed her in, taking the two wooden visitor chairs.

  “Mrs. Thompson? What can you tell us?”

  The first time she’d heard the voice, she hadn’t known he went by that name. It was just a voice. A guttural, mean sounding voice. It sounded as if the owner of that voice just wanted to reach out and shake someone. It was a voice you didn’t want to cross. And back then, Adelina had already been terrified every minute of every day. She didn’t need any more fears. But she got them anyway.

  It happened in 1984. A few days before, she’d manipulated Richard into losing his temper. Into raping her. Her purpose, of course, was to have a plausible date when she could have become pregnant, because the two of them hadn’t touched each other since the move to Washington.

  She’d never felt so dirty. Not even the first time he’d done it. Because this time it was to conceal a lie. A lie she was responsible for. And no matter the reason, no matter how horrible he was, she felt in her heart that she was the one who was wrong. She was the one who was defiled. She was the one who God would judge.

  She’d already decided that she wouldn’t see George-Phillip again. She couldn’t. She loved him like she’d never loved anybody. Every time she thought of him, her heart ached—her whole body ached. But if she continued to see him, it would still be in secret. It would still be dirty. And eventually, she knew, Richard would find out the truth. And then he would kill her, or the baby she had inside of her.

  She’d already decided, but then came Oz.

  It was almost two in the morning when it happened. Richard had flown to London for a meeting, and she and Julia were blessedly alone in the condominium. When the phone rang, the bell was harsh in the darkness.

  She stumbled out of bed to the kitchen grasping for the phone, her heart suddenly racing. No one called at two in the morning. Certainly not Richard. It had to be something awful. Had something happened to Luis? Had that bastard finally followed through on his threats and done something to her baby brother?

  “Hello? Thompson residence,” she gasped into the phone.

  “Mrs. Thompson,” a voice said. A voice that sounded like the gravel at the end of a long dirt road. Irish accent.

  “Who is this?”

  “A friend,” came the reply. “We have a mutual friend. The Prince is returning to Washington, Adelina. Stay away from him. Do you understand me? You stay away from him, or you’ll suffer for it.”

  Rage flooded through her. It didn’t matter that she’d made the decision to say goodbye. Suddenly awake and alert, she spit into the phone, “Who is this?”

  “You heard my warning, Adelina. Stay away from him. Don’t answer his calls. Don’t see him. Or you and I will have a personal problem.”

  Angry beyond words, Adelina said, “And what exactly does a personal problem entail?”

  “Why don’t you check young Julia’s bedroom to find out?”

  Adelina threw the phone at the floor and ran for Julia’s room, her feet slipping on the kitchen floor. She screamed silently as she went down on the floor. She scrambled back to her feet, down the hall, opened Julia’s door, and snatched her daughter out of the Snuffleupagus toddler bed Richard had bought for her a few weeks before. Immediately Julia began wailing, startled out of a deep sleep in the middle of the night.

  Adelina switched on the light and checked Julia for injuries and marks of any kind, even as the girl screamed, her hair tangled in her face.

  “It’s okay,” she whispered, holding Julia to her.

  Then her eyes fell on the wall.

  A large sheet of white poster board was pinned to the wall … directly above the toddler bed. A crude, hand drawn representation of Snuffleupagus, Julia’s favorite Sesame Street character, had been drawn on the poster board.

  A red letter X was scrawled across the creature’s chest. In red letters beneath the children’s show character were words, printed in large block letters. The message said:

  HEED MY WARNING. OZ.

  Now, as Adelina told the story to Anthony and Bear, the full weight of the fear swept over her again and she began to shake. “Whoever Oz is … he, or someone who worked for him, was inside the condo and put that poster board up, then left, before calling me. They could have killed us. Or taken Julia. Anything. I wouldn’t have been able to do anything to stop them.”

  “What did you do?” Bear asked.

  “The only thing I could do. I broke it off with George-Phillip. I gave him no explanation—I didn’t even give him the opportunity to talk about it. I broke his heart.”

  To her left, sitting in the bed, Jessica listened with wide eyes. Adelina hadn’t told her about Oz yet, or why she’d broken it off with George-Phillip. Now her daughter sat there with tears freely running down her face.

  Bear asked, “Did you ever hear from him again?”

  “Once,” Adelina said. “In November 1996. I was pregnant with Andrea at the time.”

  “What happened?” Bear asked.

