“Franklin is going down,” I say after a moment. “I found some videos that are not going to put him in the best light. He’s involved in a lot of things and I’m going to make him pay for it.”
“You can’t do that, Aurora. He’s a very dangerous man. He has connections everywhere–”
“He used to have those connections,” I say, smiling at the corner of my lips. “He’s been making videos of all of his friends and acquaintances doing sick and perverted things. He’s been keeping them as collateral. He’s been keeping those videos to try to influence his way to get whatever the hell he wants. Well, I’m going to put a stop to it.”
“How?”
“I don’t know yet but I’m here telling you this as a courtesy.”
My father sits up in his seat. He has never been talked to in this manner before, not by anyone he considers to be inferior to him, least of all his daughter.
I sit up as well and cross my legs from one to the other. I lean over and say, “You need to go to the FBI. You need to tell them what you know. You need to bring a lawyer with you and try to work out some sort of deal.”
He shakes his head no.
“I’m taking Franklin and all of those other assholes down. He’s going to pay for what he did and they will be exposed for everything they did.”
“I’m not gonna go to the FBI. I can’t. They won’t offer me anything.”
“They will if you try to make a deal with them. Bring your lawyer. I’m sure that there’s a deal you can make.”
He shakes his head no.
“This is the one time that I want you to listen to me,” I say quietly but calmly. “They’re going to pay for what they did. Like it or not, you’re involved with it. I don’t want to hurt you and I don’t want to put your life in danger. The only way out is to go to the authorities.”
“No, absolutely not,” Dad says.
28
Aurora
The next time that I meet up with Henry, I tell him what happened. I made copies of everything and hand him the originals to keep for safe keeping. He promises to give them to Jackie.
“How’s everything with Franklin?” he asks.
“Fine,” I say, not wanting to talk about that. “You make copies of all of this and store them in different places. Give one to Jackie as well. I want there to be a lot of evidence, in case any of it gets lost.”
“In case he takes any of it from you, you mean,” Henry says. “In case he finds out that you have it.”
“Yes, of course. Things are fine right now. We are actually even friendly but that’s because he doesn’t know what I know.”
Henry breathes deeply.
“There’s something else,” I say. He waits for me to continue. I open my phone and show him the video of the self-driving car.
He shakes his head. “I’ve seen that all over the news,” he says. “But it was…”
“It was altered,” I say. “My father made a fake after he got into an arrangement with a short seller and when the stock dropped, they both made millions. That was major fraud.”
Henry shakes his head in disbelief.
“I had no idea that he was capable of something like that.”
“Did you talk to him about it?” he asks.
I nod.
I open another app and let him listen to the recording.
“You taped him?” Henry asks.
“I knew that he would deny it. I needed proof. I need him to do the right thing.”
“This is very dangerous, Aurora.”
“I know,” I say. “He doesn’t know about the recording yet. I want to get him to go to the FBI and make a deal. I told him that I was very serious about this but he refused.”
“What are you gonna do?”
“I don’t know but this recording is my leverage. I need your help to come up with a plan to deal with all of this.”
We are in a public place, a park, but the place is deserted. We’re the only ones here on this evening at twilight. The street lamps are already lit and somewhere in the distance a dog is barking. I reach over and hold his hand. He squeezes mine and makes a move to kiss me but I push him back and shake my head.
“Not here,” I whisper. “I don’t know who’s watching.”
I hear his phone vibrate and he pulls it out of his pocket. When he answers it, all the blood drains away from his face and his skin turns a grayish blue color.
“What’s wrong?” I mouth to him.
He mouths back, “No” and says, “okay, I’ll be right there.”
When he hangs up, he stares at the screen for a few moments before turning to me. A lump forms in the back of my throat as I wait for the news.
“It’s my mom,” he says. “She passed out again. They took her in.”
I follow him to the parking structure and get into the passenger seat. He tries to tell me that I don’t need to come with him but I can’t force myself to stay away.
His mother is unconscious and is in the hospital two hours away from here. I don’t want him making the drive by himself or being there when the worst happens, if it were to happen.
Henry doesn’t protest much as he is lost somewhere in his thoughts. We don’t talk as we sit in Manhattan traffic during rush hour. By the time we get onto Long Island, hours have passed.
“You need to get back,” he says when he pulls up to the small community hospital.
“I know but I’m going in with you. I’m going to be here for this.”
He doesn’t ask me what that is but we both know. I’m worried that this is the end. I’m worried that she’s gone.
I hold Henry’s hand as we walk in and walk up to the administration desk. The attendant points us in the right direction. My sneakers make a loud squeaking sound on the linoleum floors.
When we get to her room, a doctor comes out and pulls Henry aside. She is a pretty brunette who is about the same age as we are. I watch her explain something to him, just out of ear shot.
I wonder where she went to school and what my life would be like if I had her job right now. Is she happy?
