by Linda Verji
“That’s ridiculous,” Eve said, but even as she did, she realized that it wasn’t ridiculous at all. It was the same fear she’d had and the reason why she’d done everything she’d done. She sighed, “Oh, Dad. I wish I’d known you knew.”
“Me too. Me too.” He squeezed her shoulder. His tone took on a scolding note as he added, “But that still doesn’t excuse you letting Sharon run you like that. Why didn’t you come to me when you found out?”
“For the same reason you didn’t come to me,” Eve said. “I didn’t want to lose you, and I didn’t want to get hurt.”
Her father shook his head slowly. “What a sad pair we are.”
Eve couldn’t have agreed more.
A pensive silence settled between them for quite a long while. Eve wasn’t sure what her father was thinking about, but on her part she was still marveling at how she’d let Sharon play her like a violin for the last five years when it was completely unnecessary. What a fool she’d been.
Mark broke the silence with, “Your mother told me everything Sharon’s done, but I got the distinct impression that that was just a part of the story. What exactly is going on?”
Eve told him everything. From the way Sharon had engineered her marriage to everything she’d found out as she was working for the woman. She detailed every monstrous thing that witch had done to other people over the years and all the evidence. By the time she was done, her father’s eyes were wide with shock.
“She’s a psychopath!” Mark exclaimed. “I can’t believe that I let her come near us.”
“You didn’t know what she was.”
“I knew something was off about her. But this is just…” He exhaled and shook his head slowly. “You need to move out of her house ASAP. You can’t stay around that mad woman.”
“I already moved out,” Eve said.
When her father gave her a questioning look, she briefed him on everything that had led to her moving out of the Wellings mansion. She didn’t tell him about her arrest or how the cops had ruined her home because she knew that it would just make him mad. However, she told him that she was now living in a hotel.
“You should’ve come home,” Mark scolded.
“I couldn’t.” She explained, “I knew you and Mom would ask me questions I wasn’t prepared to answer.”
Her father was quiet for some time before he said, “I can’t believe I let that woman endorse me.” He made a sour face like he was disgusted by the fact that he’d ever even rubbed shoulders with Sharon. “Eve, you should’ve told me what she was. Jesus!”
“I wish I had.”
“We have to expose her,”
“Are you sure?” Eve reminded him, “Her name is attached to your candidacy and you might end up being dragged into the whole mess.”
“I don’t care. I’d rather lose my job then let her keep doing whatever she wants and hurting people. She needs to be stopped.” His eyes glinting dangerously, Mark demanded, “Where’s the evidence you have on her?”
Eve pulled out her phone from her purse and accessed the website where back up files of everything she had on Sharon. Mark was silent as he went through it all, but from his facial expressions it was obvious that he was utterly and completely floored. That wasn’t surprising. His willingness to sacrifice his job just to stop Sharon was no surprise either. He’d always been a stand-up guy. He was an honorable man and an even better father.
Once he was done going through the evidence, he handed Eve back her phone. “Send me everything you’ve got on her.”
“You’re going to send it to the police?” she asked.
Mark nodded then asked, “Does Carter know?”
“He knows a little but not everything.”
“Tell him. Tell him today. It would be cruel to let him find out from the press.” His tone determined, Mark said, “I’ll wait for you to tell him first. But as soon as he knows… I’m going after Sharon.”
It was time to tell Carter everything.
CHAPTER 21
It was now close to midnight and Carter was losing his mind.
Eve wasn’t back. Apart from the text message she’d sent him earlier in the evening, he’d been unable to get hold of her. She wasn’t picking his calls or answering his texts and he was terrified. Had she gotten arrested again or had something even worse happened?
He paced the length of the suite’s living area several times as he tried to figure out what to do. Desperation dancing on his nerves, he strode to the coffee-table and grabbed his phone. He tried calling her again but she didn’t pick up, so he went for the next best option. Benisio!
Benisio picked up on the first ring. “She’s not there yet?”
Surprisingly, Carter didn’t sound as panicked as he felt as he answered, “No, she’s not. Have you found out anything?”
“I called the office and they say that she was there until around eight then left.”
“Is there any way to find out where she went?”
“I’ve hit up a friend in traffic control,” Benisio revealed. “He said to give him about an hour and he’ll get back to me.”
“What about the precinct?” Carter offered, “Maybe she got arrested again.”
“It crossed my mind too,” the other man acknowledged, “but my contact there say that she hasn’t been arrested.”
“I see.” Carter wasn’t sure whether to be happy that she hadn’t been arrested. If she was at the station, at least then he could get her out of there because he knew where she was. Not knowing was killing him slowly.
“Let’s wait for the traffic check,” Benisio suggested. “Once we know what direction her car went in, then we can figure out where she went. I’ll let you know as soon as my friend has anything.”
“Please do that,” Carter said. “Thanks.”
As soon as he ended the conversation with Benisio, he resumed his pacing. Where the hell was Eve? Maybe he wouldn’t have been half as panicked if he hadn’t watched the evening news. Peralta had been the headline in every local channel. Everyone was talking about the video that Nina Wu had posted and campaigns had already started to get Peralta sacked and investigated. Peralta had made a statement that everything Nina had said was false, but the internet had already pronounced him guilty. Carter wasn’t a fortune teller but even he could tell that the next few weeks would be hell on earth for the police chief.
