by Julie Clark
I wait for Agent Castro to tell me I’m wrong, but he doesn’t. Even he knows that the power of money can make all kinds of problems disappear.
Finally, he says, “A little advice? Get on the air as soon as possible. Your husband can’t touch you if the whole world knows you’re alive.”
* * *
Traffic into the city is horrible. We progress slowly through the toll booth and up onto the Bay Bridge, walled in on all sides by cars. Alone in the back seat, I stare out the window, my gaze traveling across the water and landing on Alcatraz, small and squat in the middle of the bay, the slate-gray water surrounding it.
The driver adjusts the rearview mirror so he can see me better, his sleeve riding up even higher, and I catch another glimpse of his tattooed arm. “Okay if I turn on the radio?” he asks.
“Sure,” I tell him.
He flips around until he lands on some quiet jazz. I pull Eva’s phone out of my purse to check the time, and see that I have a missed text from Danielle.
I just found out that Mr. Cook’s already got a guy on the ground in Berkeley looking for you. A local, someone who can better blend in with the people there. But I’m told he’s big, with a tattoo sleeve on his right arm. Be careful.
Eva
New Jersey
February
One Day before the Crash
Ellie—or rather, Danielle—did not look as Eva had expected Liz’s daughter to look. Instead of the eclectic woman she’d imagined, a woman who wore long flowing skirts and worked for a hardscrabble nonprofit, Danielle had her dark hair pulled back into a conservative bun at the base of her neck. She wore pearls and a tailored suit with low heels. But the resemblance between mother and daughter was immediate. Danielle had the small stature of her mother, the planes of her face an almost mirror image of the friend Eva had grown to love. But where Liz was calm and centered, Danielle seemed agitated.
Liz stood to give her daughter a kiss. “Are you just getting home from work? It’s late.”
Ignoring her mother’s question, Danielle said to Eva, “I didn’t know you were coming to town.”
The way Danielle said it, like an accusation, rumbled low inside of Eva, warning her to be careful. “A last-minute trip,” she said. “In and out.”
“Because?” Danielle’s gaze held Eva’s.
“Because she wanted to,” Liz interjected, throwing a warning glare at her daughter.
“A quick visit to see some friends,” Eva said, hoping to defuse some of the tension. “I have to head back tomorrow.”
Danielle waited a moment, as if to see if Eva would offer more details. When she didn’t, Danielle said, “Mom, can I see you in the other room?”
Apologetic, Liz turned to Eva. “Make yourself comfortable. I’ll be back in a minute.”
The two women huddled in the living room, the sound of their whispered conversation floating back to Eva in snatches. She rose from the couch and wandered into the kitchen under the pretense of looking at the pictures on the refrigerator.
“What is the matter with you?” Liz hissed.
“I’m sorry. I’m exhausted and stressed, and I’ve still got to pack for a trip to Detroit tomorrow,” Danielle said. “I wasn’t expecting a houseguest.”
“What’s happening in Detroit?”
“The foundation has an event there tomorrow. I was supposed to accompany Mrs. Cook, but I just found out Mr. Cook is sending her to Puerto Rico instead. He wants to do the Detroit trip himself.” Danielle sighed. “I’m sorry to be so snappy with you. But this last-minute itinerary change is making me edgy. Something feels off.”
“In what way?”
“Mrs. Cook has been singularly focused on this trip for months, in a way that’s unusual for her.”
“I think you’re working too hard. Worrying about things that aren’t there.” Liz’s voice sounded soothing, and Eva imagined her taking Danielle’s hand and squeezing it.
“I don’t think so, Mom. There’s been other weird stuff. Her driver told me last month she took the car—alone—to Long Island. The GPS tracked her all the way to the eastern tip. She doesn’t know anyone who lives out there. And I’ve had to cover for her a few times with financial discrepancies. Withdrawals. Receipts that don’t match.” Eva could hear the worry in Danielle’s voice, the tension of watching and waiting for something to happen. “I think she’s going to leave him.”
