The River Valley Series

by Tess Thompson

  “You should eat something,” he said. “I’ll check and see if Linus left our goodies.” At the Second Chance Inn scones were left outside each guest’s room in an attractive basket that included marionberry jam and whipped butter. Gennie had requested her basket be given to someone else, explaining that she had to watch her weight carefully. Instead, without her asking for it, Linus had started leaving her two pieces of dry wheat toast and a boiled egg. She loved Linus for it and the many other small kindnesses he’d shown her during her stay.

  Stefan went out to the hallway for a moment and returned with their baskets. “Linus never lets us down,” he said.

  After arranging the food on the small table and making fresh cups of coffee, they sat down to eat. Gennie was surprised to find she was hungry, even using some of Stefan’s jam for her toast.

  “Do you think there have been others?” Stefan asked.

  “Others?”

  “Other victims.”

  “I don’t know.” Taken aback by the abrupt question, she set aside her toast, feeling suddenly nauseous. “I’ve not allowed myself to think about it.” I didn’t want to know. I was too scared to even ask myself the question. “If he threatened them like he did me, they could all be in hiding too.”

  “If there are others and you came forward, it might encourage them to come forward as well. There’s power in numbers.”

  She stared at him, shocked. “You think I should come forward?” I can’t come forward. Don’t ask me to.

  He ran his hand through his messy hair. “I’m not sure, Gennie. It’s just that, well, when I woke up, I started thinking he might be a serial rapist. What if you could save other women from being hurt? You’re rich and you’re famous. You have a power that others might not.”

  “What about Sarah? I don’t want her to know the truth.”

  He picked up the cap from the tiny jar of jam, turning it over in his hand. “Our secrets have hurt us. I wonder if it wouldn’t be better that she knew the truth. The whole truth.”

  She stared at the floor. Don’t panic. Just breathe. I don’t have to do anything but keep my mother and Sarah safe. “He’ll say I’m lying. He could wreck my career, or worse, hurt someone I love.”

  “If you accuse him he’ll be forced to take a DNA test, proving his guilt,” Stefan said. “My best friend, Grant Perry, is an attorney who represents victims like you all the time. He’s the best there is. He can help you figure out the best approach.”

  “Murphy will spin the truth. Say I was a little tart and seduced him.”

  “You were fifteen years old. Whether it was consensual or not, it’s still rape.”

  “He’ll say he had no idea I was so young. Then he’ll apologize to his wife, but the scandal will ruin his chances for the presidency. That will enrage him. I won’t ever be safe. One day you’ll get a call that I’ve overdosed in my hotel room, or driven my car off a cliff, and you’ll be the only one who knows it was arranged by him. You’ll be powerless to prove it, and if you try, you’ll be next.” Her voice had risen an octave. Just stop talking. I don’t have to defend my decisions, not even to Stefan.

  “This monster could become president. We’d have a rapist in the White House.”

  “There’s Sarah to consider,” she said.

  “Are you going to meet her?” he asked.

  She hesitated, unsure of the answer. “I don’t know what to do. I need more time to think.”

  He reached across the table and took her hand. “Whatever you decide, I’m here for you.”

  “No matter what I decide?” Even if I stay hidden under my lies?

  “No matter what.” He squeezed her hand. “Whatever you want, I will support you. If you want to fight him, though, I’m ready.”

  I need time to think. It’s all too fast. “I should take a shower before my video conference.”

  After letting go of her hand, he crumpled his napkin and left it on the table. “I’ll pop over to my room and get cleaned up too. I need to call my mom and tell her I won’t be home for the weekend after all.”

  “What? No, you have to go. She’ll be so disappointed.” Please stay with me. Say you’ll stay.

  “It’s best that you remain here in town until all this gets sorted out. You’re safer here than anywhere, especially since everyone thinks you’re in Hawaii. And wherever you are, I will be.”

  “But, Stefan…” She trailed off, not knowing what to say.

