Part III
Chapter 1
Day broke through Jenn's window, serenely casting light and warmth through its rays down to her face; she rolled over, stretching as she awoke. As she opened her eyes, she could see the clear blue skies overhead with the warmth cascading into her bedroom. She felt happy; her mind clear for an undetermined reason.
Then, in an instant, it came to her: she was free. Free from a hospital administration that betrayed her, free from a boyfriend who forsook her, free to love a man who really loved her, and free to take on the challenges of the day. Remembering what today held for her, in the shape of a rejuvenated legal battle and a noble fight for justice, Jenn sprang out of bed and got dressed quickly. She couldn't stop herself from singing happily to herself as she drove into town and went to Andrew's office. As she approached his office, she could hear him speaking; his gentle voice, smooth and soft like caramel, drifted out into the hallway to Jenn, and she smiled. She felt very lucky that morning.
She knocked playfully on his door, and he looked up. Jenn peered around the corner and was surprised to see an attractive blonde woman sitting in the chair in the corner. She was sitting cross-legged in the leather chair, her hair flowing gracefully down her shoulders, and she had several large bags at her feet and a notebook in her lap.
Seeing Jenn, Andrew leaped out of his own desk chair. Laying a kiss on her cheek, he grabbed her hands and pulled her into the room. "Jenn, I have exciting news for you — for us!" He gestured to the woman. "This is Holly Mills. She's a reporter with WPXT-TV here, I told her a little bit about your story, and she wants to interview you. What do you think?" Jenn and Holly shook hands politely, while Jenn gave it some thought.
"Wow, this is sudden. Um, sure, I guess. What kind of interview do you mean?"
Holly was already scribbling notes onto her notepad. "It would just be a short spot on what happened to you, mainly that you're making allegations against St. Benedict, and what those allegations are."
Andrew was too excited to contain himself. "This is the way you can build publicity and support before the trial begins. I don't want to pressure you; you know that. But this is such a good opportunity."
Jenn took a deep breath. "Well, I knew by going forward with this, I'd get attention. So I guess I can start." She turned to Holly with a smile. "Sure, why not?”
Two days later, a short television spot appeared on the local station, headed by Holly’s introduction to what happened. "A series of sexual assaults, a secret abortion, and a cover-up: things of nightmare for most people, but were reality for a local woman in a local hospital. In her first interview since the ordeal, Jenn Walsh has agreed to tell us the frank, and horrifying, details of what happened to her while she was a patient at St. Benedict Regional Medical Center. This is her story." The Walsh family and their supporters all sat together on the scheduled date and time of its airing to watch it. They watched in hushed anticipation, proud of Jenn for finally speaking out but also anxious about what this sudden immersion into the public eye would bring.
When the segment ended, with a final remark from Holly promising to follow up with the story, there was a profound silence in the room. Then Andrew stood up. “Jenn, I’m so proud of you,” he said, his voice quivering. She, too, began to feel tears in her eyes. She stood up too, and went to him for a tight embrace. Everyone else clapped for them, caught up in the moment.
It was Jenn’s first taste of the limelight, but more was soon to follow. The local television spot made a small splash in her community, but as St. Benedict was an hour away in a much larger metropolitan area, it was unlikely to bring many large waves.
That was, until now. Several days later, Jenn was relaxing with Andrew at his house, eating pizza, and having a movie marathon, when his phone rang. Andrew was used to receiving calls at all hours of the day, and he excused himself quietly and left the room, in case it was another client calling him.
Jenn paused the movie and sat quietly waiting for Andrew to return. It seemed like an eternity, and Jenn had nothing to do but look around as she waited. Andrew’s apartment was just like his office: austere, official, and spotless. Nothing was out of place; all of his paintings were perfectly straight, the coasters on his coffee table stacked up in place. It relaxed her. In the chaos of the past several days and weeks, she didn’t realize how much she needed this type of order in her life.