“Good. Finally.”
“Yeah, but I don’t think the Puerto Rico trip is a part of that. And I’m worried the Detroit trip was.”
“Do you think Mr. Cook knows?”
“No, but if this messes her up somehow…” She trailed off. “I don’t like the idea of her traveling alone, or with people only loyal to the incredible Rory Cook. And now I’ve got to go to Detroit and act as if I’m one of them when I can barely stand to look at the man, knowing how he terrorizes her.”
“If she’s smart, she’ll go to Puerto Rico and never come back.”
Eva had stopped pretending to look at the pictures and was now entirely focused on listening to this story unfold, piecing together the bare bones of an idea.
In two steps, she was across the kitchen and over to the couch, grabbing her laptop and setting it up on the counter so she could still listen in. As the two women continued to talk, Eva Googled Rory Cook, wife, and studied the image that appeared. A beautiful woman, her dark hair framing her face, wearing high-end, trendy clothes, walking down a New York sidewalk. The caption read Rory Cook’s wife, Claire, visits the new restaurant, Entourage, located on the Upper West Side.
In the next room, Danielle said, “Somehow I don’t think staying in Puerto Rico is an option for her. I feel terrible that she has to go, that she’s going to wake up and Bruce is going to be the one to tell her of the change, that he’ll be the one to take her to JFK.” With an impatient sigh, she continued. “Anyways, I’m sorry I was rude to Eva. I’m sure she’s lovely. What’s the real story? Why is she really in town?”
Eva held her breath, staring at the details of Claire Cook’s face, but not seeing them anymore. Instead, she waited to hear whether Liz would keep her secrets or reveal them all, dishing them up to her daughter like a late-night snack.
“Eva’s hit a rough patch,” Liz said. “But she’s going to be fine. She’s a survivor.”
Eva let out a quiet sigh of relief.
“Look,” Danielle was saying. “I need to pack since we’re leaving at the crack of dawn. Do you know where my black wool coat is?”
“Upstairs in the spare bedroom closet, I think. Let me see if I can find it.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
Such a simple sentence, probably uttered hundreds of thousands of times. And yet, the power of it nearly brought Eva to tears. What it must be like to have someone always in your corner. She thought she’d had that with Liz, but seeing her together with her daughter, the way they trusted and confided in each other, Eva knew what she and Liz shared was nothing more than a close friendship. And she felt stupid for ever thinking it was more. What would Liz advise her daughter to do if she found herself in Eva’s position? Would she also encourage Danielle to turn herself in to the authorities? Or would she help her daughter escape?
On the screen in front of her, she imagined what Claire Cook would think tomorrow when she woke to discover her husband had changed her itinerary. That she’d be flying out of JFK to a tropical paradise instead of into the freezing Detroit temperatures. Perhaps she wouldn’t care. Perhaps Danielle’s instincts about the importance of this trip were wrong. But if they were right, if Claire was planning to run, she’d find herself desperate for a solution. Another way out.
And Eva might have just the solution in mind.
“What are you doing?”
Eva whipped around to find Danielle in the doorway, holding the bag she’d dropped there earlier.
Eva closed the lid of the computer, hoping Danielle hadn’t seen too much, and gave her a blank smile. “Nothing.”
She held Danielle’s gaze until Danielle finally turned away, up the stairs to pack for her trip.
Eva opened the laptop again and toggled away from the photograph of Claire Cook, and over to the airline website. She clicked on Change my reservation, and in the drop-down menu, she switched out Newark for JFK, Liz’s words echoing in her mind. She’s a survivor.
Eva was determined to make that true.
Claire
Monday, February 28
I press my back into the seat, my gaze leaping from Danielle’s text to the driver’s right hand, resting casually on the steering wheel. A tattoo sleeve on his right arm.
My mind flies back to the motel lot, and I realize he hadn’t said anything about CNN. He’d said Claire Cook, and like an idiot, I got in the car.
