by L. G. Davis
I don’t know what I can do from a distance. It’s complicated trying to bring Cole to justice without exposing myself.
“Thank you,” she says. “I’ll tell the police everything. I’ll look for her journals and give them to the police.”
“That’s good.” My heart lightens. “That’s a good idea.”
“My Denise used to love journaling,” she continues. “She said it helped free her mind. I hope her words will lead the police in the right direction.”
When I end the call, I’m starting to feel confident that Cole is going to be punished for at least one of the crimes he committed. And after that, I will work hard to reveal the others.
Feeling hopeful, I gather my son into my arms and hold him until he gets squirmy and starts to push me away. “Mommy, I can’t move.”
After I let him go, I make us tomato sandwiches and we eat in front of the TV without switching it on. I don’t want to make the mistake of falling asleep with the TV on and waking up to find him seeing my face on the news. Even though Clark begs to watch cartoons, the TV stays off.
After lunch, I read him his favorite books until he grows drowsy and falls asleep. I’m about to close the curtains again when I catch sight of a police car parked in front of the motel.
In a panic, I check to see if the door is closed. The motel owner must have recognized me and called them to come and get me.
Either way, I’m stuck. I’m cornered. I glance at my son. I’ve failed him. I’ve destroyed his life.
The police car remains in the parking lot for an hour, but no one gets inside it. I keep expecting the police to knock on the door, but they don’t.
The urge to use the bathroom forces me to walk away from the window. When I return, the car is gone.
The best thing I can do right now is to stay put and hope for a miracle.
Staying in motels doesn’t feel safe.
For a split second, I consider calling Tasha to ask if the offer to stay in her guest house still stands. I remind myself that I might be putting her in danger by doing that. Plus, what if her husband is not on board?
It’s definitely a bad idea, one that could hurt too many people.
I lie next to Clark and pull him into my arms, protecting him the only way I can.
26
Six Years Ago
The day before my wedding to Brett, I stood in the entrance to the wedding banquet hall.
Everything was ready for the reception.
I wanted to say it was perfect, but life had taught me that nothing ever is.
I couldn’t tell whether the butterflies in my stomach were brought on by excitement that I was about to marry the man of my dreams, or the fear that something would go wrong.
I chose to focus only on what could go right. Brett and I were about to start the rest of our lives together. He had promised me the world. I promised him the same. After three months of dating, I felt like we’d known each other all our lives.
Fragrant champagne roses spilled from every corner of the room, mingling with the expensive lace and silk. Some of them were also wrapped around the chandelier above the monogrammed dance floor.
I flinched when someone slid their arms around my middle. Then I smelled his warm, woodsy cologne before I turned to face him.
“Good morning, wife.” He kissed the side of my neck.
“You can’t call me that quite yet, Mr. Wilton,” I said, leaning in for a kiss. “Just a few more hours left.”
“I can’t wait.” He leaned his forehead against mine.
“Are you imagining us dancing on the dance floor?”
“Oh, yes.” I smiled.
I enjoyed our moment, then pulled away, my expression serious. “I’m sorry your father won’t be here.”
His father had made it clear that he did not support our union and would not attend.
He did not believe in marriage and he found it appalling that his son was choosing to marry a former maid. He even threatened to disown Brett if he went ahead with the wedding. When we first got to know each other, Brett told me that his father loved to control his life, but he put his foot down when it came to choosing whether, and who, to marry.
Cole decided to go out of town during the festivities so he would not witness us becoming husband and wife.
It gave me some sense of comfort to know he wouldn’t be there. I could not stand the man. I found it hard to breathe in his presence, and Brett was stiff and uncomfortable when his father was around.
Cole was overbearing and barked orders at Brett as though he were a child.
“I prefer not to have him around,” Brett said. He looked more relaxed than he usually was. I loved that carefree side of him.
“Still, he’s your father and it must hurt.”
“It doesn’t,” Brett said and pulled away. His eyes glistened. He couldn’t hide his pain from me.
He placed both hands on my cheeks and kissed me again. “The honeymoon suite is ready for you. You’re spending the night here at the hotel.”
“I am?” I raised an eyebrow.
“Of course. My girl deserves to sleep in comfort before her wedding day. I want you to be well rested. I don’t want you to ever sleep in that shabby apartment of yours again.”
I swatted his arm. “Stop calling my apartment shabby.”
He was right. The small one-bedroom apartment I lived in was far from the luxury of a suite at the Black Oyster, but when I came to Fort Haven from New Jersey, in search of a fresh start, it was all I could afford.
After I started dating Brett, he insisted I move in with him, but people were already gossiping that I was with him for his money. I didn’t want to give them even more ammunition. Even when he proposed, I refused to move into his house, which was owned by his father.
The only time I was prepared to move in with him was as his wife. He finally respected my decision.
But the night before our wedding day, it would definitely be nice to sleep in a comfortable suite, where my wedding dress would not be squashed up in a tiny closet.
My life felt like a fairy tale coming to life.
