by Peak, Renna
“And what about him? It won’t look suspicious that he isn’t in a safe room with her?”
I felt Cade’s hand on my shoulder. “He’s leaving before sunrise tomorrow. He has meetings in D.C. before some vote. He won’t even be in the same state by the time they find the body in the morning.”
“When and if you get the medical examiner to go along, they’ll let Jenna go. If there is no credible threat—no murderer on the loose—they won’t have a reason to hold her here. Her father will want to have funeral services quickly to get on top of the narrative.” She glanced over at Cade. “That is what Krystal is planning still, isn’t it?”
He nodded, taking the seat next to mine.
I turned back to her. “And then what? Then we just leave?”
“Then, and only then, you’ll be given what you need. Once the funeral services are over, you’ll have a short window to get Jenna away. Senator Davis will most likely want to do some kind of primetime interview to smear Jenna—to take the story away from my ‘suicide’ and put the attention on her. He’ll probably make it a campaign issue.” She shook her head. “Just make sure she doesn’t do that interview. I have no idea what kind of damage it might do to that girl. And she’s been through enough.”
At least we could agree on that.
6
Today
This interview had disaster written all over it. My father’s disposition read a lot more like a presidential campaign interviewee than it did a grieving husband. I could tell he was trying to put on an act, but he was failing miserably. If I hadn’t known better, I would have said he almost seemed giddy.
Of course he was giddy—he stood to inherit the Hennessey fortune, one of the biggest in the world.
I sat down on the small sofa next to him, and tried to hide my disgust as the lighting people adjusted their equipment around us and the makeup people touched up the last shiny parts of our faces.
Krystal had prepared me for the questions the interviewer was going to ask. Softball questions, she said. There wasn’t going to be any insinuation that my return had anything to do with Marian’s death. This was all meant to be an opportunity for my father to show how he was a grieving husband who was still strong enough to lead. Still able to be presidential in his grief.
It was gross.
The woman doing the interview sat down across from us. I recognized her from one of the morning shows, at least, she had been a morning host the last time I had watched television. I realized at that moment it had been a long time since I’d had anything to do with the outside world. Too long, maybe. And I couldn’t remember what it had been for now. I couldn’t remember what it was that Marian and Krystal and Cade had wanted from me when I had agreed to this. It almost made me nauseous how quickly I had become comfortable in this old life again—not even twenty-four hours. Not even a full day had passed since I had returned to Virginia, and I was already posing for photos with my father as the good grieving daughter and sitting with him in his first interview since his wife’s death.
I was gross, too.
“I’m Samantha.” The interviewer extended her hand to me, smiling. “I don’t think we’ve met, Jenna.”
I shook her hand, returning her smile with the fake smile my mother had taught me to use in situations like these. “Good to meet you.”
She motioned for the cameras to start rolling and she began going down the list of questions for my father—almost the exact script that Krystal had shown me earlier that day. I sat there, trying not to smile too broadly or show too many positive emotions. I was supposed to be grieving, after all.
My mind began to wander, listening to the bullshit banter between Samantha and my father. They didn’t need me here—I was like a show animal who served no other purpose but to look pretty and make my father look like the doting daddy that he wasn’t. Not anymore.
“Turning to you, Jenna. There has been quite a lot of attention surrounding your reappearance, given the timing.”
Her words jolted me back to reality. There weren’t supposed to be any questions for me. This was supposed to be a feel-good performance for my father—one I had only agreed to sit through so that I could get in his good graces again.
I blinked a few times, completely unprepared to even speak on camera, other than the few words I had said after the woman across from me had offered her condolences. “Oh?”
Her expression turned serious, the smile she’d had for my father now gone from her face. “How would you characterize your relationship with the young man from Waterville who has been getting so much attention?”
“I…” I was stammering, unable to put my thoughts into words. “I wouldn’t characterize it as a relationship. We were friends.”
“And you were posing as someone named Becky?”
“Yes.” Shit. This was not supposed to be happening. Honesty. Honesty was going to be the best policy, particularly since I was a horrible liar. I just prayed that there weren’t any questions about why I did what I had done. Because I wasn’t sure if I could answer them. I still didn’t quite understand the reasons myself.
“And would you care to explain to the people of the United States why you were living under an assumed name in a small town in Maine?”
“I…” The stammering had returned. What was I supposed to say? That I was hiding from my father and Brandon, waiting for the right time—the go-ahead from Marian—to exact our revenge? Waiting, hell, hiding in plain sight so that it would be easier to jump in front of a camera and tell the world about the things my father had done? About his involvement with the Agostino family—about my heritage? This wasn’t supposed to happen tonight. Krystal wouldn’t have let this happen ever, but especially not tonight. And there wasn’t a good answer to this question. No answer would have satisfied this woman, and there was definitely no answer that was going to satisfy my father.