  “The last time I saw George-Phillip was at an Embassy dinner. For several months we’d been secretly seeing each other. He would … he would sneak into the compound with false identification in the middle of th
e day and we’d go off together. I kept fooling myself that it would be all right, that somehow we wouldn’t be found out, that somehow I could protect my daughters and still have him. But then two things happened.”

  The first, of course, was when she missed her period. They had been careful to use contraception despite Adelina’s religious qualms, but due to the heavy medication she was taking already, her doctor had flat out refused to prescribe birth control.

  She knew. Her last pregnancy with the twins had been extremely difficult and she knew exactly what morning sickness felt like. For three weeks she’d been nauseous, but she’d pushed that to the side, wanting to ignore it, wanting it to be anything but what it was. But when she missed her period, there was no way to ignore it. She bought a home pregnancy test and the result was positive.

  Adelina was pregnant and it was impossible that the baby was Richard’s. She would sooner die than kill her own baby, and she had no desire to touch Richard ever again. He had no desire for her.

  For a week after she discovered the pregnancy, she was paralyzed. She didn’t return George-Phillip’s phone calls. She thought, she wrote in her journal, and she prayed. Useless prayers, she’d believed at the time. But she couldn’t hide forever, and a few days later the US Embassy hosted a dinner for the officers of the Australian and British Embassies. Such affairs were common, and as wife of the Ambassador, she had no excuse for not attending.

  Protocol placed her at her husband’s left hand, directly across from George-Phillip, who sat to Richard’s right. Through the meal she barely spoke, keeping her eyes on her plate.

  At one point Richard said in a tone only she would identify as deeply sarcastic, “Not feeling well, darling?”

  She simply shook her head. He leaned over and gripped her arm and she flinched.

  “Your job is to entertain our guests, Adelina,” he whispered.

  She attempted a smile, then stood up and said, “Excuse me.”

  She hid in the restrooms, but of course that didn’t last lone. Before long, she was circulating in the room, attempting unsuccessfully to make conversation. After escaping from a conversation with the Australian Consul-General, she heard George-Phillip’s voice behind her.

  “Hello, Adelina, how are you?”

  His voice made her heart sink. For days she’d been debating what and how much to tell him. She looked at him and felt her eyes water. She wanted so badly to collapse into his arms, to sink into his love. She wanted so badly to run away with him.

  “You haven’t called,” he said. His eyebrows were sunken close to his eyes in consternation.

  She wanted to make an excuse. She wanted to tell him … she’d been busy, she’d been taking care of the kids, she’d been washing her hair. Instead, she blurted out in a whisper, “I’m pregnant.”

  His Adam’s apple bounced in his throat as he swallowed. “Is the baby mine?”

  “Of course. I’d never touch him unless he forced me.”

  He looked so sad her heart broke. “Adelina, you must leave him. He’s destroying you and your children.”

  She thought about the photos she’d received every year on Luis’s birthday. Photos taken surreptitiously. Luis at school. Luis eating ice cream. Luis at his first job waiting tables. His eighteenth birthday party. Every single year. Richard wanted to remind her. And then, of course, there was the man he sent from London all those years before. Oz. If Richard’s goal had been to cow and terrify her, he had succeeded.

  “You don’t know what you’re asking. If you did, you wouldn’t say that. I’d lose my children. I’d lose everything.” Anxiety twisted through her as Richard approached from behind George-Phillip.

  “Of course, I enjoyed the show very much! I’m hoping we can take Julia to it, you know she loves music.”

  Richard casually clapped a hand on George-Phillip’s shoulder. His voice was jovial, suspecting nothing. “I didn’t get to tell you at dinner, Your Highness, how much a pleasure it is to see you again.”

  “And you, Ambassador,” George-Phillip said.

  He smiled, an insincere diplomatic smile. Adelina knew what his real smiles looked like. And she was terrified she’d never see that smile again.

  “Please excuse me,” she said. “I must find Julia.”

  That night, she had confronted Richard in his office. All five of their daughters were home, which meant this was the safest time. He was unlikely to assault her with Julia and Carrie in earshot. He looked up at her puzzled when she walked in. She never entered his office.

  “What is it, darling?” he asked, his tone nasty.

  Her chest tightened up, pain curling like smoke across her sternum, and she found herself short of breath.

  Richard’s chin set. “What is it, Adelina? You’ve interrupted me. Explain yourself.”

  She closed her eyes. And then she said the words that she thought might end with her death. “I’m pregnant.”

  He stood, his face suddenly red, eyes wide, mouth twisted in a rictus of rage. “Pregnant,” he said, his voice a curse. “I would think that would be biologically impossible.”

