“I know, right?”
“Back then, before everything happened, I was really into dance, gymnastics, cheerleading. All the usual stuff.”
His eyes widen with interest. “You were a cheerleader?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Will you, you know, sometime…”
I hadn’t expected to laugh while talking about my past, but Flynn makes it easy. “If you’re very good.”
“I’m going to be so good.”
“Anyway, growing up, Oren Stone and his family were a big part of our lives. My dad and Oren had been friends since they were kids. According to my mom, who grew up with them, Oren always had an odd influence over my dad. I didn’t realize that when I was a kid, but with hindsight, I can see that their relationship was bizarre. My therapist said Oren was a classic narcissist. It was all about him, and my dad was his chief enabler. Whatever Oren wanted, Oren got… jobs, money, women, power. My dad helped make it all happen. Oren’s wife, Stephanie… She was a really nice lady who had no idea what went on behind the scenes. My parents used to fight about the things my dad did for him. He always said he didn’t have a choice if he wanted to keep his job. My mom would cry and beg him to get another job, but he’d say Oren needed him and he couldn’t desert him.”
“Were they into illegal stuff?” Flynn asked.
“They were into everything. It all came out during the trial. My charges were the tip of the iceberg. But I’m getting ahead of myself.” I take a deep breath. “Even though my mother didn’t think too much of Oren, she loved Stephanie. We kept up the pretense of our families being friends. When Oren became governor, they traveled a lot, and they asked me to travel with them during the summer and on vacations to help with their kids, who were much younger than me. I hadn’t been able to find a summer job, so I took them up on their offer. My parents were thrilled. I remember my mom saying how happy she was that I’d be working for friends, people we knew and trusted.”
When he strokes my face, I realize tears are spilling down my cheeks. Flynn takes my glass and puts it next to his on a nearby table. Then he gathers me close to him, holding me and caressing my back. “Take your time, sweetheart.”
“I’m okay. It was a long time ago now. It’s so long ago that sometimes it’s like it didn’t happen to me, like I saw it all in a movie or something.” I take a deep breath, summoning the fortitude to get this over with so we can move forward together. “I spent a lot of weekends with them, helping with the kids while they attended events and other things he had to do as governor. So it wasn’t unusual for them to call me to set up a weekend babysitting gig. It was unusual, however, for Oren to make the call. But I knew Stephanie had been sick with the flu and had lost her voice, so I didn’t think anything of it.”
My hands begin to tremble and my stomach aches. “My mom dropped me off at the governor’s mansion after school on Friday. She said she’d see me Sunday and to keep a close eye on the kids. All the stuff she always said. We’d done this a hundred times before, so it was no big deal. Except… When I went into the house, the only one there was Oren. He said Stephanie and the kids would be home soon.”
“Take a deep breath, sweetheart. That’s it… If it’s too much, you don’t have to tell me.”
That’s when I notice there are tears in his eyes, too. This is killing him to hear as much as it’s killing me to recount it. Knowing Flynn is right there beside me, that he feels this almost as deeply as I do, gives me the courage to continue.
“He was drinking when I got there. After about an hour, he told me Stephanie and the kids were in New York visiting her parents for the weekend. I was confused. I made the mistake of asking him why I was there. He… He slapped me hard across the face and said I knew exactly why I was there, that I’d been ‘coming on to him’ for years, that I was ‘hot for it’ and all sorts of other things I didn’t understand at the time.”
“Son of a bitch.” Flynn’s voice is a low growl. “It’s a good thing he’s already dead, or I’d kill him with my own hands.”
“He tore my clothes off. I tried to fight him, but he was so much bigger and stronger than me. The whole time it was happening, I was in a state of disbelief. That this man I’d known all my life, my father’s closest friend… I couldn’t believe he would do this to me. He hit me and choked me and told me he’d kill me if I made so much as a sound.”
“Motherfucker,” Flynn whispered as he wiped away tears on my face and his own.
“The first time happened in the family room. It hurt so badly, I passed out from the pain. I think he drugged me at some point, because I was in and out of it for what I later discovered was two days. Every time I came to, he was inside me, hurting me.”
“On the plane,” he says haltingly, “when I woke you up that way, did it make you think of the attack?”
“No. You had me so turned on. I didn’t think of it.”