Chapter 4 - The Question He Couldn’t Answer
The motel was on the edge of town, the kind of place where the neon sign flickered, the parking lot was cracked, and the rooms rented by the hour if you knew who to ask. Two FBI cars were already parked out front, unmarked but obvious — the clean black sedans, the agents in suits loitering by the doors, the way every person who walked past stared just a little too long.
I got out of the car. Arthur moved to follow me, but I held up a hand.
“Wait here,” I said. “This is something I have to do alone.”
He hesitated. “Ms. Hale — they’re dangerous. Desperate. What if —”
“They won’t do anything,” I said. “Not with the FBI watching. Not with every camera in the county pointed at this parking lot. Trust me. I know them. They’re all talk. Always have been.”
I walked across the parking lot. My heels clicked on the asphalt. My black dress swished around my ankles. One hand rested protectively on my stomach.
Room 117.
I knocked.
The door opened a crack. Jessica’s eye peered out. When she saw who it was, she gasped and stumbled back, tripping over a suitcase on the floor.
The door swung all the way open.
The room was tiny. Smelled like cigarette smoke and old carpet and regret. Two double beds, the covers rumpled. A television blaring a twenty-four-hour news channel — my face was on the screen, the headline blaring BILLIONAIRE EX-WIFE TAKES OVER MORRISON EMPIRE. Takeout containers were scattered across the dresser. Diane’s designer suit was crumpled on a chair. Brendan was sitting on the edge of one bed, his head in his hands.
They all looked up when I walked in.
Diane was the first to recover. She stood up, her face twisting into a mask of rage.
“You!” she spat. “How dare you come here! This is harassment! I’ll have you arrested! I’ll —”
“Sit down, Diane.”
I said it so quietly, so firmly, that she actually did. Her mouth was still open, but she sat back down on the bed, her hands clenched into fists in her lap.
I walked to the middle of the room. I didn’t sit. I stood there, looking down at the three people who had made my life a living hell for four years. The woman who’d poured water on me. The man who’d laughed. The girl who’d asked for an old towel.
They looked small. Pathetic. Nothing like the powerful, untouchable family they’d pretended to be in that big dining room just twenty-four hours ago.
“I’m not here to fight,” I said. “I’m not here to gloat. Well — maybe a little. But mostly, I’m here to ask Brendan one question. Just one. And then I’m leaving. And the FBI can come in and take you wherever it is they take people like you.”
Brendan looked up. His eyes were red. Puffy. He’d been drinking. A half-empty bottle of whiskey sat on the nightstand beside him.
“What do you want, Cassidy?” he mumbled. “Haven’t you done enough? You took everything. My job. My house. My money. My name. What more could you possibly want?”
“I want the truth,” I said. I took a step closer to him. “Four years ago. When I told you I was pregnant. You sat me down in your mother’s living room. You told me you’d marry me. But only if I promised to never ask you for anything. To never embarrass you. To be the quiet, obedient little wife your mother wanted. You told me you didn’t love me. That you never would. That you were only doing it because of the baby. Because the Morrison name couldn’t have a bastard.”
I paused. Swallowed the lump that was suddenly in my throat.
“What I want to know,” I said, my voice shaking just a little, “is — was any of it real? Even for a second? When we were dating. Before the baby. When you told me I was the most beautiful girl you’d ever met. When you took me to that little restaurant on the water and told me you wanted to spend the rest of your life with me. When you held me when my mom died. Was any of it real? Or were you just — looking for someone easy. Someone poor. Someone you thought you could control forever.”
The room was silent. Even the television seemed to quiet down.
Brendan stared at me. For a second, I thought I saw something in his eyes. Regret. Maybe even guilt.
But then he laughed. A bitter, ugly sound.
“Real?” he said. He stood up, swaying a little, the whiskey making him bold. “You want to know if it was real? Of course it wasn’t real! Are you that stupid? You were a fling, Cassidy. A nice little distraction from the girls my mother kept trying to set me up with. You were easy. You didn’t care about money. You didn’t care about status. You just — liked me. For me. Can you imagine how boring that was? I kept you around because you were convenient. And then you got pregnant. And suddenly you weren’t convenient anymore. You were a problem. A big, fat, pregnant problem that was going to ruin my life. Marrying you was the worst mistake I ever made. Every day I looked at you, I hated myself a little more for being stuck with a girl like you. A nobody. A nothing.”
