by Naomi West
But, Mark. Well, Mark was on trial and looking at some pretty serious time, especially with all the files that had escaped the data purge by ending up in Abby's personal email account.
“Tell us,” Kara said, her beautiful green eyes shining like emeralds in the light. “What's it like one year on, after everything? The scandal with Dimalerax was one of the biggest scandals to rock the world of Big Pharma in the last two decades, and it's always overshadowed your own personal experiences with the hostage hoax Zed Hesse used to bring it all to light. You've rarely spoken about the hostage situation in public since that day, but everyone is still curious.”
“Well,” Abby said, “it's still difficult to put it all into words. To be honest, I'm still trying to process everything that happened in that week. It all seemed to happen so fast, but so slowly at the same time. But I suppose everyone is still curious about the man behind it all, Zed Hesse, and how he, or anyone, could come to the decision he did about how to make the news hit the headlines, getting law enforcement and the public to take notice about the grave crimes he and I had uncovered at Pharma-Vitae.”
Kara nodded, encouragingly, and Abby smiled.
She didn't want to talk about the bittersweet loss she felt every time she thought about Zed, or the intense longing in the pit of her stomach when she heard his name. She didn't want to tell them about how she still needed his touch, or that she dreamed of him at night sometimes. “It's just a testament, I feel, to the power of family, and what one brother was willing to do. As you know, Kai Hesse had been on death row due to the drug Dimalerax, and Zed saw the injustice in it all.”
“Injustice?” Kara asked. “What do you mean?”
“Injustice that his brother had ended up where he was because he had trusted Pharma-Vitae, and his doctors, to help. But, of course, they didn't, and he suffered. It was really that intrinsic injustice in the system that no one else saw, that made Zed Hesse snap the way he did. People at the top weren't doing their jobs, and executives at Pharma-Vitae, unbeknownst to me, were operating from a sick and twisted idea of shareholder value, so they could enrich themselves at the expense of the men and women who serve this country every day. What would you do in that situation, where your entire adult life has been dedicated to protecting the ideals of a nation, but all you were protecting was some giant corporation's ability to get rich off your brother?”
Kara signaled a commercial break as Abby began to wind down on her little speech. “We'll be back in just a moment, after this break, and, when we return, we'll have a special guest.”
Abby kept her perfect smile, but she felt a little twinge, despite her poise. Special guest? She hadn't been told about a special guest.
The reporter leaned in as the cameraman signaled that they were clear. “Sorry to spring this on you,” she said. “But the next guest may cause a bit of a shock.”
“Guess you want to keep it as a surprise, then?” Abby asked, slightly incredulous.
“It'll make for better TV,” Kara replied, as she fiddled with her mic and adjusted it. She caught Abby's wary eyes and gave her a warm smile. “I promise.”
Soon, the cameraman and state director were signaling that they were coming back up in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 ...
“I'm Kara Singh, and we're back with my special guest, Abby Winters, former CEO of Pharma-Vitae, which some viewers may remember from the Dimalerax scandal just over a year ago. Now, we have a special guest, one whom is very happy to see our current one.”
At that cue, a tall, ginger-haired man with brooding, dark brown eyes came onto the stage. From his powerful build and the way he stood ramrod straight and moved with purpose, the casual observer could instantly tell he was ex-military.
Zed Hesse.
Abby's mouth dropped open a little as she watched him cross the studio stage. Every bit of him was just as she remembered, except for how smoothly shaven he was. She rose as he came closer and hugged him tightly.
# # #
Zed
Zed watched Abby on the screen hugging the man who might as well have been a stranger to her. He grinned, despite the fact that he wasn't the one there holding her. It was good to see Kai moving around and not wearing an orange jump suit.
He could tell from the way she embraced Kai on screen that she instantly knew something was wrong. It was the way he held her, Zed knew. Not like a lover. Not like the man that was meant to be with her for the rest of her life.
“Abby,” Kai said.
She smiled as she realized who it really was, and, even though they were separated by guards, fences, cell walls, and many miles, Zed smiled right along with her.
Kai was finally out after all this time, finished with his treatments, with his hard-fought freedom finally granted. The two broke apart and took their seats across from Kara, who seemed to have grown only more respectable in the intervening year.
The money from the lawsuit against Pharma-Vitae, for knowingly releasing a harmful product and willfully misleading customers and doctors, had fueled the legal defense they'd set for Kai. With the news breaking, they'd won an appeal for brand new evidence and been able to have his sentence changed, due to the temporary insanity. Now, after his time in a treatment facility, he was free to walk the world again with his own two feet.
Zed couldn't be happier, even as he sat in the TV room amongst the other inmates, watching the exchange on the screen.
