“Of course not. I’m just trying to explain what went on in my head, from my perspective.”
“You had an affair, Jason. You cheated. It was more than three months, wasn’t it?” He said nothing. “Please stop lying. I wish you would trust me that the worst part of this has been the lying.”
Now, he didn’t bother to hide the tears. He just shook his head.
“How long?”
“Longer than three months, okay?”
“The date they listed in court was in April, not that day you met her at her house. Was she planning this for two months?”
“I have no idea. Olivia thinks she picked a previous date so she could claim she only came forward after reading the news about Rachel. It might seem hard to believe that I’d do something even worse right after someone else filed a complaint.”
“So were you with her that night? At the hotel?”
“Jesus, Angela, I don’t know, okay? I didn’t keep a log of every time I saw her. Right now, I’m worn out.”
I imagined him going through his calendar, trying to reconstruct all of the nights he had lied to me to find time for her. Well, I had already beat him to it, studied all the possibilities. That night, he said a client was freaking out about quarterly financial reports. Now I had so many suspicions. The weekend he was supposed to be at Stanford. The trip to London last month. How much of it was bullshit?
“Did you love her?”
He closed his eyes, and I could feel his shame across the room. He slept in Spencer’s bed that night.
When I woke up the next morning, he was already gone. So was his phone. So were his earbuds and running shoes.
When he got home an hour later, he was covered in sweat and had a yellow mailing envelope in his hand. “We need to call Olivia. I got served with papers. Kerry and Rachel are suing me.”
34
The lawyer who sued Jason was even more famous than he was. Her name was Janice Martinez, and according to Wikipedia, she graduated from University of Michigan Law School, started out as a prosecutor in Brooklyn, and then opened a private practice specializing in “seeking justice for crime victims in civil court.” Glamour had featured her as a “Fighter for Feminism” four years earlier. Airbrushed photos of her in Escada dresses and Louboutin heels accompanied summaries of her best-known sexual harassment and assault lawsuits.
She was the kind of lawyer who was known more for her work in front of a camera than in court, and she was milking her case against Jason for every bit of attention. Two hours after the process server stopped Jason on the sidewalk, Martinez held a press conference, which was carried live by the major cable news stations. She stood at a lectern at the head of a conference room filled with reporters and cameras, flanked by Rachel Sutton and Kerry Lynch.
Martinez explained that Kerry had come forward with her case only after seeing Rachel demonized on social media. “This is an example of women standing up for other women. Only because Rachel braved the storm did Kerry step into the light. We believe there may be other victims out there. I want them to know we are here for them. There is power in numbers.”
The most serious claims were related to Kerry: battery and false imprisonment, which Olivia said was holding someone against their will, no matter how short the amount of time. Rachel was suing for intentional infliction of emotional distress.
I clicked off the television, thinking that I had more cause for emotional distress than either of these women.
I remembered that detective telling me that Olivia Randall was Jason’s lawyer, not mine. It seemed like everyone had a lawyer looking out for them except for me.
I found the detective’s business card, zipped in the smallest side pocket of my purse. She had written her cell number in cute, round digits along the bottom, followed by “24/7!”
I made a call, but not to Detective Duncan.
Susanna picked up immediately, in a hushed voice. “Hey.”
“Did you see it?”
There was a pause, followed by “I was there. I just walked out of the room. Angela, I’m so sorry. Janice Martinez doesn’t take a case unless she expects major media attention and a huge payout.”
35
Ginny was using the hose of a Dyson vacuum to suck up Cheerios beneath the Colemans’ sofa cushions when Lucy walked into the den, a mop in one hand, her cell phone in the other. “Sorry, Gin, but Kayla texted from the salon. Your son-in-law’s in the news again.”
Ginny powered off the vacuum. “I know. He’s out on bail. I tried getting Angela to come out here, but she’s determined to be the good wife, standing by her man.” She’d been sworn to secrecy by Angela about the actual facts of the case, but made a point to add, “It’s more complicated than the news makes it sound. He’s innocent.”
“Okay, but turn on the TV. Kayla said there’s some kind of press conference.”
Ginny caught the tail end of it on the television in the Colemans’ kitchen, enough to know that these women wanted Jason’s head on a stick—and they wanted money.
She went to the driveway to call Angela out of Lucy’s earshot. Angela answered with a depressed “Hey.”
“You need to let Jason deal with this on his own, Angela.”
“Jesus, Mom, he’s my husband. If someone had accused Dad of something horrible, would you have up and left him?”
“Your dad didn’t cheat on me with some crazy woman who tried to ruin his life when she didn’t get what she wanted.”
Her daughter was so tough and so smart, but was also remarkably trusting, at least of the people to whom she was closest. Where most people might have a sliding spectrum of trust, Angela was all or nothing. She avoided strangers, assuming the worst about them. But she was loyal to a fault to the few people in her inner circle: Spencer, Ginny, Jason, Susanna, Colin. Ginny could murder someone, and Angela’s response would be, “Well, they must have had it coming.”
So, Angela being Angela, of course she didn’t believe that Jason had actually victimized this woman. Ginny felt a sour taste in her mouth, just thinking about it. The way she saw it, where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Two accusations from two women? He was probably guilty of something.
But Jason was playing Angela like a fiddle. He had her so worried about protecting him that she was glossing over the fact that he wouldn’t be in this boat if he hadn’t cheated on her.
She was not going to let her daughter go down with the ship.
“He might be innocent of this charge—”
“Not ‘might,’ Mom.”
“But he’s not innocent. The man had an affair.”
“He doesn’t deserve to go to prison for that.”
“No, but you also don’t deserve to be miserable—or broke—because of what he did. I saw that lawyer on TV. Do you know who she is? She makes a living suing celebrities for their penis problems.”
“Oh my god—”
“Wake up, Angela. Have you asked yourself what would make this woman lie?”
“I told you—”
“You told me what he told you, and I’m not buying it. No woman makes this up to help some company out of trouble. If she’s lying—and that’s a big if—it’s because she’s hurt. He made her feel bad enough that she thinks this is fair payback.”
“I don’t know what you’re trying to say, Mom.”
“I’m saying that maybe he made her feel victimized, even if it’s not how the law sees it. He probably told her he loved her. Made her think he’d leave you to be with her. That she was going to be the one standing next to him when he ran for mayor. That she’d get to live in that fancy house. She’s a woman scorned, Angela. He cheated on you—for months. He doesn’t deserve your loyalty.”
“Mom, please, stop.”
Ginny could tell that her daughter was seconds away from hanging up on her. When she spoke again, her voice was softer. “Please, all I’m asking is that you talk to a lawyer. If these ladies take him to the bank, you’ll lose everything too. At least try to protect what’s yours and Spencer’s, okay?”
Angela didn’t argue, and she didn’t hang up. Ginny hoped it was a sign that her point had been made.