by Willow Rose
She looked up, and her eyes met his. “What do you mean by…?”
“I mean, you’ve been busy. You want me to believe Mitt Paige actually raped you? You went up into his apartment, Samantha. What did you expect would happen?”
“I…I…he pressed me down; he held me down…”
“Yes, I have read the report, and frankly, I don’t believe a word of it. I have known Paige for years. He’s my star, the network’s superstar. I’m not gonna let you come here and ruin everything with your stories. I know who you are. You came to my hotel room, remember? Are you gonna accuse me of raping you too?”
Samantha looked down, tears piling up in her eyes.
“I…I’m pregnant.”
“Oh, wow, that’s just great, isn’t it?” he said, throwing out his hands. “It’s Mitt’s, of course. And now you’re threatening to tell the world that our beloved anchor is a rapist and the father of your child. But I tell you what. You get rid of that child, you hear me? You get an abortion, and you never tell anyone that story you’re making up here. No one is going to believe you, Sam. It’s not like you’ve been a nun around here. I mean, you kept running after me, wanting to meet up in restrooms and calling me late at night. You’ve been stalking me, and I almost reported you. I don’t believe your story, and neither will anyone else. You’re nothing but a worthless whore, and you’ll never work in this business again. Now, leave before I have you thrown out of my TV station.”
Crying, Samantha sprang to her feet and ran out of the office. She went into the elevator and tried to control her sobs, cursing Nat far away for pressuring her to do this when she knew it wouldn’t end well—when she knew she herself was to blame for what happened.
Just as the doors were about to close, someone arrived and put their hand in the door. They opened again, and a woman stepped inside.
“Phew, I barely made it.”
She got in and stood next to Samantha as the doors finally closed. When the elevator began to move, Sam could no longer keep her crying at bay, and she burst into tears. The woman grabbed her and hugged her.
“Oh, dear Lord. Is it that bad? Tell me everything, dear child. Everything.”
Chapter 77
“Wanton wanted Sam to cover up the fact that his star anchor, Mitt Paige, had raped Samantha,” Kimmie said. “He forced her to get an abortion and threatened her to silence. Samantha got the abortion, but she was so miserable she could barely get by. So, we started to plan this, yes. We wanted to get back at him, to take him down, hopefully get him fired for how he was treating women.”
“But it didn’t go as planned. That’s what Samantha said when coming to you in the living room where you were filming,” I said. “Then, what happened?”
Kimmie exhaled. “I…she said she wasn’t sure she’d be able to get him to try and have sex with her. He was angry and wanted her to leave. Then, she said she had another plan. We hadn’t discussed this, so it took me completely by surprise.”
“What did she say to you?” I asked.
“She said, ‘whatever happens, just go along with it.’ Then, I asked her what she planned to do. She said she had seen a police car below, parking on the street. When the officers came back out, she’d do it. ‘They’ll think he killed me. If you testify that he did kill me, he’ll go down.’”
“She wanted to frame him for murder?” I asked.
Kimmie nodded. “I wasn’t prepared for it. I…I just stared at her, then said I thought we should leave.”
“And at this point, you’re still filming, right?”
“Yes, the phone is in my lap, so you can’t see anything, but you can hear our conversation.”
“And then what happened?”
Kimmie swallowed. She glanced up at the judge briefly, then lowered her eyes again. “Then she went back out there. And…”
“And what, Kimmie? What did she do?”
Kimmie exhaled. “She…jumped.”
I closed my eyes as another gasp went through the crowd.
“Now, you don’t see that in the video, do you?” I asked.
Kimmie shook her head. “No.”
“As I said, I watched it, and you don’t. But you do hear you scream, and go, ‘no, Samantha, no!’”
Kimmie nodded. Tears were in her eyes as she looked up at me.
“She was just…gone.”
“And then your troubles began,” I said. “You wanted to honor her last wish and blame it all on Wanton. That way, you’d also get what you came for, which was revenge on him for what he did to you back in the day, but that meant you had to lie to the FBI and later in court.”
“I thought it would be easier if I said it in front of you,” she said.
“Well, you had a history of lying to me already, throughout an entire year when you slept with my husband.”
Kimmie looked down, then nodded.
“What did he do to you?” I asked. “What did Wanton do to you?”
She looked up. “He got me pregnant, then told me I had to get rid of it if I ever wanted to work in the media industry again.”
“But you didn’t. You kept the child. Tristan is his?”
Kimmie nodded. “And I never could get a decent job again. But it was worth it because I love my son.”
I smiled, thinking for the first time that I had gained respect for Kimmie. Everything else she did, I couldn’t agree with, but sacrificing everything for your son—that I could get on board with. That, I could respect.
“I told you I was innocent! You wouldn’t believe me. I didn’t murder that woman!”
I turned to look at Richard Wanton, who had risen from his seat. His eyes were gleaming with victory.
“You all heard what she said,” he continued. “You are my witnesses. Samantha jumped. She was nothing but a crazy stalker, just like I said she was. And I am an innocent man.”
Chapter 78
“Not so fast,” I said and looked at Wanton. “We’re not completely done here. There are a few things that haven’t been clarified. Like what was the video doing on John Savage’s computer?”