“Honestly, it's been painful,” Kai replied to Kara's question about what life was like with Zed being on the inside. “I feel as if my brother switched places with me, getting me out while he got himself in. But, even though I feel he's not truly guilty of any crime other than wanting to help his brother set things right, I understand that there have to be consequences.”
“It's a surprisingly light sentence for what he did, wouldn't you agree, Abby?” Kara asked.
Abby made a face, weighing how she should respond. “Light compared to what?” she replied, by way of a rhetorical question. “He never injured anyone, even the man who masterminded the entire deception around Dimalerax, or the men and women on the board of Pharma-Vitae. They're the ones who willingly hurt first responders and military veterans, an untold number who have been forced to take what's left of the corporation to court. Is it justice for a man who made a series of rash decisions to protect men and women all over the country should have to spend even a single day behind bars? Even the police who took him into custody told me right afterward that they appreciated what he had done for them, and that they would have let him go, if they had the choice.”
“Simply put,” Kai added where she left off, “my brother is a hero. Abby had tried to pull the drug off the market, but as soon as they forced her out, they were going to put it back on and try to reap more profits. Zed Hesse stopped that.”
Zed frowned. They talked about him like he was Robin Hood, or the second coming. He hadn't thought about any of the stuff they were talking about. He'd just wanted Kai out of prison for a crime he wasn't guilty of. Sure, maybe he had committed it, but that wasn't what guilt meant. Guilt meant responsibility.
And, as much as they talked on the screen, Zed knew he was guilty of everything they'd charged him with. He'd created a fake incident and soaked up valuable police resources. He'd taken Mark Letterman hostage at gunpoint. He'd done that, and more.
Zed had no problem admitting to it, either. He was guilty of his crimes, and he had decided long ago to take responsibility for it, and leave the legal fund to Kai's defense. His brother had needed it more.
Besides, his time was almost up. His year behind these walls had been a small price to pay for his brother being alive and well outside in the world.
“What plans do you have going forward?” Kara asked the two of them.
“Healing,” Kai said flatly. “A lot of personal healing. Ever since I came back, my life has just been dismantled, completely taken apart. I want to rebuild and try to move forward, despite my own losses. I feel like it's the only thing I can do
to honor my family's memory.”
“What about you, Abby?”
Abby smiled and shyly raised her left hand. A giant of a diamond, probably costing far more than Zed could ever have afforded, stood out from her ring finger. “Well,” she said, “I actually met someone at my new company, and he and I recently became engaged.”
Zed's mouth dropped open.
She was . . . no. It couldn't be.
But, there was the evidence right in front of him, as plain as the day was long.
He closed his mouth and gritted his teeth shut. It was okay. He'd deal with this, just like he'd dealt with every setback. It wasn't going to kill him. It was just going to make him stronger. That's what life was—a series of things that made you grow as a human being. He'd taken down Pharma-Vitae with Abby's help. He could withstand the blow of her moving on and finding someone else.
Besides, she looked happy there, showing her ring off for the home audience. She looked much happier than when he'd first seen her as Pharma-Vitae's CEO. And, to Zed, that was what mattered most. Her happiness.
His? His was secondary. He was happy she was with someone who deserved her.
He swallowed hard and sighed, repeating his words back to himself again and again.
“I'm happy she's with someone who deserves her,” he said aloud, reminding himself one last time, even as he hung his head in defeat.
Chapter Thirty-One
Zed
The corrections officer working the property desk at prison outtake looked over the card and glanced up at him. He was an older man, with big, puffy, white eyebrows like ancient graying caterpillars crawling over the tops of his eyes. “Zed Hesse?”
Zed nodded, taking a deep breath. It had been too long since he was referred to as a name and not a number. “That's me.”
The CO took the voucher, tapped it on the metal window counter, then turned back around and went deep into the room to find the plastic tub that contained Zed's worldly possessions. He came back with it all sealed in a plastic bag.
“Wallet containing one-hundred-fifteen-dollars, silver Bulova dress watch, ID, public library card . . .” the man droned on and on, listing every little bit of every item right off the catalog card as he slid it back to Zed through the slot beneath the plexiglass window.
Zed stuffed the items in the various pockets of the suit Kai and his lawyer had gotten him for his last court date, the one where he'd plead guilty on all charges related to that night.
“Finally, one cell phone,” the old corrections officer said.
“Thanks,” Zed replied, as he took it, checked the phone to see if, on an off change in hell, the mobile device had any power or service after this long. No luck, though. The phone didn't power up.
“Hey,” the corrections officer asked, as Zed turned to leave this life finally behind.