I glanced over at him. I knew that look—the expression that looked like a kindly, caring father to the rest of the world, but his eyes telegraphed everything I needed to know. He had orchestrated this ambush. He had won this round. The humiliation would be mine tonight.
She didn’t give me a chance to offer another answer. “Do you know how many man hours were wasted looking for you after your initial disappearance?”
I gulped. “I have no idea.”
She nodded. “Tens of thousands. Do you realize how much money was wasted looking for you?”
“I do now.”
“And are you sorry? Do you have any words of apology for the citizens who spent hours praying for you? Praying for your safe return when all along you were hiding by your own choice?”
I looked into her eyes before turning to the camera. “I’m very sorry. I—“
My father interrupted. “My daughter has a history of mental instability. She’s very sorry for what happened now that she’s back to a more normal state. But I want to make sure that the American public understands that I take the issue of mental health very seriously. I see it as a priority in my election, and when I take my place in the White House, mental health will be high on the list of the things we’ll be focusing on in my first term. And Jenna has agreed to get long term help for her problems.” He turned to me with a smile. “Haven’t you, Jenna?”
“Yes?” It should have been a statement, but it came out as more of a question. We hadn’t discussed this—we hadn’t discussed anything since they had found Marian slaughtered in front of the house in Maine.
Samantha nodded, shuffling her papers. “There has been a question about the timing of your return as well, Jenna. What do you have to say to people who are convinced that there is some sort of conspiracy going on here?”
“I’m not sure what you mean.” I reached for the glass of water sitting on the table in front of us. I was hot—the lights were too bright and the intensity of the questions was almost too much.
“What did your mother say to you when you showed up at her compound in Maine?”
&nbs
p; “She didn’t say anything—“
She interrupted. “She must have been shocked.”
I shook my head. “I didn’t see her.”
“You didn’t see her? You had been missing for almost nine months and you didn’t see your own mother?”
“She wasn’t my mother. That’s been well established—“
The glare my father shot at me was a warning that cut off my words in an instant. I had to be sad about this—about her death. I knew it. That was the only thing he had asked of me—to at least feign that I was sad about her death.
I blew out a long breath. “I mean, I’m sure she was shocked. It was late in the day and she had already gone to bed.”
The woman shook her head. “That doesn’t make any sense, Jenna. You’re saying you didn’t see your mother before she killed herself?” She turned her gaze to my father. “So you broke the news to her? Was she upset when she found out that Jenna had been hiding all those months?”
“She certainly was. Disappointed is the better term.” He shot me another look that only I could read—one that said that if this went any farther, I would pay dearly. He turned back to the interviewer, frowning. I saw tears form in his eyes. “My wife had suffered with depression and anxiety for years. She was in a delicate state that night and I should have seen it. I should have done something.”
Samantha reached out to pat my father’s hand. “I’m sure there was nothing you could have done.”
He nodded. “She had been so concerned about Jenna’s disappearance. She had spent months praying for her—blaming herself. They had always been so close, as close as a mother and daughter could ever be, even if they weren’t genetically related.”
I wanted to vomit. This was why I wanted out. The lies—the constant fabrication of stories to make the viewing public happy. I didn’t want to be a part of it any more, and I never wanted to be asked to be party to it ever again.
My father continued. “I think she just couldn’t handle the stress of it—the knowledge that Jenna had betrayed us both. You can never fathom your own child stabbing you in the back in that way…” He dropped his head into his hands for a moment before lifting it to face Samantha again. Tears streamed down his face. “We do the best we can as parents, but you can only do so much. When someone behaves in a manner that would cause their mother to take her own life…” He dropped his head into his hands again.
I had no doubt that this was going to play exactly as he had planned. I was the evil-doer to the only people who mattered—his electorate. It wasn’t his fault that I had turned out to be like he was painting me to be—some evil bitch who made her mother kill herself. I shook my head, almost in disbelief. I should have seen this coming, but I hadn’t. I hadn’t seen it at all.
I tried to find the strength inside me to interrupt. To say the things I was supposed to say when I finally came out of hiding right before the election to ruin any chance this man might have of claiming the presidency. I just couldn’t remember any of it. I couldn’t remember why I had gone into hiding in the first place. I couldn’t remember anything about the people I knew he’d had killed. The memory of Amanda and Mason and everything I had learned about the Agostinos has slipped out of my head like it was a sieve. I didn’t even recall why I was there in the first place—putting myself in a situation like this. Allowing them—him—to make me the bad guy when we both knew I hadn’t done anything wrong. I could accept my responsibility in choosing to hide in Waterville. It had been pretty stupid to try to live like a normal person with the threat of being found out hanging over my head every day. But that taste of a normal life had been so worth it, even though it hadn’t lasted long. That little bit of not having to live my life like this every day had been amazing. The only thing that had been missing was Brandon.