After accepting his offer, he personally drove me to my apartment to get my things. Then he dropped me off at the hotel and asked the staff to help me settle in.
My former coworkers hardly said a word to me. They did what they had to do and left. I got the feeling that they saw my marrying Brett as a betrayal of some sort. They no longer knew how to communicate with me or act around me. I understood where they were coming from, but that didn’t make it hurt any less.
In spite of what they all believed, I was with Brett purely for love. I was not the kind of woman to marry a man for his money. The moment I met him, just after his father hired me, it was love at first sight. It did take a few weeks for us to start dating, though, because I found it hard to get past the fact that he was my boss.
He kept seeking me out in the hotel, asking if everything was going well. It was something he didn’t do with the other housekeepers, at least not that I noticed.
Eventually, he asked me to dinner. When his father found out, he was furious, and I was ashamed. I was not surprised when Cole called me a piece of trash and fired me on the spot, right there in the restaurant. He thought that would be the end of it.
Brett apologized and promised that his father would never come between us again.
I soon learned that Cole always had his way, and the way he treated his own son was despicable. He degraded him and made him look weak even in front of the employees at the hotel.
After I was fired, Brett continued to come and see me. He also helped me get a job working in a restaurant that belonged to one of his friends. At first, he offered me money to help me out, but I refused it. I preferred to earn my own money. I didn’t want to rely financially on a man who wasn’t my husband yet.
After a few weeks of seeing each other secretly, he proposed. I said yes without thinking about the possible consequences. Foolishly, I thought maybe
now that I was going to be his wife, his father would respect our relationship.
Brett arranged a dinner with the three of us so we could announce our engagement. Cole did not show up, so he had to find out over the phone. That’s when he came to the restaurant to punch his son in the face, breaking his nose.
“Marriage is for weak men,” he said between clenched teeth. “Marry that woman and you will regret it.”
Despite his father’s threats, Brett refused to give me up.
Now we were getting married, and even though I was excited, I was nervous as well. His father was the fly in the ointment. Maybe it was best that he refused to come to the wedding.
Standing in the honeymoon suite, I decided not to think about my future father-in-law. I didn’t want him to ruin everything for us.
Surrounded by the sweet scent of the red roses in vases around the room, I lowered my wedding dress onto the couch and threw myself onto the four-poster bed, erupting into giddy laughter.
I had just finished having a long bubble bath when someone knocked on the door. I was not seeing Brett again that day, so it had to be one of the staff.
I slid into a fluffy bathrobe and swung the door open.
I stumbled back when I saw my future father-in-law standing in front of me. He was normally impeccably dressed in one of his black suits and gray shirts, but this time, the suit jacket was gone and his tie was loose. I had never seen him anything other than impeccably dressed before, and I had thought he was out of town.
My first thought was that he had changed his mind and decided to be by his son’s side, after all. Maybe he had come to apologize to me for all the names he had called me. But his expression wasn’t one of remorse.
I tightened my bathrobe cord and forced a smile. “Cole, I thought you were out of town.”
“You would like it that way, wouldn’t you?” he said. “It would be the perfect opportunity for you to trap my son in your web.”
“I love your son, Mr. Wilton.” I pushed back my shoulders to appear confident. “And I’m not marrying him for his money.”
“So, you’re telling me that if I disowned him today, you would still marry him? Do you know that everything he has belongs to me? If I take it all away, he would have nothing.”
My eyes were heating up when I responded. “Of course. I would marry him any day because I love him. But I’m guessing that’s something you don’t know much about.”
The grin that spread across his face left a chill down my spine. “Are you going to allow me to stand out here, or will you let me into a room that belongs to me?”
I let him in, and it turned out to be one of the worst mistakes of my life.
The moment the door closed behind us, he planted a hand on my chest and shoved me back. I could not stop myself from falling to the floor. When I tried to get up, he lunged over me.
“Looks like someone needs to teach you a lesson,” he drawled.
“Let me go,” I shouted, but his hands were now tight on my wrists and his body pressed me down.
“Do you know why I hired you in the first place?” he whispered into my ear, his breath warm against my earlobe. “It was not because I thought you could do the job. It was because I wanted to see how your body would look in a tight little uniform.”
As panic swept through me, I tried to free myself from him, but he pressed harder until my back hurt.
“Let me go,” I shouted again, but then he clamped his hand across my mouth.
“You’re not going anywhere. And Brett can’t come and save you. I arranged a long meeting for him. I own you, just like I own him.” He blew a liquor-soaked breath into my face. “He’s nothing, you know. He’s not the man you think he is. He’s a little boy, but you’re too blind to see it, aren’t you?”
His words pierced through me. I tried to scream, but his hand was so tight against my mouth that no sound came out.
“Like I said, everything Brett owns belongs to me. That includes you.”
With that, he put his other hand on my throat and choked me until I was too weak to fight him. Then he went ahead and damaged me the night before my wedding, breaking every perfect moment I was ever going to have with Brett.
Before he left, he put a gun to my head and told me if I ever said a word to anyone, he would kill me.