As she zoned out, Andrew came walking back quietly. “You’ll never believe this. That was a producer on The Hour talk show in New York City. They want to interview you.”
Jenn was completely taken aback. This was huge. The Hour show often had more than three million viewers each week, and it reached the entire nation.
At first, she was afraid, but she only needed to look up to see Andrew’s eager face above her to know he loved and supported her through all of this. She agreed to the interview, which would be taking place the next Friday afternoon and would be aired at primetime on the following Sunday evening.
The man who showed up at Andrew’s office to speak with Jenn was a tall, lanky man with nearly translucent skin and a bulbous forehead; but his eyes had fire in them, perfect for a producer looking for a scoop. He stepped forward with gusto and held out his hand.
“Hi, Jenn, I’m Elliott Sullivan. It’s nice to meet you. Thank you for meeting with me.” Behind him was an army of cameramen and their equipment, loaded down with bags and boxes and everything read to set up an impromptu studio in Andrew’s office. Elliott had a relaxing, silky voice. No wonder he’s in television, Jenn thought. She talked with him for more than two hours. She knew this was her opportunity to tell her story — sure, the short segment with Holly Mills was her first encounter with the press, but this time she had a real audience to listen to her. Today she felt empowered; she wanted her story told more than anything. She couldn’t wait for the story to air.
Chapter 2
Richard Connelly sat in his enormous den in his stately home, unaware of any of the publicity swirling around him. He lived far enough away from Jenn that the local news hadn’t yet reached him, and he was still trapped in negative thoughts surrounding Jenn’s refusal to take the settlement. He sat alone the night of Jenn’s interview, fuming to himself.
Suddenly the phone rang. It was Elliott Sullivan. After talking to Jenn, he knew he needed to get in touch with hospital leadership right away, and thankfully, Richard had no idea the phone call was coming. Elliott introduced himself and told Richard he was calling to write a story about the hospital’s history of philanthropic efforts in the area — he didn’t want to scare Richard away immediately by jumping into a sensitive, reputation-damaging topic. Would he able to meet tomorrow evening for an interview?
Richard was tired and reluctant, but he agreed. It didn’t sound like anything harmful. The next day, he drove to the hospital and waited for Elliott to arrive to set up a studio in his office.
The two struck up a friendly, if overly formal, conversation almost immediately; Elliott’s only intent now was to get background information, something to confirm that Jenn was onto something. He waited for Richard to stop speaking about the hospital’s sponsored events for charity before shifting the topic slightly.
“You’ve been talking about giving to charities, but what about within your own hospital? What are the circumstances that you’d ever pay for someone’s treatment?”
“Well, that would depend on the situation, things like the cost, of course, and what sort of care we have available. However we do have a young woman right now for whom we’ve offered to pay her medical bills for the rest of her life.”
“Oh, really? Why’s that?” Elliott perked up in his chair. This part sounded like Jenn.
“I’m afraid I can’t go into details on that, but we’ve done similar things before. If we deem a patient in need of medical assistance, we can try to help. We do try to give our patients the best care possible.” Richard flashed a toothy grin, his white teeth sparkling in all of the giant studi
o lights.
Elliott paused, pretending to read his notes for more questions to ask Richard. Just what I expected he’d say, he thought. Time to change subjects. He furrowed his brow and rested his pen on his chin while he considered his word choice. “Mr. Connelly, I’d like to shift topics a little bit. We’ve been discussing the good things your hospital does, but undoubtedly there are things you would like to prevent.”
Richard’s eyes narrowed. He already didn’t like the direction this was heading. His whole body tensed up, and he sat upright in his seat.
Elliott didn’t notice. “You’ve overseen this hospital for almost thirty years, correct?” Richard nodded, growing suspicious. “And in that time it’s been reported that you’ve had to address more than fifty cases of medical malpractice. Do you ever worry about what that adds up to? How has that affected your leadership over the years?”