And I had fulfilled my part of this bullshit bargain with my father. I had walked right into the lion’s den without even realizing it and let him have his way with the press at my expense. This was the last time—the very last time he would victimize me again. Because the next time I spoke to the press, it was going to be to blow his whole candidacy wide open. I just had to wait until he didn’t have time to fix it. That had been the whole point of Marian’s plot—not giving my father enough time to walk back what was going to come out.
And the best part of it was that he had no idea how much I knew. I just had to make sure I was alive—or at least not locked up in a looney bin—when it was finally time to talk. I had to do it for Marian.
I had to do it for myself.
7
The silence in the back of the limousine was deafening. To think I could have been dumb enough to not see that coming. That ambush. I should have known better. I should have prepared myself for it.
“Jenna, you have two options.”
My father hadn’t spoken a word to me since the interview ended. There hadn’t been an apology or any explanations offered. There had just been the silence.
I didn’t respond. I didn’t look over at him, just stared over his shoulder at the opposite side of the car, refusing to meet his gaze.
“Your first option is to go back to that place you went to after Daniel…” His voice trailed off, probably because he couldn’t really call it a “death” any longer. “Shady Shores, wasn’t it?”
I said nothing, trying to remain as expressionless as possible. If he didn’t see what I was feeling, he couldn’t use it to hurt me.
“I imagine you’re getting pretty tired of Maine after spending the past nine months there, so I had Brandon find you another option. There’s a residential facility in Malibu that seems like a good fit for you. They treat celebrities, so they’re used to dealing with the paparazzi. It seems like it would be the best choice, but I’ll leave it up to you.”
“And if I refuse?” I glanced at him for a moment before turning my gaze back to the interior of the limo.
He chuckled. “You won’t refuse. I think eight weeks will be enough time for both of us. You can cool off—collect your thoughts.”
I need to cool off? That’s what he thinks?
“And I’ll get my campaign back on message. When you’re done, you can join me back on the campaign trail. We’ll have you out talking to families about the importance of mental health treatment.”
“It’s a good platform, Dad.” I finally met his gaze, looking into his blue eyes that matched my own. “Really. It’s something I would have wanted you to campaign for in real life.”
“This is real life, Jenna. The fact that you don’t realize it is one more reason you need some help.”
I shook my head, folding my arms across my chest. There was nothing real about this life. There was nothing real about me needing to be locked away for two months, taking the place of someone who probably really did need help.
“And as for your relationship with Brandon, I’ve been thinking a lot about it. He’s proved himself loyal beyond any shadow of doubt. He’s about as loyal and dutiful as I could ever ask someone who works for me—“
“You make him sound like a dog. Is that what you think of him? Is that what you think of me? That people are just in your life to serve you, to—“
“Jenna.” The threatening tone of his voice stopped me in my tracks and I knew not to tread any farther. He let out a sigh and looked at his watch. “Brandon is making the arrangements for you to go to California now. And if you’ll let me finish…” He paused, waiting for me to interrupt again. “I’ve decided against allowing you to pursue a relationship with the man. And not for the reasons you’re thinking.”
“And what reasons are those?” I had to fight to keep the tears behind my eyes. Part of me knew that it didn’t matter what he said or what he thought about Brandon and I being together, but there was still a part of me that wanted his approval. Part of me almost believed that it was going to happen until the interview tonight. Until it was made abundantly clear that he was still trying to call the shots in my life. And I knew if I didn’t get a
way now, he always would.
“My reasons are my reasons. In a different life, you two might be perfect for each other. In this life, you aren’t. And considering I’m about to be elected to the presidency—“
“The election is almost four months away. I don’t think you should be choosing new curtains just yet, Dad.”
His gaze narrowed for only a moment before he covered it with a forced smile. “Your mother was the matchmaker. After the election, we’ll get it figured out. You can have a proper courtship with someone appropriate and we can plan to have your wedding in the White House. We’ll probably plan it for just before the next election—the public eats that up. You having a televised wedding would add at least five points if we time it right. We can make the theme redemption—show how you’ve grown since this episode. Four years will pass by before you know it, Jenna.”
I slumped against the seat. Marian was dead. Brandon had something to do with it, and all my father could talk about was his re-election—not the election that he was involved with now. The one where he was about ten points behind the other two candidates the last time I had heard. He almost seemed deluded—there was no way he would win this election. No third party candidate ever had, and he had to know that—he was better educated about the history of presidential elections than I was. The way he was carrying on it almost seemed like he knew something I didn’t. Like he could see the future because he held some secret weapon that was going to win this election for him. It wasn’t me—it couldn’t have been. I hadn’t even been back in his life for a week, so there was no way…
The truth slammed into me, almost knocking me over. His certainty about winning had nothing to do with me at all. It had everything to do with the money he stood to inherit from Marian. Money that I knew was going to be used to buy this campaign—it was the only explanation.