Normally, Carter wouldn’t have given a damn about what happened to Peralta, but he was smart enough not to believe in coincidences. It wasn’t a fluke that Peralta’s life as he knew it was circling the drain just a day after Eve had gotten arrested and assaulted. Also, Nina was Eve’s voice box. This whole thing had Eve’s name painted all over it. If Peralta was smart, he should’ve figured that out too.
What if Peralta had gone after Eve? What if he had her?
Carter’s breath caught at that awful thought and fresh alarm threaded through him. Though he had no idea how to find Eve, pacing around this suite just wasn’t helping out. He grabbed his car-keys and had just started towards the door when it beeped. His heart immediately jerked. Someone was coming in.
Sure enough when the door opened, it was Eve. The relief that shot through Carter was indescribable. It swept through him to emerge in a heavy exhale. The tension that had gripped him just moments ago melted like wax dropped into fire.
“Eve, where the hell were you?” He crossed the room to reach her. He didn’t mean to sound so angry, but that was how it came out. He dragged her into a bear hug and dug his nose into her neck. Having her body pressed to his and her scent tickling his nose was more reassuring than just seeing her. He murmured, “I was worried about you.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to stay out so late.” She extricated herself from his embrace then crossed the room to set her purse on the couch. Sitting down, she added, “I just had to see someone.”
Almost immediately, he noticed how red and swollen her eyes were; like she’d been crying. Relief was instantly replace
d by concern. He closed the distance between them to come and sit next to her. He tipped her face up with his fingers so he could see her face better. “Were you crying? What’s the matter?”
“No… Nothing… Nothing’s wrong.” She swiped her palm over her eyes as if to wipe imaginary tears.
But Carter could tell that something was wrong. “Tell me what’s wrong. Why were you crying?”
“It’s nothing. I’m okay.” Forcing a smile, she asked, “Have you had dinner?”
Of course Carter caught the change in subject and he wanted to mention it. But her smile said that she wasn’t ready to talk just yet. So he went with it. “Yes, I’ve already eaten. But I can order something if you want.”
“No, I’m good too.” She revealed, “I just ate with my dad.”
“You ate with your dad?” Carter asked, “That’s who you were with?”
She nodded.
If she’d eaten with her dad, then that meant that he was the one who’d made her cry. What in the world could Mark have said to her to make her cry? Was something wrong with their family?
Eve suddenly jumped to her feet. “I’m going to take a shower.”
“Okay,” Carter said.
She took a step forward, then came back and sat down. “Actually, I’ll do that later. Can we talk first?”
“Sure.” He nodded. “What did you want to talk about?”
Avoiding his eyes, she said, “This morning you gave me an ultimatum, right?”
For a moment, Carter didn’t know what she was talking about. Then he remembered the conversation they’d had and his threat to demand answers from his mother if Eve didn’t give him any. He nodded.
She took a deep breath as if to fortify herself. “I think I’m ready to tell you everything now.”
For some strange reason, Carter’s heart jumped to his throat at her words. Yes, he wanted to know the truth. However, everything he’d learnt so far had left him feeling like he was living in a parallel universe where his mother was the exact opposite of what he knew her to be. He wasn’t sure that he could handle any more information about his mother’s sins.
But still, he nodded. “Okay, I’m listening.”
Another deep breath then Eve began. “You already know about her ruining my company and relationship then forcing me to marry you. That’s just the start. She’s built La Belle by hurting people….”
And on the story went.
The more Carter heard, the more his heart sunk. There was so much to unpack and most of it was the sort of stuff that sent people to prison. Blackmail, bribery, fraud, corporate espionage… The only thing Sharon hadn’t done yet was kill someone. And even that was just an assumption. There were probably many other crimes that Eve and Carter didn’t know about.
All the corporate stuff was horrible, but what got Carter the most was how Sharon had gotten Eve to fall in with her plan. One had to be a special kind of cruel to use paternity as a weapon against someone’s child. And to use it on someone you’d watched grow up and even helped raise like your own daughter was beyond horrifying. The kind of things a monster would do.
Carter couldn’t even imagine what Eve had gone through because of his mother. No wonder she’d changed so much. No wonder she’d gone after his mother’s most precious possession, La Belle. Heck, he was surprised that she hadn’t murdered them all in their sleep.
Eve finished, “Either way, I felt that I needed to stop her so I stole La Belle.”
She watched him, waiting for him to say something. Carter opened his mouth, but couldn’t say anything. His brain had lost the ability to process any thoughts and his vocal cord was frozen with shock.
Something about his expression must’ve alerted Eve about his distress because she frowned. “Are you okay?”
Of course he wasn’t okay.
“I just… I just…” He forced himself to swallow deeply. “I just need a moment.”
He set his forearms on his thighs, closed his eyes and bent his head while taking deep breaths.