Wanton looked at me, puzzled. “I don’t care how it got there.”
“Well, I do,” I said and took a step toward him. “I don’t like loose ends. They keep me awake at night. And they did all last night. I couldn’t stop wondering about that and the fact that Kimmie, in her statement, said she ran to the bedroom to grab her purse and look for her phone to call for help. Why was she looking for her phone if she was recording with it in the living room?”
Wanton scoffed mockingly. “Who cares?”
“I do, Mr. Wanton,” Judge Moore said. “Continue, Mrs. Thomas.”
“It drove me nuts. Why was Kimmie searching frantically for her phone? Did she lie about that? But it would be a strange thing to lie about, I thought. There was no reason for it. It wouldn’t be odd if she had her phone close to her when sitting in the living room. Why tell a lie? Because it wasn’t a lie. It was the truth. Because the phone Kimmie was using to record what was supposed to be a sex scene wasn’t hers. It was someone else’s, someone who wasn’t present in the apartment. That’s why she answered weirdly when I kept asking if someone else was there. Because this person wasn’t there, but their phone was. But no one could know that, so Kimmie couldn’t use that phone to call nine-one-one. Otherwise, she risked placing this other person in correlation with Sam’s death. They would be asked about it, maybe even implicated. They couldn’t risk that since this person was the one who had made sure they met one another. This person was the one who had helped them birth this plan to get Wanton.”
“And so, who is this third person?” Judge Moore asked.
“I wondered for a long time about that. Kimmie had insinuated to me that someone else was involved, that there had been three of them. And then she over spoke one day, saying the name John. So naturally, I assumed it was John Savage, but it made no sense that he would be helping them. He was Wanton’s best friend through so many years and hi
s right hand. It wasn’t until last night when I realized that Kimmie hadn’t finished the sentence. She was about to say something else when she stopped herself. She was about to say John’s wife. That’s when I realized that my hacker who provided me with this material had gained access to the family cloud, not just John Savage’s computer. It was John’s wife who was behind it. Carol Savage. She was also the woman who met Samantha in the elevator. Am I right, Carol?”
I turned to look at the woman sitting next to John Savage on the bench. Her eyes gleamed at me, and then she smiled.
Chapter 79
Rachel watched with bated breath as Carol rose to her feet in front of the room. She had been watching this scene unfold from the back, and now she felt like screaming at Carol.
Don’t do it! Don’t reveal yourself!
Rachel had met with Carol soon after the day in her home when her husband had tried to intimidate her into silence. She had assured her that she could help her, that the battle wasn’t lost yet. Then, she had introduced her to several other girls, all with stories similar to hers. Some of them were the very same that she had met with the fake woman Crystal, who had turned out to be working for Wanton. But Carol had gathered them all and assured her that the battle had just begun. She had also asked Rachel to show up today for the trial.
“It is true,” Carol said.
Her husband rose to his feet next to her, his face red and flustered.
“Carol! What are you doing?”
Carol signaled for him to be quiet. “You can’t stop me now, John.”
Wanton’s lawyer then stood up, looking at the judge. “Your Honor, this is highly unusual. As Richard Wanton’s repre…”
“I’ll allow it,” Judge Moore said.
“But Your Honor, this has nothing to do with…”
“I said, I’ll allow it. I want to hear it. Continue, Mrs. Savage.”
“Thank you, Your Honor,” Carol said and looked at her husband, who had sat back down. “It’s true what Mrs. Thomas is saying. These past several years, I have watched what you and Richard Wanton did to these women and how you threatened them to silence. Often, it took place in my own home, and I would see the girls storm out, crying helplessly. I finally had enough. So, I decided to find them—one after the other. I went through your personal computer and found their names and addresses. Now, I have gathered them all and recorded their stories. I have even brought some of them here today.”
Carol Savage turned to look at the crowd behind her.
“Stand up, girls. Please.”
Silence went through the room, and nothing happened. Everyone looked at one another until suddenly, a woman in the far back rose to her feet.
“H-hello. My name is Victoria. I was r-raped by Richard Wanton in 2002 in his apartment. He told me he could get me the position of a weather girl.”
Three seats to her right, another woman stood up, holding onto the back of the chair in front of her. “My name is Lisa. I was lured into Richard Wanton’s apartment in March 2005 for a job interview, where he and his anchor Mitt Paige told me I had to sleep with them both to get the job. So, I did.”
Two rows in front of her, a red-haired woman got up. “Hello. My name is Michelle. I was told that I had to give Wanton a blowjob in his office, or he’d ruin my career.”
Another deep silence went through the room, and Rachel felt her hands get clammy.
Then, she stood up too.
Heart hammering in her chest, panic threatening to erupt.
“Hello.”
She stopped and cleared her throat while calming her beating heart. Her entire body was screaming for her to run away, to hide. But she didn’t. She calmed the voices down, then did exactly what she had come for.