  “If you want me to stay, that is,” he said.

  “I want you to stay.”

  “Then I will.”

  Later, Gennie dialed into a video call with Reid and Trix. The quality of the feed was so good it felt almost as if she were there with them in Reid’s Beverly Hills home office. They sat in twin chairs next to a large window, a swimming pool and manicured garden in the background. Reid, tanned, with salt and pepper hair, was casually dressed in khakis and a loose t-shirt. Trix wore a designer suit. Petite and so thin she looked almost ill, her bleached blond hair was perfectly fixed into loose curls. No matter the time of day or night, she sipped from a large Starbucks coffee.

  Reid took the lead, his voice and demeanor soothing, unflappable, no matter the situation. One could not do this kind of work and be the nervous type. “If it’s all right with you, Genevieve, let’s talk through how we should approach this with the public.”

  “Fine,” Gennie said. “Where do we start?”

  She looked over at Stefan. He sat in the chair by the window, out of the camera’s view, with a pad and pencil in his lap, doodling.

  “Why don’t you tell us your version of the story,” said Reid.

  She launched into the story of the rape, leaving out the part about Murphy. “So, the long and short of it is, I did not abandon my baby. On the contrary, I made a very careful decision for her.”

  “Yes, I see. It must have been a hard decision,” Reid said.

  “I never thought of doing anything else,” Gennie said.

  “Was it because you were raised Catholic?”

  “It influenced me some, sure. Mostly, though, it was just me. The baby was a person to me, no matter how she came to be.”

  “Are you comfortable talking about whether your faith factored into the decision?”

  “Not really. It’s a personal decision, and I’m not interested in telling anyone what they should do. It was the right choice for me. For others, especially in cases of rape, it might not be. I don’t want to get pulled into the national debate over abortion.”

  “Are you prepared to discuss the rape?” Reid asked.

  “I’m not sure. There’s Sarah to think of. She doesn’t know about any of this, other than her biological mother was an unwed teen.”

  “Yes, her well-being complicates things. I’m not saying I agree with this strategy, but you could simply leave out the detail about the rape,” said Reid. “Giving up a baby at fifteen was a respectable choice. This isn’t the Victorian Era. That said, if you talk about the rape and that you decided to have the baby anyway, well, it adds a very human element to it—especially if you emphasize that your decision was personal, as you believe everyone’s should be. You’ll be perceived as selfless, thinking of the baby’s well-being before anything else. Both sides of the argument will be appeased.”

  Beside him, Trix sighed. The bangles on her skinny arms clinked.

  “What’re you thinking, Trix?” Reid asked.

  “I want you to tell the truth about the rape, Gennie. It’s hot right now, this sexual abuse thing. Everyone and their mother’s coming forward lately.”

  “For heaven’s sake, Trix, this is a real thing that happens to real women. It’s not a fad to be exploited,” Gennie said.

  “All I’m saying is that the timing of this might be perfect for you to become the sexual abuse ambassador. You could do a lot of good with it, and the publicity would be tremendous.”

  “The sexual abuse ambassador?” Gennie asked. “Honestly, Trix.”

  “
All right, ladies. Let’s get back on track here,” Reid said.

  “Listen, guys, I want to meet Sarah first and talk this over with her,” Gennie said. “I must respect her wishes on something that will affect her for the rest of her life.”

  “Gennie, who do you want to give the interview to? All the big guys will want it.”

  “Raquel Birdwell,” Gennie said.

  “Raquel? Not Matt or George?” Trix asked.

  “I want Raquel. We go back. She’ll handle it with sensitivity.” And she was a woman. It had to be a woman.

  Trix waved her hands in a gesture of impatience. “Well, it’s the day before Thanksgiving. I don’t know if we can get her to fly from New York to River Woods or wherever the hell you are,” Trix said.

  “River Valley,” Gennie said. “She’ll fly out here if I ask her to.”