Richard shifted in his seat. “As I said before, Mr. Sullivan” — his voice had taken a sharp edge — “we deal with all of these situations on a case-by-case basis. I would like to avoid them, certainly, but unfortunately it comes with the territory.”
“Interesting,” Elliott said, crossing his legs. “I certainly wouldn’t consider diagnostic errors, or negligent staff members, or, say, sexual assaults taking place under your watch as things that ‘come with the territory.’” He watched Richard’s face, which had stopped moving completely and merely stared back at the interviewer incredulously. “All of those things have occurred, haven’t they, Mr. Connelly? You’ve had to address all of those situations before, correct?”
Suddenly the studio lights felt like fire on Richard’s skin. He felt rivulets of sweat running down his back and his whole face flushing as the blood flowed out of it. When he opened his mouth to speak, he had to swallow twice to bring some saliva back to his dry mouth. “I cannot speak on specific circumstances that may or may not have arisen in three decade under my tenure here, Mr. Sullivan, and if you don’t mind, I’d like to end this interview. Good day.”
Without another word, Richard stood up and left his own office, ignoring Elliott’s outstretched hand and brushing one of the lights on his way out; it wobbled and might have begun to fall had one of the camera staff not caught it just in time.
He left his office furious, punching numbers on his cell phone to reach his top attorney. “Bill? Richard here. We need to talk. Now.”
Elliott watched Richard storm out and he knew he had him licked. He high-fived the crew members that were there with him that day, and immediately headed back to the newsroom to edit the footage and prepare the hour-long segment for the next Sunday night. It was Wednesday now. He could hardly wait for the reaction.
Chapter 3
That night, Jenn fixed herself a salad in her parents’ kitchen as she talked to her sister on the phone. Her spirits soared; her whole body felt excited doing the most mundane tasks: cleaning the lettuce, shredding cheese. Her lips couldn’t move fast enough to share all the thoughts in her head from her recent experiences.
“Kenzie, you don’t understand: this is so unlike me!” She reached for the ranch dressing in the refrigerator as she spoke.
“No, I think I can understand, Jenn. I’ve known you your whole life, remember?”
“I just mean, I never thought I’d have the guts to go on TV about this. It feels really amazing.”
“That’s really great, Jenn. I’m proud of you, and I’m glad you’ve decided to go forward on this. You deserve better than how all those assholes at the hospital are treating you.” For a moment, Kenzie thought she went too far — after all, Steve was included in that statement, and Steve was just as sensitive a topic as all the rest of it. Jenn didn’t seem to have noticed, or she willfully ignored it.
“Well, I was nervous for the small interview, but everything just ricocheted forward from it, and then The Hour show seemed like the right thing to do.”
“How is Andrew working out for you?”
“Oh, he’s great.” Jenn was reluctant to divulge much else. She maintained a purely professional relationship with him in all other instances except when it was just the two of them in his office. “He’s been really supportive, and he has a really great mind for all the legal stuff.”
I bet that’s not all that’s great about him, Kenzie laughed to herself. “Good for you guys., but that’s not what I meant. What about, you know, between you two?” Her voice sounded oddly subdued to Jenn.
“W-what do you mean?”
“Seemed like you two had a lot of chemistry, that’s all.”
Jenn hesitated. She told her sister everything, all of the dirty details of her life as of late, but she was nervous about saying much about Andrew knowing he was her attorney. She bit her lip and realized quite the silence had passed. She cracked. “Okay, okay, you’re right!”
Score! Kenzie thought on the other end, her face stretching into a smile. “I thought so, Jenn! You guys couldn’t keep your eyes off each other when you first met.”
Jenn told Kenzie everything, sparing no detail. She found herself recounting her entire romantic and sexual history, how she felt about Steve and how Andrew had been there to comfort her; how Andrew had continually wanted to meet up with Jenn; and, finally, how Andrew’s office turned into a place for more than legal discussions.