She spoke up:
“H-hello. My name is Rachel. I was raped by Wanton and his friend in 2010 in Wanton’s apartment. I let the abuse define me. For years, I told myself it was all I was—that I should be ashamed of myself. That I had failed, made a mistake, and now I was paying the price. I was guilty, dirty. I told myself I had to behave. I had to be a good girl because I was ashamed of myself. Do you know what that does to a woman? To feel such deep shame and disgust with the very person you are? But not anymore. Now, I am redefining myself. I am changing the way I see it, how I see myself. That is why I am speaking up today. Thank you.”
After finishing, Rachel kept standing, barely breathing, her heart still beating so fast it seemed like it would never calm down again.
A woman in front of her rose from her seat, turned to face her, and began to clap. Several other women joined her, and soon the entire room was standing and clapping. Wanton’s lawyers were protesting, trying to get the judge to stop it, but the loud cheering and clapping drowned them out.
“There, you have it,” Carol said when it died down. “I have gathered more than fifty women who are ready to speak up now, and I have recorded all their stories. Most of them have not only gone through abuse but also had to deal with being threatened into silence afterward. It’s all recorded in their stories. It should be enough to take both Wanton and Paige down for years.”
“No one will listen to your crazy stories,” Wanton said with a huff, puffing himself up. “I’m a free man. You can’t stop me from walking out of here. Your Honor, will you dismiss the case?”
Judge Moore looked at him above his glasses, then said:
“I don’t have any other choice. Case dismissed.”
As the gavel fell, Wanton grabbed his jacket and walked out triumphantly, winking at Rachel as he passed her.
Chapter 80
“Like I told you from the beginning. I didn’t kill that woman. Now, I have the court’s word for it. It was all a lie.”
“Does that mean you’re a free man?” the reporter asked.
“Yes, I am fully acquitted. The truth was finally brought to the light of day.”
I walked past Richard Wanton on the stairs of the courthouse, where he was talking to the hundreds of reporters that had attacked him as soon as he walked out. Isabella was right next to me. She saw the look on my face, then smiled.
“Let him gloat. It won’t be for long.”
“I just hate to see him go free,” I said.
She nodded. “As I said. He won’t be a free man for long.”
She lifted the file that Carol Savage had handed to her, then tapped the top of it. “We’ve got a pretty strong case here. Once Carol gets me the recordings, we’ll get him. Justice will be served.”
“I sure hope so, for the sake of those poor women. It took some guts to stand up in there today.”
“It won’t be wasted,” Isabella said as we moved onto the pavement. Miranda, Tristan, and Kimmie were waiting there for me. “You know it won’t. With what you have provided us, we’ll even get Savage too for hiring assassins to come after you and Kimmie and blackmailing a federal agent, which leads me to you. How are you holding up? It took some pretty big guts to do what you did today as well. And these past several days, making sure Kimmie was safe. I prayed you’d make it to the trial in time, but I have to say I almost lost hope in there. I tried to stall everything as long as I could.”
“Putting out a warrant for my arrest to let me know you knew I had Kimmie was quite clever. I almost missed it, thinking you had it in for me.”
She gave me a look. “Really? You know me better than that.”
“Yeah,” I said and punched her lovingly on the shoulder. “That’s how I figured it out. I realized you had no other choice, no other way of contacting me without the leak finding out.”
“I knew you would get it.”
“And Timmy? What will happen?”
“He’ll have to hand in his badge. He’ll be prosecuted for having sex with a minor, of course. Then it’s up to the higher powers—my superiors—to determine if he will be prosecuted as well for obstructing the investigation and endangering a witness. It doesn’t look good for him, to be honest. But we’ll have to wait and see. That’s no
ne of your concern. I’ll take it from here. Go home, Eva Rae. Go home to your children and hold them a little tighter.”
I hugged her, then waved and went back to the others. Kimmie and Tristan were waiting for a taxi to take them back to their own home. I still had to go back to the farm and get my bag before I’d grab the first plane home to Cocoa Beach. Miranda held up the keys to her truck. It was parked on the side of the street farther down the road, where we had left it when rushing to the courthouse earlier.
“You ready?”
I nodded, then paused. “Just give me a second.”
I rushed toward Kimmie, who was waiting by the curb, then grabbed her from behind and hugged her.
“What was that for?” she asked.
“That was my way of saying I forgive you,” I said. “For everything.”
“Are you going soft on me, Eva Rae?” she asked, grinning. She went serious. “Thank you, though. It means more than you think. Now, I might begin the process of forgiving myself for it too. For that and so much more.”
I placed a hand on her shoulder and squeezed it.
“You’re all right, Kick-ass Kimmie.”
That made her laugh. “See you around, Eva Rae.”
“Probably not, but let’s leave it at that,” I said, then waved at her and Tristan and hurried back to Miranda. I looked over my shoulder at Kimmie as I reached the purple truck, then wondered for a brief second if circumstances had been different if I could have been friends with her.
THE END
Afterword
Dear Reader,
Thank you for purchasing and reading Such a Good Girl (Eva Rae Thomas #9).
This was by far the hardest and most personal book I ever had to write. I can’t believe I actually did it.
Big parts of this book are my own story. I have been dealing with this for the past year and felt it needed to be told.