  He stood and walked around his desk. Her eyes followed him, never wavering, because he held a brass letter opener in his hand. She began to shake as he reached her side of the table. Then she saw it. He was also shaking. But not with fear or rage. Almost with excitement.

  Her eyes followed the letter opener. He held it toward her stomach then pressed it against her. Not hard. Just enough to slightly hurt.

  “Is this an immaculate conception, Adelina? Did your God plant a baby in you to save us all?” His tongue lightly licked against his lower lip as he spoke. Anticipation. He was going to hurt her badly.

  Then he leaned close, his lips right next to her ear. “Or did Senator Rainsley plant this baby in you too? Is that where you were running off to during the day lately instead of paying attention to our daughters? I wouldn’t have thought he was in China long enough to make you pregnant.”

  He brought his forehead to hers, leaning against her. “What would you do with your poor Catholic morals if I order you to abort your fucking baby? If I tell you to have it cut out of you? What would you do if I told you that if you didn’t, I’d take Carrie and sell her to the highest bidder? I’m sure some of those perverts in the Yakuza would love a twelve-year-old white girl, huh? Would you kill this baby to save that one?”

  Adelina shuddered. Involuntarily, tears began to run down her face. She closed her eyes. She couldn’t show weakness. He fed on fear. He fed on weakness. He was evil.

  “Answer me, you cheating whore,” he demanded. “Shall I cut the baby out of you right here?” He pressed the letter opener against her again, harder this time, hard enough to really hurt.

  “No,” she gasped.

  Abruptly he turned away. He strode away from her and stood behind the desk. “Have your baby,” he said. “Maybe I’ll smother it in its sleep. Maybe it’s time I paid a visit to Luis. Or maybe I’ll just torture you until you finally end your own worthless life. Get out of my office.”

  She had done as he ordered. But that wasn’t the end of it. Because two days later, she woke up in her bedroom with a hand over her mouth. She struggled, but realized she was pinned down somehow. She couldn’t move her limbs at all.

  Hot stinking breath blew on her face, smelling of rot and mud and tobacco. Then the intruder spoke. She recognized the voice, even all those years later. It was Oz.

  He spoke in a guttural Irish accent. “I told you to stay away from the Prince. And you disobeyed.”

  “Please don’t hurt me,” she whispered.

  “This is your last chance. I’m not going to kill you this time. But if you ever see him again, you and your daughters will die.”

  The weight had lifted off of her. “Last chance, Adelina. Make the right decision.”

  Then he had run out of the room. Moments later, she had stumbled out of bed, running to check on her daughters.

  They were in their beds, and safe.


  As she finished telling the story, Bear shook his head. “Did you ever find out who Oz was?”

  “No,” she replied.

  “Did you ever talk with George-Phillip about it?”

  She closed her eyes. Then whispered, “I never spoke with him again. I had to protect my daughters.”

  She heard the sympathy in Anthony’s voice as he asked her the next question. “Did Richard get his revenge, Adelina?”

  She slowly nodded and tears ran down her face. “He did. I don’t want to talk about what he did. He made my life miserable for a long time. And the older Andrea got, the clearer it became that she wasn’t his daughter. I finally sent her away for her safety. I was afraid he’d lose his temper some day and kill her.”

  She opened her eyes. Then she said, “It was at its worst when we lived in Bethesda after we got back from China. On a few occasions he physically hurt me. Especially when Maria Clawson began to write about him regularly. Write about us. Poor Julia had gotten mixed up with some very bad stuff in China, and a photo circulated amongst the students. She got her hands on it.”

  She looked down at the floor. Unable to say it. Unable to forgive herself. She whispered, “He … tortured me. Every time she wrote a new column, it was more … more vitriol from him. More pain. More threats. I thought more than once about just throwing myself off the balcony.”

  Anthony said, “Adelina. I don’t know if you’ll ever be able to get a legal judgment against him. But I want to bury Richard. I want him to be thrown down so low that he never gets back up again. I want to tell your story.”

  Adelina shuddered. She didn’t speak, but an unexpected voice did. To her left, in a vicious tone, Jessica said, “Do it. Bury him. Don’t ever let him hurt her again.”

  Anthony looked at his watch. “We’ve got about four hours before we have to leave. Bear, are you up for this?”

  Bear shrugged. “Do what you gotta do. We aren’t getting an earlier flight.”

  Anthony said, “First, you need to understand—I need people who can corroborate your story, or parts of it. Will George-Phillip admit the affair?”