  “Fine. I’ll arrange it. We’ll put it out to the media that you’ll be doing a tell-all interview airing the day after Thanksgiving,” Trix said. “The ratings will be amazing.”

  “I’ll call Raquel myself,” Gennie said. “I want to explain things to her.”

  “Sure. Fine. Whatever. As long as you get her there,” Trix said.

  “Gennie, let us know what you decide to do, and we’ll help however we can. Good luck meeting Sarah,” Reid said.

  “Thanks. I need a little luck.” She looked away from the computer screen. An icicle hung from the window, melting under the sunlight. She focused her gaze back on the screen. “Regardless of what exactly I’ll say, I’ll do the interview with Raquel the day after tomorrow. We’ll go from there.”

  Reid nodded, giving her a slight smile. “Sounds good. Happy Thanksgiving.”

  Trix was staring into the computer camera with a glazed expression. It was best to hang up before she went into fighter mode.

  “Thanks for your time. Trix, I’ll call you later.” Gennie closed the screen and shut the lid of her laptop. She stared at the ceiling for a moment, then called Raquel to ask if they could arrange an interview.

  Raquel answered on the first ring. “Gennie, I saw the story. Are you all right?”

  “I’ve been better. I need to talk publicly about what happened. Would you like the interview? I know it’s a bad time with the holiday, and I’m in the middle of Oregon. It’s pretty here. There’s snow. Very festive, actually.”

  “I don’t have much going on. The kids are with their dad for a ski weekend, so I’m all alone. I was going to take a few days off, but what the heck. I’ve never been to Oregon before. Do I need a flannel shirt?”

  Gennie smiled. “No, but it’s a small town. Very small.”

  “Did you finish filming?”

  “We wrapped yesterday. Just in time for my world to blow up.”

  “Can you tell me the real story?” asked Raquel.

  She took a deep breath and repeated her story. Each time it was more succinct, like rewriting an essay. “But I’m not sure how much I want to tell. I need to talk with Sarah first.”

  “You’re going to meet her?”

  “Yes. If she wants to meet me, I’ll make sure it happens.”

  “Gennie, this must be incredibly difficult. I’m sorry you have to go through all this.”

  “Thanks. I’m appreciative that you’ll come out here on a holiday weekend.”

  “You can repay me by taking me to that restaurant you were raving about the last time we talked. What’s it called? Something to do with a song.”

  “Riversong. Yes, I will take you.” Raquel was famous for her love of food.

  “They’re closed the day after Thanksgiving, though,” Gennie said.

  “Really? You are in a Podunk town.”

  “Just wait until you see it. If you don’t fall in love, I’ll be surprised,” Gennie said. “And the people are nice. No one bothers me here, and they’ve succeeded more than once in running off the paparazzi for Stefan and me.”

  “Stefan Spencer?” Raquel asked. “Is he still there? I’d love to interview him one of these days. Put in a good word for me?”

  “I’ll let him know you’re interested.”

  “Are the rumors true about you two?” Raquel asked.

  “Not exactly.” She flushed. “It’s complicated.”

  “Ah, I see,” Raquel said.

  They spoke for a few more minutes, agreeing that their assistants would work out any further details. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  After she hung up, Gennie put aside her phone, not wanting to see further messages from anyone, Stefan murmured an expletive under his breath. He looked over at her, waving his phone. “Richard just texted. We need to turn on the news. George Bentley’s on the ABC morning show.” He crossed the room and used the remote to turn on the television and find the correct local channel. “This is it.”

  A young, female talk show host, with glossy blond hair, sat across from a man with the face of an English bulldog.

  “I can’t believe that’s George,” Gennie said. He looked nothing like the young man she’d met during their interview. A paunch and a receding hairline, plus deep bags under his eyes, had replaced the boy-next-door good looks.

  “Twenty years ago, you adopted a baby from a teenaged girl?”

  “That’s correct. From Genevieve Banks. She was just a kid then, of course, but we recognized her right away when we saw the publicity for her first film about ten years ago. We had no idea she wanted to be an actress when we adopted Sarah.”

