“So, I searched for your mother. There were nearly a hundred seventy payments wired to Miranda Collins before the same amounts started being transferred to an account in your name.”
Sam’s forehead creases, and she exhales deeply while hanging on every word.
“And there’re so many like this. I check the initials and names on the statements against the different folders and it all matches.”
“So, these women join for money?” Alex asks.
“I don’t think so. There are some of these names without payments. Like your mom. And Gracie’s mom. Even Christina’s.”
“The wives?” Kane interjects.
“So, what, they marry some and not the others?” Sam scratches her head.
“I think it’s deeper than that. I think them and any of the women without payments were girlfriends of some of the members. At least that’s true for Alex’s and Gracie’s moms. Their folders clearly state that they were in relationships with your father and Senator Martinez.”
“So they partied normally with their girlfriends, but did worse things to the girls they drugged?” Sam tilts her head, blowing out a heavy sigh.
I nod.
“It’s the only thing that makes sense. Your mom and Ms. Kane knew each other from school and this club before you met at Wyndmoor. And based on the audio and the article you and Gracie found,Ms. Kane clearly had some type of psychiatric break. What are the odds that two of their members end up in a mental institution?”
“Whatever they were doing to them triggered something and drove them insane,” she speculates. She shuffles in place, goose bumps pebbling on her legs against my forearm. “They were paying them off. Funding their lives to keep them from talking.”
“That’s what I’m thinking. The payments started when the club closed in 2005.”
“Before we were born,” Kane adds.
“Some received lump sums, others residuals. But they all signed NDAs. Including your mom, Alex. It’s all in the files, every detailed documented from the women joining and who they wereassignedto. The things they did to them. Even personal information, medical history, everything. They even paid for your moms’ mental health treatments,” I continue.
“So, they just pay these women for emotional damages as if it makes up for what they’ve done? For how long? The rest of their lives?”
“Unless they have children,” Alex deadpans.
“That would it explain the payments switching to me when my mom was readmitted,” Kane says.
“And why your mom’s payments were canceled and moved to an account in your name, Sam.”
“They did god knows what to these women and use this one account to pay them all?” she asks.
“That way no one can ever trace it back to them,” Kane utters.
“And my guess is my father has all of this for leverage,” Alex assumes.
“Or they all have copies. Everyone’s name is in there, right?” Sam stares between us, the question rhetorical. “Why would they give one person that kind of power?”
“Because there isn’t leverage,” I concur.
“This was some sick twisted game for them. They control everything. The women have been paid. Most probably want to forget what happened,” Sam says, sitting with the weight of that.
“If they remember,” Kane deadpans. “When I showed my mother that picture, she kept saying, ‘They can’t know we remember.’”
“And I bet your mothers aren’t the only women who’ve suffered some mental struggles after that.” Alex rakes a hand over his head.
“This is so fucked,” Sam groans out. “Those poor women.”
“You said this would help Sam get custody of her brother?” Kane asks.
“Yeah. She needs money, and according to this, she has it. Probably a lot of it at this point.”