Vehicles press in on us, all the way to the edge of the bridge. Steel cables rise into the sky above a small strip of sidewalk, and then a two-hundred-foot drop to the cold water below.
Castro’s advice, to get to the studio as soon as possible, taunts me now. This man will take me somewhere else—a deserted beach perhaps, or north to somewhere even more remote, and finish this.
A green Jetta slides up next to us, with a woman behind the wheel, her lips moving in silent conversation with someone I can’t see. I’m no more than three feet away from her, so close I can see her pink nail polish and the delicate silver hoops in her ears. I fight back tears, trying to think. If I screamed, would she hear me?
Our car moves several feet forward before stopping again, and now I’m looking at a white panel van with no windows. My eyes trace the tiny openings between the cars, an ever-shifting maze as vehicles inch forward. I’m going to have to jump out and run.
The lane next to us begins to move, and again I’m looking at the woman in the green Jetta. She throws her head back and laughs, unaware that I’m watching her from behind tinted glass.
About thirty yards ahead, a dark tunnel looms with signs for Treasure Island. The driver’s eyes find mine again in the rearview mirror. “Traffic will clear up once we get through the tunnel,” he says.
If I’m going to get out, a dark tunnel might be a good place to do it.
I rest my arm on the windowsill, my palms sweaty and slick against the door, and carefully lift the lock, watching him in the mirror, making sure his eyes remain on the road.
I’m only going to get one chance.
Jazz music swirls around the back seat, the rhythm fast and erratic, matching my pulse, and I hug my purse close, making sure it’s secure over my shoulder. I have one hand resting on the latch of my seat belt and my other hand lowering to the door handle, ready to yank it open and leap out. If I scream for help, surely someone will step up.
I regulate my breathing, counting down the feet until the car is plunged into the darkness of the tunnel.
Twenty feet.
Ten.
Five.
The driver looks at me again in the mirror. “You okay?” he asks. “You look a little pale. I have some water up here if you need it. The CNN studio is just a few blocks once we get off the bridge. Not much farther now.”
I feel the air rush out of me and collapse against the seat, clasping my shaking hands in my lap. CNN. Not Rory. Dizzy relief floods through me, and I squeeze my eyes shut, trying not to fall apart.
This is the price of abuse. It has twisted my thinking into such a tangle I can’t tell what’s real and what’s not. Logically, I can see how impossible it would have been for them to find me so easily. And yet, years of being under Rory’s influence has made it so that I’ve given him nearly superhuman power. To see where I’m hiding, to know my every thought and fear, and to then exploit them.
Finally, the car picks up speed, and we enter the tunnel. The darkness is a brief blink, and then we’re out the other side. As if by magic, the entire city rises up before us, bright white buildings shining in the early afternoon sun.
“Mrs. Cook?” he asks again, holding up a small bottle of water.
“I’m okay,” I tell him, as much for myself as for him.
* * *
Breaking news: We interrupt our regularly scheduled program to bring you Kate Lane, live from Washington, DC, with a story that is just emerging from California. Kate?
The voices talk in my ear, though I sit alone on a stool placed in front of a green screen. Several producers and assistants are clustered around the single camera, zoomed in on me, but the red light indicating that I’m on-air remains dark. Next to it, a television screen shows Kate Lane in her DC studio, the feed piped directly into my earpiece. My head is still fuzzy from the adrenaline, but the freezing temperature of the studio clears it a little. On the far wall of the studio is a large digital clock with a bright-blue background that reads 1:22, and I watch the seconds tick down, trying to align my heart rate with them.
Shortly after I’d arrived at the CNN studio, weak and shaking, a producer had handed me an iPad with Kate Lane calling via video chat. They’d been able to talk with Danielle, who had agreed to send the recording to the New York State Attorney General. Kate’s sources inside the department told her they should have some news about next steps very soon. Charlotte Price had also been located and was willing to go on the record as soon as her attorney could file to void the NDA she’d signed so long ago.