“Carter.” Alarmed, Eve scooted even closer to him to set her palm on his back. “Are you okay?”
He didn’t answer, just took several deep breaths to calm himself. How was all this possible? He’d lived with his mother on and off for thirty-three years. How had he not seen everything that she was doing? Was he really that blind or was his mother just a great actress? He racked his brain, trying to find incidents that should’ve warned him. And sure enough he found them.
The way Sharon treated their help when she didn’t know people were watching, snippets of phone conversations with politicians that he’d overheard, the tension that Eve always seemed to carry when she was near his mother, the way even Jackson had his guard up every time he was around her….
It was just little things that had seemed inconsequential at the time but were now proof of a pattern. A pattern he should’ve seen before today. If he’d just opened his eyes and looked around him, he could’ve stopped Sharon from hurting so many people.
“I should’ve stopped her,” he murmured.
“How could you?” Eve smoothed her hand up to his nape and stroked his skin. “You didn’t even know what she was up to.”
“I should’ve known.” Feeling like he was being torn apart on the inside, he turned his head to meet Eve’s eyes. “You should’ve told me from the start. You should’ve told me from the moment she came after you.”
“I wish I had.” Tears brimming in her brown eyes, she explained, “But I didn’t know then that my father already knew that I wasn’t his, so I just wanted to protect my family.”
Seeing her tears was a reminder that Carter wasn’t the only one suffering. If anything what he was going through now was nothing compared to what Eve had been through over the last five years. He was just a bystander while Eve was the real victim.
Putting his grief aside, he sat up straighter then pulled her in for an embrace. Burying his neck into her shoulder, he murmured, “I’m sorry, Eve. I’m so sorry for what she did to you.”
Eve didn’t say anything, so he drew her even closer until she was on his lap. Holding her tightly, he murmured over and over again, “I’m sorry.”
But even as he apologized he knew deep in his heart that it would never be enough. Sorry couldn’t erase everything that his mother had done to her and her family.
* * * * *
“DID YOUR UNCLE tell you where he was spending the night?” Sharon asked Jackson as they sat at the breakfast table the following morning.
“No.” The boy shook his head.
“What did he say?”
His tone subdued, Jackson responded, “He just said that he needed to do something and he’d be back today.”
It was an innocent answer, but it still sent annoyance and a fair bit of nervousness threading through Sharon. Carter had now been out for two nights and she’d only gotten a two word text message from him saying ‘I’m fine’. No phone-calls. When she tried to call him, his phone rang but he didn’t pick up.
Meanwhile, Jackson was being picked from school and dropped at home. Last night, she’d even overheard a phone call between the boy and Carter. However, when she’d snatched the phone from Jackson, only the dial-tone had met her. It was almost as if Carter was avoiding her. And that baffled and concerned her. Why would he avoid her?
Did he already know about her part in getting Eve arrested? Her insides immediately tensed. No, he didn’t, she soothed herself. If he did, he would’ve already confronted her. Besides, there was no way Eve would spill their secrets. Not when Sharon was now holding all the cards. Maybe Carter was busy. Yes, that’s what it was. He was just busy, she assured herself. However, she couldn’t get rid of the thread of unease that had now firmly coiled itself in the pit of her stomach.
Needing to vent her frustration, she lifted her head to glare at Jackson. His eyes were lowered and he was shoveling food into his mouth as fast as he could, like someone who was in a hurry to go somewhere or to run away f
rom someone.
For some reason his eating annoyed her, and she scolded, “Why are you eating so loudly? How many times have I told you to stop eating like a wild animal?”
Jackson immediately looked up and his already tense shoulders stiffened further. Anxiousness shining in his eyes, he murmured, “I’m sorry.”
“Keep your mouth closed when you eat!” she ordered.
“Yes, Grandma.”
His calling her grandma was even more annoying than his eating her food. He wasn’t even related to her so why was he calling her grandma? It was offensive. And the way he did it in that whiny, prepubescent tone was incredibly infuriating. Unfortunately, she couldn’t call him out for it. Sighing in frustration, she angrily cut into the sausage on her plate.
Jackson was just like Eve. A fledgling she’d picked from the streets then raised with her own money. Would he betray her too? Judging by the ungrateful looks he sometimes threw her when he thought she wasn’t looking, it was a strong possibility. Maybe she should get rid of him before that.
Hmm. She eyed him as she ate slowly. His grandmother on his mother’s side was already dead. However, his grandfather was still alive and well. The elderly man was a hippy who spent his days smoking pot somewhere in the Caribbean islands and chasing teenage girls. Hardly the poster-boy for a model parent! He’d also made it clear that he wasn’t interested in raising a grandchild especially one by a daughter that he’d never had a relationship with.
However, his being alive was all Sharon needed. If she paid him enough, the old man would likely agree to take the boy off her hands. Of course she wouldn’t just give Jackson to them. Carter would protest. But if she helped the grandfather file a lawsuit against her and Carter, Carter wouldn’t be any wiser. She could just say that it was the court’s fault. Yes, that’s what she’d do. This was the best way to get rid of the boy before he became a thorn in her side like Eve.