She shakes her head, and her lip wobbles. “I can’t talk about it. I’m sorry.” Gulping down the dregs of her coffee, she pulls a flask from her purse and pours whiskey into her mug, uncaring who sees. She knocks it back, her hand trembling. “You must think so little of me,” she says, shrugging in embarrassment.
“I know you’ve seen me at my worst,” she continues, “but I tried fighting back, and eventually, Christian won. He broke me. Beat me down. Removed my fighting spirit. I watched my two best friends die after they attempted to escape, and I knew I was trapped. Christian took great delight in telling me how both my friends had been murdered, and he told me that would be my fate if I tried to do the same. So, I did the only thing I could.”
She eyeballs me with her glassy gaze. “I checked out of life. I numb the pain and the reality, and it’s only these weekly sessions when I let it back in, when I remember what my life has been like, when I accept the pain for the punishment of standing by and letting my husband turn my son into a monster just like him.”
“You couldn’t have done anything to stop it. I’m only beginning to realize how damaged they all are because of the stuff they’ve had to do at Parkhurst.”
“I don’t even know the half of it, and I’m disturbed,” she says before seeming to collect herself. “I’ve missed seeing you at the house, but I’m not sorry your engagement to my son has ended. You deserve better.”
“We didn’t love one another, and I don’t see how any marriage can work without love.”
“You’re right,” she murmurs. “Love is the bedrock of any marriage. Without it, it’s a daily struggle.” She looks off into space. “I haven’t believed in love in a long time.”
I don’t know what to say to that, so I say nothing, watching her under a sad veil as she stares out the window. After a couple minutes, she shakes off her melancholy, fixing me with a feeble smile. “We don’t want to get sidetracked. I can’t stay out too late, or he’ll send someone to look for me. What else did you want to know?”
“How did my father come to be in Rydeville? Because I know he’s not from here.”
“Your father’s adopted family moved into the area when we were fifteen.”
“My father is adopted?”
“You didn’t know?”
“He rarely talks to us, unless he wants something from us, and he never talks about his past. All I know is, his parents died in a plane crash when he was twenty-two.”
“Your father was born to a junkie mother and her pimp. His mother overdosed when he was six weeks old and his father didn’t want him, so he ended up a ward of the state,” she explains. “He was in an orphanage for the first three years of his life when the Hearst family adopted him. They lived over on the West Coast someplace before Mr. Hearst’s business interests brought him to Rydeville. They were from new money, and it was unusual for the elite to mix with new money, but your father is very charming, and he wormed his way into our circle at school.”
I listen attentively, not wanting to miss anything.
“It was obvious he had set his sights on your mother, but Olivia was hopelessly in love with Atticus.”
I guess there’s no accounting for taste.
“If that’s the case, how did my father charm her?”
“He didn’t.” Her eyes cloud over. “He manipulated the situation after his many attempts to woo her right out from under his best friend’s nose failed. Your mother told Atticus what Michael was up to, but Atticus was an arrogant son of a bitch, and he gloated over the fact his friend was trying to steal his girl. He was secure in Olivia’s love, and he thought that made them infallible. His arrogance was his downfall because it meant Michael got desperate.”
“Why did he want Mom so badly?”
“Well, not only was she beautiful, smart, and kind, but she was the only girl from a founding family. Every guy at school wanted her, but she’d fallen for Atticus when she was thirteen, and her heart was always his.” She pours more whiskey into her mug. “Anyway, Mr. Hearst Senior lost his business and his wealth, and it became a more urgent concern for Michael, so he planned things so Olivia would have no choice but to marry him.”
“What did the bastard do?”
“It was senior year, and Christian, Atticus, and Charles were away on a football trip. Michael wasn’t a good football player, and he never made the team, much to his disgust.”
I can imagine that being a sore point for my father, because he likes to believe he’s the best at everything and he hates losing to anyone, especially the other elite. He thinks he’s so above everyone, and it’s fascinating to learn he was at the bottom of the rung until his marriage elevated his fortune.
“We had planned a girls’ night at my house. Michael showed up, persuading us to attend a college party with him. Your mother didn’t want to go, but Emma and I were champing at the bit. We were both single, so we were keen to meet some older, college guys.”
She chugs back more whiskey. “He drugged us and photographed us having sex with different guys.” My stomach flips, and my mouth turns dry. “He didn’t pimp Olivia out.Hefucked her, without a condom, all night long and had someone photograph it. Things were different back then, and Olivia wasn’t on birth control, because she was a virgin. It was a condition of the marriage agreement between her father and Atticus’s father, and even though they were crazy about one another, Atticus respected her decision to wait for their wedding night. Or so I thought, because that’s what Olivia had always told us.”
She slumps in her chair a little as my cell pings with a message from Drew, checking in with me. I tell him I’m fine and slip my cell back in my pocket, reaching out to take the flask from Sylvia’s hand. “You need to drive home, and I won’t have your death on my conscience.”
“Death would be welcome at this point.” Her tone is flat.
“Don’t say that.” I put the flask back in her purse, slanting a warning look at her.
She sighs, knotting her hands on her lap. “Michael sent the photographs to Atticus, and Atticus went ballistic. Then he found out she was pregnant with Michael’s child, and in a fit of rage, he told his father, and his father immediately called off the wedding and informed Mr. Manning. Per the stupid elite traditions, it now meant Olivia had to marry the father of her baby, and Michael got his way.”