“So now it’s up to you to tell your story,” Kate had said. “Paint a picture of your marriage for us. Tell us what your husband was like, and what you were running from.” Her expression softened. “I have to prepare you for what will likely happen once you come forward. People are going to dig into your life. Your past. Say hateful things about you and to you, in a very public way. It won’t matter whose side people are on—yours or your husband’s—your life will be put under a microscope regardless. Every choice you ever made. Every person you ever talked to. Your family. Your friends. I have an obligation to make sure you’re clear, before we proceed.”
Hearing Kate spell out exactly what I’d feared for so many years made me hesitate, and I considered stepping back. Letting Danielle and Charlie’s evidence do all the work. No one needed to hear the details of my abuse in order to lay Maggie Moretti’s death at Rory’s feet.
And yet, I knew that if I didn’t, I’d be destined to live and relive moments like the one on the bridge. I would never be truly free if I scurried away to hide under another rock. I’d be complicit in Rory’s abuse as long as I continued to protect him. The world didn’t need to hear my story, but I needed to tell it. “I understand,” I told her.
“Live in five seconds,” someone says.
“Good evening.” Kate’s voice fills my earpiece, as if she’s sitting right next to me. “In the last hour, attorneys for Rory Cook, head of the Cook Family Foundation and son of the late Senator Marjorie Cook, have been fielding requests for questioning related to the death of Maggie Moretti, who died twenty-seven years ago on a Cook family property. But even more extraordinary is the fact that authorities received this information via Mr. Cook’s wife, previously believed to have perished on Flight 477. CNN has discovered that she is alive and living in California. We have her here now, via satellite, to discuss the accusations against her husband and why she felt she had to hide. Mrs. Cook, so good to see you.”
The light on the camera in front of me illuminates, and the director points at me. I fight the urge to reach up and touch my hair, aware of how different I look. “Thank you, Kate. It’s good to be here.” My voice sounds lonely in the empty space, and I try to stay focused on the television monitor that shows a background of the San Francisco skyline behind me.
“Mrs. Cook, tell us what happened and how you came to be here today.”
Now that I’m here, I can see that it was always going to come to this. For too lon
g, I believed my voice alone wouldn’t be enough. That nobody would want to hear the truth and step in to help. But when I needed it most, three women showed up. First Eva, then Danielle, and finally, Charlie. If we don’t tell our own stories, we’ll never take control of the narrative.
I square my shoulders and look directly into the camera, feeling the terror of the last hour, the stress of the past week, and the fear of the past ten years slipping off me, now nothing more than the faint whisper of a shadow.
“As you know, my husband comes from a very powerful family, with unlimited resources. But what you don’t know is that our marriage was a difficult one. For the cameras, he was charming and dynamic, but behind closed doors, he became violent, triggered without warning. The world saw us as a happy and committed team, but beneath the veneer, I was in crisis. Guarding my secrets. Trying to do better, to be better. Desperate to live up to the impossible standards my husband set for me, terrified when I couldn’t.
“Like many women in this situation, I was stuck in a cycle of abuse for years. Afraid to anger him, afraid to speak up, afraid that if I did, no one would believe me. Living like that breaks a person down, one tiny piece at a time, until you can’t see the truth in anything or anyone. He’d isolated me from anyone I might have gone to for help. I’d tried before to leave him. To tell the truth of my marriage. But powerful men make powerful enemies, and no one wanted Rory Cook as an enemy. The only way out that I could see, that didn’t involve public scandal or a prolonged court battle, was to simply disappear.”
“But a plane crash?”
“That was a tragic coincidence. I wasn’t supposed to be on that plane to Puerto Rico. I planned to disappear in Canada. A last-minute scheduling change derailed everything. But then I met a woman at the airport willing to trade tickets with me.” I think about the people still looking for Eva and deliver my line. “Unfortunately, she perished instead of me, and I will forever be grateful to her, for giving me the chance to escape.”