I believed him and buried the secret deep inside my heart.
27
Inever expected it to happen so soon or so dramatically. In fact, I didn’t expect it to happen at all.
I was trying to get back to sleep when my phone beeped gently with a message from Denise’s mother.
Switch on the news.
—Mandy
Thankfully, Clark is sleeping like a stone and didn’t even budge when I found the remote in the dark and switched on the TV. The volume is low, and my ears strain to hear every word.
I watch the TV screen in awe, as it bathes the room in color.
Cole Wilton’s face is all over the news on almost all the news channels. Across the top of the screen, in bold type, the headline reads:
Breaking News: The Downfall of Businessman Cole Wilton
Now my mouth is hanging open as I watch the man I feared the most being led out of the Black Oyster in handcuffs. A monster has been captured. On the screen, he’s trying to fight the police off, saying something I can’t hear, but the cops have a good handle on him.
I’m almost weak with satisfaction as I watch him being robbed off his power. I guess nothing lasts forever. Deep, dark secrets have a way of coming out into the open. Cole’s are currently in the spotlight, and they are uglier than I ever could have imagined.
A male reporter with a gelled lock flopping over his forehead throws a glance behind him and then back at the camera. His eyes are shining with excitement. He is clearly pleased to have landed a story that is sure to go viral.
Early this morning, hotel mogul Cole Wilton was arrested for the sexual harassment of dozens of his housekeeping staff. You can see him here behind me in handcuffs, being led out of his Fort Haven Black Oyster luxury hotel, where he also resides.
We’ve been told that an anonymous caller tipped off Fort Haven police to a pattern of abuse at the Black Oyster, which kicked off the investigation. Since then, at least ten women, all maids at the hotel, came forward to share devastating stories of sexual abuse, bribery, and sometimes death threats.
We will keep you updated as this explosive story unfolds.
I cover my mouth with my hand. I knew there had to be other women out there, but I didn’t expect there to be so many.
Swallowing a sob, I wrap my arms around my legs. I return to that night, the night he broke me, the night he poisoned my marriage, the night that led to me standing in front of my future husband the next day a shell of my former self. The vows I exchanged with Brett that day no longer held meaning because I was keeping a devastating secret from him. Cole had not come to the wedding. He had left the hotel, and possibly town, after it happened. But he was still there. When I said, “I do”, it was Cole’s face I saw in my mind. When I danced with my new husband at the reception, I kept thinking I saw him among the guests.
After the wedding, I struggled to connect with Brett. He couldn’t understand why I was pulling away from him, why I wouldn’t let him touch me on our wedding night, not knowing that I was hiding the emotional scars and the physical bruises his father left on my body. Not wanting to lose Brett, the only man I ever loved, I faked my way through our marriage. I learned to pretend I was happy when I wasn’t, until it felt real.
It was hard. The nightmares came almost every night. My anxiety went through the roof, and I had to start taking pills to manage it. I was terrified every night that I would talk in my sleep and Brett would find out what I had been hiding from him.
There were many times I tried to tell him, but I didn’t think he would survive learning of his father’s ultimate betrayal. Cole reminded me every chance he got that if I said a word to anyone, he would kill
me. After what he did to me, I didn’t want to underestimate him, and I didn’t want to lose Brett.
Now, for the first time in a long time, I feel lighter. I don’t know how long it will last. I don’t know whether Cole will remain behind bars. He’s a powerful man, and he can hire the best lawyers. But now that the world knows that he’s not squeaky clean, my hope is that while the cops investigate, they will find evidence to prove that he’s not only a rapist, but also a murderer.
I won’t rely on the law to figure it out themselves. I’ll do what I can from my end. I’ll make another anonymous call in the morning to sow the next seeds.
Now that Cole has been arrested, I have more faith in Fort Haven’s new chief of police. Cole was not able to bribe him. I read in a report that the man was ruthless. That’s what Cole needs, someone as ruthless as he is.
Clark groans and turns over.
I quickly switch off the TV in case he opens his eyes and sees Cole being arrested.
But a few minutes pass and he doesn’t wake up. I switch on the TV again. I need to see more.
Several of the maids at the Black Oyster are now being interviewed. I don’t know most of them because they’re probably new, replacing those who had left after Cole damaged them.
Some of the women are crying, some hugging each other.
“He told me that he only hired me because he wanted to see if I was a natural redhead,” a gorgeous redhead says to the camera. “At the time I was grateful because I didn’t have any experience for the job. I didn’t know I was going to work for a monster.”
“Why didn’t you tell anyone?” a female reporter asks.
“I was scared of him. He said he would kill me. And he offered me money. My mother is in a nursing home. I couldn’t say no.”
The camera switches to an older woman with short gray hair. She’s in a wheelchair and the reporter goes down to her level to speak to her.
Who is she? She’s not one of the maids. Cole only hired young women.
When she finally speaks, I smile in spite of myself. It’s Denise’s mother. She’s going public, and I cannot be prouder.