The barely controlled rage in Cody’s words registered as resignation in the governor’s eyes.
“How dare you come here, knowing you’re not welcome. She’s the victim. And you should respect her wishes and needs. And the last thing she needs is you in her face with your agenda and demands. Now get out!”
Brooke rushed to him and took his fisted hands in hers. His chest rose and fell heavily with each heaving breath he took. Angrier than she’d ever seen him, he was trying to protect her. It made all the difference. She could take care of this because she had him on her side, ready to shield her and defend her to the bitter end.
She took his face in her trembling hands and made him look at her.
When he finally met her gaze, he softly touched her cheek and pleaded with her, “Please, honey, don’t do this. Go upstairs. Let me take care of it. I don’t want to see you hurting, not like that, not ever again.”
“I have to. I was his victim. Now I’m a survivor. I can’t hide forever.”
“If this gets out, that he came here to see you and why, the media will never stop hounding you. You’ll never be able to let it fade into the past.”
“That’s just it, Cody. I live with it every day. Nothing will change that. It’s in my head and affects everything I do and think. I look at you and I ache inside because I wonder if our daughter had your blue eyes and the same dimple in her left cheek that only comes out when you try not to smile. I look at the scars on my body, and I remember the knife slashing through my skin. I can feel how tight my chest gets as I remember my desperation to protect myself and her. I walk around the ranch and every little thing reminds me she isn’t here. She’ll never run through the garden, splash in the pond, learn to ride a horse, or play hide-and-seek in the hayloft.”
Cody’s eyes shone with unshed tears.
She brushed one of her own away. “You want me to put it behind me. So do I. The counselor told us it takes a lot of little steps to finally put some distance between yesterday and today. This is one of those steps I have to take.”
Cody cupped her face, much like she held his, and stared into her eyes. “Everything inside me tells me not to let you do this. To protect you no matter what. I didn’t protect you from him but I can protect you now.” He sighed and looked her up and down. “But I know you, Brooke. You’re strong. So fucking fierce. If you say you can, then I know you will. If this is what you need…”
“It is.”
His words, his confidence in her, it gave her the courage to speak for herself and their daughter.
“Then I’m here for you.” Cody stole a kiss and released her. He stood beside her, his arms folded over his chest, and eyed the governor. No mistaking his unspoken threat.Make a wrong move, say the wrong thing, and you’ll answer to me.
Brooke took a deep breath and turned to face the governor. “Why are you really here, Governor Harris? You made yourself clear in the hospital about what you really want. Seems to me the cover-up is well in effect. No one knows what your son did. His pampered ass is sitting in a swanky hospital instead of a cell. And I’ve allowed it.” She wanted him to know that she ultimately held the power here.
Governor Harris rubbed his index finger over his chin. “My wife and I have known your family for decades. Harland was one of my best friends. We care deeply about what happened to you, Brooke. We wanted to be sure you were okay.”
She actually believed the part about him caring because of his long-time friendship with Harland. “Did you go and see the other girls your son attacked? Did you speak with the woman he raped? How are they feeling after being assaulted that way?”
Mrs. Harris gasped. Tears streamed down her face. She took the handkerchief from her husband and dabbed at her eyes. “He was a good boy. Quiet. Kind. Thoughtful. Something happened to him. He changed. He wasn’t himself. He wasn’t the one who did those things.” The disassociation of her son from themonster struck Brooke like a hammer blow. Mrs. Harris truly didn’t believe her son capable of hurting anyone.
She hadn’t met the monster Brooke saw the night he attacked her.
Something inside Brooke snapped. “You only see him as your son. You ignored the signs that something was off with him.”
Confirmation shone in both their eyes that she was right about that.
“You never wanted to see the monster who attacked me and four other women,” she accused. “You only want to cover it up, so no one will ever know the boy you raised is a stalker, rapist, and murderer. You want to avoid the stares I can’t escape when people see my scars. You don’t want to be shunned because of what he did.” She stared down the governor. “You don’t want to lose your job and the power you wield.”
The governor consoled his weeping wife with a hand on her shoulder. “We don’t need to get into the details.”
“Why not? The details matter. Your son attended parties with you here. I’d never really taken the time to get to know him. But last Fourth of July, I spent some time talking to him and a few other friends. I thought he was nice. A little sad that he lived in your shadow and that you didn’t see him for who he was, more than you saw him as merely another player in your political game.”
The governor bristled. “I love my son.”
“I’m sure you do, but he didn’t feel that love. He felt your judgement and need for him to play his part. He was desperate to be seen and loved for who he is, not as the governor’s son, but as Adam. He wanted to feel good enough just as he was.”
Governor Harris hung his head, his gaze distant with memories.
Brooke continued. “We spoke for less than an hour. Then he stalked me for six months, intermittently meeting up with meand my girlfriends with his friends, acting like everything was fine and he hadn’t been out attacking other women. I couldn’t go anywhere without looking over my shoulder, wondering if the gifts and pictures would soon turn into something more sinister. But instead of coming for me, he picked vulnerable women to go after and terrorize. The first two women were lucky. Even though they were drunk, they fought him off. They got away. One of them was in his quantitative reasoning class. The other his government course. The third victim didn’t fight because your son brought a knife to subdue her. He put that knife to her neck and scared her so much she lay there fearing for her life while your son tried to rape her. We’ll never know if he planned to kill her, because a jogger saw them and he ran away after the sexual assault. I wonder if she knew when she went back to school two weeks later that he was sitting in her international relations class with her. He made the fourth victim pay for all his failed attempts. Not only did he terrorize her with that knife, he did rape her, and beat her unconscious. He left her there, beaten, bloody, and scared out of her mind when she woke up. He did that on my twenty-first birthday.” She paused, letting them get the full impact of that. “That student dropped out of the semester. She didn’t have to sit in her ethics class, where he’d picked her to be his next victim because she looked like me.”
Cody turned to her. “Brooke, how do you know they were in his classes?”
“When the detective investigating my stalker told me the other victims were probably his victims because they looked like me, I started looking into them to see if I could figure out who was doing this. Women are more likely to be raped by a person they know. These women didn’t know each other. But Adam knew all of them. So once I knew Adam was the campus stalker, I figured these women had to be in his classes. After you brought me home, and while you were working in your office and assumed Iwas watching something on my laptop, I emailed a friend willing to break the rules and who works in the counseling office and asked her to get me all of their schedules. It was easy to connect the dots.”