  “Was it a closed adoption?”

  “Sure, yeah.”

  “If that’s the case, aren’t you violating that agreement by going public with this?”

  “This isn’t about me. This is about a woman the world worships who abandoned her baby. I think people deserve to know what kind of person she truly is. We’re not fancy people. We’ve struggled. I’ve had trouble finding work. My wife left a lot of medical bills after the cancer took her. We went to Ms. Banks and asked her for help, and she ridiculed us—told us it was nothing to do with her. I just want her to take responsibility for what she did.”

  What a liar. He’d never come to her. She’d assumed all this time that Sarah was in a good home, safe and loved. Instead, she had been raised by a morally bankrupt man. What had happened to him to change him, or had her judgment of character been flawed? Her reasoning skills had not fully formed; she’d been naïve and ridiculously innocent. Her mother, however, had been in complete agreement that they were the right couple. She turned to Stefan. “He never came to me. I would’ve given them money if they had.”

  “I know,” Stefan said.

  The reporter continued. “Mr. Bentley, with all due respect, there are holes in your story. If Ms. Banks abandoned her baby, how did you know she was the birth mother?”

  He flinched and turned red. “Because Sarah looks just like her. We put the pieces together.”

  “How long have you been estranged from your daughter?”

  “We’re not estranged.”

  “That’s not what she said when we called her for a comment. She indicated that she hasn’t talked to you since your wife passed away two years ago. What caused the estrangement?”

  “It has nothing to do with this. It’s no one’s business anyway,” George said.

  “Sarah said you argued over money. In this case, her college fund. She says you depleted it because of a gambling problem.”

  “Simply untrue,” George said. “I needed that money to pay for my late wife’s medical bills.”

  “She also said that she’d been looking for her birth mother for several years, but the adoption papers were closed. Why didn’t you share with her that you knew who her birth mother was?”

  George’s blinked several times in a row, almost like he had a nervous tick. Beads of sweat were evident on his forehead. “Sarah never told me she’d been looking. That’s news to me.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Bentley, for coming on to share your story with us,” the reporter said.

  “Thank you,” Ge
orge said. The show went to commercial.

  Stefan muted the sound. “He needs money, that much is clear. If it’s true he has a gambling problem, then he could owe scary guys big cash. It happens all the time. In desperation, he went this route.”

  “Do you think it’s true he used her college fund?” Gennie asked.

  “Probably,” Stefan said.

  “I wonder why he didn’t just come to me? Ask me for money in exchange for his silence?”

  “I suspect he wants the limelight and publicity. He’s enjoying making you look bad because he’s a failure. You’re rich while he sees himself as the victim of a hard life.”

  She stared at him, marveling at his insight. “No wonder you’re such a good actor.”

  He cocked his head to the side. “How so?”

  “That was an insightful observation.”

  A knock sounded on the door. “Who could that be?” Stefan crossed the room and peered through the peephole. “It’s Linus,” he said, opening the door.

  Linus stood in the hallway, holding fresh towels and a large basket. “Good morning. I brought you some goodies and news from the outside world.”

  Stefan opened the door wider. “Come on in.”

  Linus set the towels and basket on the desk. “This is a little something I put together for you, Gennie. It has the most delicious smelling bath bubbles, a bottle of white wine, dark chocolate, and one of Ellen White’s marionberry pies. I know you don’t eat bad things like pie, but under the circumstances, you might make an exception.” He held up an envelope. “This is a little card from the Riversong gang. Annie told me to tell you to call the restaurant if you want anything, and I’ll bring it over to you.”

  “Linus, this is so thoughtful of you,” Gennie said. “All of this isn’t necessary. We just finished the breakfast you left.”

  “It’s obvious what this Bentley character’s after. I don’t want you to worry about a thing. While you’re here with us, I’ll make sure to keep you safe from paparazzi. You two can stay in these rooms for however long you need to.”