Kenzie couldn’t help but to laugh. “Jenn, a year ago, I never would have expected to have this conversation with you. Look at you now!” She knew her sister had changed incredibly in the past year, but her sexual growth and new confidence had been a godsend in the face of all the other horrible things she’d undergone. If her little sister wanted to tell her nearly pornographic details of her budding sex life, Kenzie certainly wasn’t going to stop her.
Jenn knew that. Kenzie was her strongest support system, and frankly, she loved to tell her older sister what she was up to, in the bedroom or otherwise. She laughed, too. “I know, I know. So much has changed. It’s pretty amazing.” She glanced down and checked the time on her watch. “Anyway, Kenz, I have to get going. So nice to talk to you, and don’t forget to watch the interview on Sunday at 8 o’clock!”
The rest of the week passed uneventfully for everyone but Richard, who spent every night after normal business hours fortified in the boardroom plotting for anything against Jenn and her family. Today — Sunday afternoon — Richard sat in his den flipping mindlessly through channels on the television.
He was about to doze off for an afternoon nap when he saw it: a teaser trailer for Jenn’s interview with The Hour. There she was, sitting in a brightly lit room with a somber face, issuing a few select sound bites from the interview. The title of the segment scrolled onto the screen: “SCANDAL AT ST. BENEDICT: Rape, Murder, and Mystery.”
Richard blinked heavily. His mind barely registered what he was seeing. Then, in one fell swoop, he leaped from his chair, grabbed his cell phone, and yelled for Steve to come over immediately, as well as his lead attorney. His blood pressure was rising precipitously as he waited; nothing had ever angered him so suddenly before.
The three of them watched the special in complete silence that Sunday night. None dared say a word. Richard and Bill stared straight ahead at the television during the entire hour-long segment; Steve couldn’t watch sections of it and instead watched his father’s reactions.
When the segment ended, the last words spoken by the host echoed into the now silent room as Richard turned the television off. He fingered the remote control in his hand for a few minutes, and then he stood up without saying a word. He looked at both Bill and Steve, and back down at his hands — then, with no warning, he heaved the remote straight at the TV, cracking the screen. He then turned menacingly toward his son.
“You...” he breathed dangerously.
Steve leaned back in his chair, immediately terrified.
“Why did you ever get near this bitch?”
Steve was taken aback immediately; he almost felt like crying. “What? Dad, I—”
“No, s
hut up. I don’t want to hear a word out of you.” He turned to Bill. “What do we do with this?”
Bill, sitting sheepishly in the corner, wanted nothing to do with the argument between father and son, but he, too, was enraged by the content on the television. “I’ll call our private detective. He can find dirt on anyone: Jenn, that sister of hers, her whole family.”
Richard was wringing his hands together so hard that he was pulling his skin back and forth, leaving red and white marks from the friction. “Good. And you,” he said, turning back to his son with his teeth bared, “you have done quite enough to fuck everything up. You just couldn’t keep your dick to yourself, could you?” His voice had gained an edge, and although he barely spoke over a whispery hiss, Steve could hear the power within his words. “Get out. I don’t want you anywhere near me.”
Steve didn’t wait for another word. Feeling as though his heart had sunk halfway into his stomach, he stood up slowly, embarrassed, ashamed, and headed out the door. He was confused. What was going to happen?
Weeks passed. Both teams prepared for the trial with utmost urgency, each side hoping to find something to spin to their advantage. Jenn and Andrew worked with abandon to show that the terrible things that happened to her were willful negligence and abuse at the hands of Dr. Blake, and, in turn, Richard and Steve Connelly.
Finally, it was time to go to court. The first day of the trial was to start the next Monday morning.
That Sunday night, Jenn lay in bed at Andrew’s apartment trying to sleep, but no matter how she tried, nothing would calm her nerves — not even Andrew’s presence next to her. She lay there for what felt like hours, tossing and turning, while Andrew read over some last-minute papers beside her.
Kane (Alexander Shifter Brothers Book 1) Page 29