Does she feel fulfilled waking up every morning and taking care of people?
“Thank you so much.” Henry turns around and I see the wave of relief sweep over him. I rush over to him to hear the news.
“We can go inside. She lost consciousness but they have stabilized her. They’re not sure what’s wrong but for right now… she’s okay.”
I take a short, cautious breath. This is good news but the ordeal isn’t over yet.
“I thought that she was in remission,” I say.
“Yeah, me, too,” he says with great sorrow in his voice. “I guess we were wrong.”
I follow Henry into the hospital room and stay by the door as he sits down on the chair and pulls it closer to his mom. She’s unconscious. There are loud machines beeping and breathing for her and I feel incredibly sorry for her and what she and Henry are going through. I wish that there was something I could do.
Maybe she needs another opinion? Maybe she needs to be in a place with better equipment?
I decide to talk to Henry about this when I have a moment but for right now, I just stand here and watch him hold her hand and cry.
I don’t go home this evening. I stay here with Henry and Mrs. Asher. At first, I debate whether I should come right out and tell Franklin where I am but I decide against it.
Instead, I call Ellis and ask her for a favor. She agrees to tell Franklin that I am with her. She also agrees to reroute her phone call with him if he were to ask to talk to me on the phone. Luckily, neither of these things happen.
When I call Franklin and tell him that Ellis is having a hard time with her boyfriend and has asked me to stay over, he is only too happy to agree. My heart jumps into my throat as I imagine what kind of debauchery, and other stuff he will be up to while I’m gone. Yet another part of me is thankful that he is going to be distracted.
Around 5 o’clock in the morning, just a
s my body gets too tired to force myself awake anymore sitting in that uncomfortable hospital chair, Henry’s mom wakes up. She looks tired, but alert. She even sits up and asks for something to eat. I run off to the cafeteria but it’s not open yet, so I make do with the vending machines.
When I come back holding two fruit cups, an apple, and a bag of pretzels, the two of them are actually laughing.
“It’s so nice to see you here,” she says when I pull my chair up next to her. “I’m glad that you two kids are getting along again.”
“Your son is a very wonderful man, ma’am.”
“And your husband?” she asks.
The question takes me by surprise. She always came off as so polite and nice that I had forgotten that she’s the mother of a child that I have hurt.
“My husband, not so much. I have discovered a number of things that, well, let’s just say are less than endearing, most of them are quite illegal and hurtful.”
“I see,” she says, holding her hands in her lap.
I know that this is not much of an explanation so I continue, “I never married him because I loved him. There was only one person I have ever loved and that is your son.”
Henry glances over at his mom and smiles.
“It’s true,” I say. “I had to marry Franklin to save my parents’ company. It’s kind of a secret but I hope you guys won’t tell anyone.”
“I won’t,” she says. “But I’m a little surprised that you’re telling me this.”
I shrug. “I don’t know,” I say. “I guess, I just feel like I can trust you.”
“Is that so?” she says with a glint in her eye. “I kind of get the feeling that you think that I’m dying.”
I gasp a little, surprised by her candor.
When I look at Henry, he starts to laugh.
“I’m sorry about that, I have kind of a deadpan sense of humor,” Mrs. Asher says.
They both laugh and I can’t help but join them.
29
Henry
When my mother closes her eyes to rest, Aurora and I go back to the waiting room to talk. The cafeteria has opened and we buy some breakfast food but the lights in there are too hard, so neither of us want to stay there.
In the waiting room, we sit in the corner and she tucks her feet up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. I turn my body toward her but I’m too tall and big to ball myself up.
“Thank you so much for coming with me,” I say, biting into my danish. I haven’t eaten since last night and the explosion of sugar with blueberry marmalade overwhelms my senses. It’s the most delicious thing I’ve ever had.
“Of course,” she says.
“No, thank you,” I insist. “I know that this was a very dangerous thing for you to do. I know that Franklin watches your every move and this was… I just can’t believe that you did this for me.”
She shrugs and picks at her croissant.
“I want to be here for you and for your mom. I don’t wanna be at home, not ever. That’s not my home. He’s a stranger and he’s someone that hurts me. It’s difficult to talk about but every time I’m there, it’s like I’m walking on land covered in land mines. One false move and everything is going to blow up.”
“I wish that there was something I could do,” I say.
“There is. You can just be here for me. You can take all of that evidence that I collected and keep it somewhere very safe. Then you can help me come up with a plan to make him go away, to expose every evil thing that he and all those other people have done.”
We talk for a little bit about what Aurora found and about all of those men with underage girls and boys. We talk a lot about the altered video and how involved her father is in this whole thing. Then I bring up the one thing that I have been thinking about for a while now.
“What about your dad?” I ask. “Did you see him on any of those videos?”