Zed stopped in his tracks. “What?” he growled, a little more abrasively than he probably needed to. He'd spent a year locked up in here, dealing with criminals who and other shady folk. He'd learned quickly that you had to assert your dominance and prove you were more trouble than you worth.
The CO held up his hands, a defensive look in his eyes. “Hey, buddy, just wanted to see if you was the guy who busted that big drug company, that's all.”
The vet nodded. “Yeah, that's me, I guess.”
“Well, just wanted to say thanks, you know? I used to be a full-on guard, and them papers you released kept me and my wife from splitting up when the medication made things worse. Won my lawsuit cause of you.”
The gratitude from this man should have helped things, should have lessened the hurt he was feeling for having a year of his life taken away from him, or the ache he felt from Abby finding another man. It should have helped, but it didn't. Zed didn't smile, just nodded instead. “Welcome,” he simply said, then headed out to finish the rest of his outtake.
Only a week had passed since he had seen the interview with Kai and Abby on Kara Singh's talk show. Seven days, seven nights.
The guards marched him out down the walk, through the chain-linked corridor, and to the road, where a cab was waiting, idle. “Good luck,” the guards said, as he stepped out beyond the fences, a free man for the first time in over a year. He took a deep breath, inhaling as much freedom as he could hold.
He looked up and down the empty, desolate road, ignoring the fact that he hadn’t called for a car. He hadn't wanted to tell Kai about his release date because he didn't want him standing out here. He had wanted to figure it out on his own. Now, honestly, he regretted that decision a little bit.
This was the second time he'd been free like this. The first time was after the military. That freedom had been cut short by the problems with Kai, and Zed had never really experienced a fresh start. Just a false one.
“You Zed Hesse?” the cabby asked, as Zed looked up and down the road.
“Who's asking?”
The cabby, an older black woman, who looked like she could handle herself if she had to, just grinned. “Me. Husband said you were the one who busted up that drug company and saved our marriage. Wanted you to have a ride outta here.”
Zed looked back over his shoulder at the prison gate, like he could see the property officer beyond. “Yeah, I'm Zed,” he replied as he walked up to the cab.
“Where you headed, then?”
He told her the address as he walked around to the passenger side. “Mind if I sit up front? Metal grating is the last thing I want right now.”
The older woman didn't think twice. She just grinned again. “Hop in, sugar. I trust you.”
They drove away from the prison with no more words exchanged between them. This was the first woman he'd seen, besides a prison guard, in almost a year, and he had forgotten how much he missed the entire gender.
They pulled up in front of the house almost an hour later and Zed took out his wallet. “How much I owe you?” he asked, as he thumbed through the money that amounted to pretty much all his worldly possessions.
“You, sugar? Free of charge. Told you, my husband called. We owe you one. Hell, I should be the one paying you.”
Zed allowed himself a little smile as he climbed out of the cab. “Thanks,” he said.
“This your place?” the cabby asked, as he went to shut the door.
“Nope,” Zed said, pausing to look around the affluent neighborhood. “Old friend's.” He shut the door and turned around to survey it. There was new grass in the front yard, and a new mailbox had been built. But, other than that, the enormous house was exactly as he remembered it.
He straightened out the front of his dress shirt and tried to lay down its wrinkles as he headed up the walkway to the door.
Behind him, the cabby seemed to wait a moment before deciding her debt to Zed was fully paid and driving off.
He stepped up to the door, took a deep breath, and knocked.
Just one last goodbye to say and then he'd truly be free.
# # #
Abby
The knock in early evening came as a surprise. She hadn't been expecting anyone before her dinner date, and Ethan and she had decided they'd meet at the restaurant. Even then, though, he'd be early, if he was picking her up.
“Coming,” she called, as she headed down the hallway in her black, backless dress and silk stockinged feet, putting on her earrings as she went. Flustered as she was, she didn't ever bother to check the peephole before swinging the door open.
She sucked in a sharp breath when she saw him, her hand dropping from her ear, her lips parting, and her eyes widening in surprise.
Cleanly shaved, hair well-trimmed, bigger than she remembered, dark suit, cream dress shirt, and no tie. And, of course, Zed had those same piercing eyes she remembered from a year ago, when she'd last seen him.
He swept into the house, not even bothering to say “hello.” He didn't need to, and they both knew it. He took her in his arms as he kicked the door closed behind him, slamming it shut with a resounding boom.
They groaned like they'd been starving all their lives and a lavish feast had been laid out before them. As if she was light as a feather, he lifted her into his arms, his lips still pressed to hers. He carried her down the entryway, through the living room, and up the hallway to her bedroom. He didn't need to be reminded of the layout, and walked the path as if he'd lived there his whole life.