He leaned in close. His breath smelled like whiskey and failure.
“You want the truth?” he whispered. “I was relieved when I found Jessica. Finally. A woman who knew her place. A woman who knew what being a Morrison meant. You were just — a warm body. A uterus. And the second that baby is born? I’m going to fight you for custody. I’m going to tell the courts you’re unstable. That you’re a manipulative, power-hungry monster who used our child to steal my family’s company. And you know what? I’ll win. Because juries hate women like you. Women who forget their place. Women who think they’re better than men.”
I stared at him.
And I felt it.
The last little piece of the girl who’d loved him. The last tiny, stupid, hopeful piece that had been holding on, just in case.
It broke.
And then it blew away. Like dust in the wind.
I didn’t cry. I didn’t scream. I didn’t slap him, as much as I wanted to.
I just smiled. A cold, empty smile.
“Thank you, Brendan,” I said. “That’s all I needed to hear.”
I turned to walk out.
And then Diane spoke.
“You think you’ve won, don’t you?” she said. Her voice was low. Dangerous. “You think because you have the money and the company and the fancy building with your name on it, that you’re better than us? That you’ve beaten us? Let me tell you something, little girl. Money doesn’t buy everything. It doesn’t buy respect. It doesn’t buy class. And it doesn’t buy loyalty. The Morrisons have been in this town for a hundred years. We have friends. We have favors. We have people who owe us. You might have taken our company. You might have taken our house. But you will never take our name. And you will never be one of us. No matter how many buildings you put your name on. No matter how many billions you have. You will always be that poor little orphan girl from the wrong side of the tracks. And everyone in this town will always know it.”
I stopped in the doorway. I didn’t turn around.
“You’re right, Diane,” I said softly. “I will never be one of you. Thank God. Because being one of you means lying. Cheating. Stealing from children. Pouring water on pregnant women. Being so empty and so small inside that the only way you can feel big is by stepping on other people.”
I turned my head just enough so she could see my face.
“You talk about your name like it’s something to be proud of,” I said. “But look around you. You’re in a seventy-dollar-a-night motel room. Your son is a drunk. Your future daughter-in-law is a thief. And in about five minutes, the FBI is going to walk through that door and arrest both of you for stealing two hundred million dollars from sick kids and poor families. Your name isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on anymore, Diane. By this time tomorrow, the only thing anyone will remember about the Morrison name is that it belonged to a bunch of thieves and bullies who got exactly what they deserved.”
I nodded at the door.
“They’re here, by the way,” I said. “I’d suggest you cooperate. It’ll go easier on you. Not much. But a little.”
I walked out.
I didn’t look back.
As I crossed the parking lot, I heard the shouting start. Diane screaming. Brendan yelling. The sharp, authoritative voices of the FBI agents telling them they were under arrest. The click of handcuffs.
Arthur opened the car door for me. I slid into the backseat.
“Did you get what you needed?” he asked quietly.
I looked out the window as the agents led Diane and Brendan out of the motel room in handcuffs, their heads down, cameras flashing from every direction. Diane was still screaming, trying to kick the agents, her hair a wild mess. Brendan was stumbling, too drunk to even walk straight, his face blank with shock.
Jessica came out a minute later, not in handcuffs yet, holding a plastic bag with her things, sobbing into her hands. The reporters swarmed her.
Jessica! Did you know about the fraud?
Jessica! Are you going to testify against the Morrisons?
Jessica! How does it feel to be the other woman who lost everything?
I watched until the cars pulled away. Until the motel was just a dot in the rearview mirror.
“Yeah,” I said, finally. “I got everything I needed.”
I leaned my head back against the seat and closed my eyes. My daughter kicked. Soft. Reassuring.
May you like
It was over.
Or so I thought.