“I thought that I might,” she admits. “I was really scared to go through them. I really thought that I would see him doing something terrible. I mean, the fake video was one thing but I thought that I might see him hurting someone in a real way. I didn’t. I don’t think that he was involved. No, I know that he wasn’t. At least Franklin doesn’t have any evidence of that and I have no idea why he would not keep that video if he had kept videos of the governor and all of those other people.”
I let out a sigh of relief. That’s some good news. I know that Mr. Tate has done a lot of bad things in his life to get where he is but I’m glad that he has never done that.
I see a crumb in the corner of her lips and I reach over to brush it off. I run my fingers along her lower lip. She tenses it and kisses me. I move my face toward her and press my lips to her mouth.
She tastes like chocolate and home. I bury my fingers in her hair and she runs hers down my neck because finally, in the corner of that waiting room, our world starts to make sense again.
“Uh-hum,” someone says, clearing her throat. “Excuse me?”
I pull away from her and see Dr. Kim standing with her chart in front of me.
“I have some good news for you, Henry,” she says.
We both stand up and wait.
“Your mother’s going to be fine,” she says, smiling with her eyes. “Apparently, this has nothing to do with her previous cancer diagnosis. We suspect that this was just a low blood sugar episode mixed with dehydration. She’s susceptible to that and we really need to monitor her blood sugar. Otherwise, she can go home.”
A wave of relief washes over me and my legs feel weak. I actually take a step back to make sure that I don’t drop to the floor.
I look over at Aurora to make sure that I have heard her right and when I see her smile from ear to ear, I know that I haven’t imagined it.
Dr. Kim extends her hand but I just wrap my arms around her and give her a big hug.
“Thank you so much,” I say over and over again, even though I know that she wants me to stop.
“You’re welcome, Henry. I’m really happy for you.”
“Come on.” Aurora takes my hand and pulls me away from the good doctor. “Let’s go see your mom.”
30
Aurora
Franklin doesn’t ask me much about Ellis and the reason that I have slept over but I know why. I watch the video of what happened in his office the night that I went to the hospital with Henry. The girl doesn’t look much older than twelve and he even shows her how to snort cocaine before making her give him a massage.
“This isn’t going to happen again,” I say to myself.
No matter what, I’m not gonna let another girl get hurt. This is going to end very soon but I decide to give my father another chance to save himself.
That’s why I asked my mom to meet me for lunch.
“What are we doing in this godforsaken place?” my mom asks when we walk into the Cheesecake Factory in midtown.
“I need to talk to you somewhere private where no one would follow us,” I say.
“Well, we found the right place. I mean, the only people who actually eat here are tourists from flyover states.”
I ignore her and try to focus on what I’m here to talk about.
I get right to the point. I tell her what I found and what Dad needs to do.
She looks at me with a blank expression on her face. When the waiter comes around to take her order, she says that she won’t be staying long.
“Just a lemonade for me, hon,” she says.
“Same,” I say. “No ice.”
She waits for him to walk away before turning and looking at me.
“Your father had to do what he had to do. You have no right to get involved.”
“You knew about this?” I guess.
Leaning over the table, I say, “What were you thinking?”
“We were thinking that we needed that money to save the company.”
“You tanked that company stock for no reason.”
“Not no reason. That CEO was an asshol
e and you know it.”
I shake my head.
“Besides, self-driving cars? What the hell is that? What are they going to do, stop inventing all of these new robots and machines and give people’s jobs back?”
“This isn’t about that,” I say. “This is a political discussion.”
“Everything is a political discussion.”
“Dad committed fraud and you know about it; you’re involved with it. I’m sure that a lot of federal prosecutors would be very interested to find out exactly what you and that short seller did and how you conspired together to ruin one of the biggest companies in the world.”
“We didn’t ruin anything,” Mom says. “Their stock went down a little bit. We made some money. They have bounced back.”
“They wouldn’t have to bounce back if this had never happened, but guess what? It did.”
Our lemonades come. She takes a sip of hers and pushes it away.
“I don’t drink tap water,” she says. Grabbing her purse, she gets up from behind the table.
“I have to talk to you.” I follow her.
She shakes her head.
“I don’t eat at places like this and I don’t discuss things that are done and put away. Stop bringing up the past. Stop opening scabs that you have no business touching.”
“You have to make Dad go to the FBI,” I whisper. “He has got to make a deal.”
“Your father is never making any deal with any fucking FBI.”
I really thought that my meeting with my mom would go a lot better, otherwise I wouldn’t have even bothered. Still, I don’t give up hope on my dad. This is going to happen whether he makes the deal or not but if he does, then at least there’s a chance that he won’t get as much time.
However we handle Franklin, this is coming to light and my father will have to face the public about his involvement. If he were to go to the authorities with his attorney, then he stands a chance to actually get away with some of it.
Fatal Marriage Page 12
