—Jenna
I reread it once. No tells. No emotion. No vulnerability she can exploit. Then I send it. The laptop hums softly as the message disappears into the ether. I lean back in the chair, fingers wrapped around my mug, and wait. I don't know what Marianne wants. I don't know what she knows. She and I have never had the kind of relationship you'd call friendly, but we'renot enemies either. She's just a fixture in my father's life. One he bangs on the side. Yes, I know about that, Daddy.At least he had the decency to wait until Mom died.I hope. I don't want to know.Five minutes later, my email dings.
I can meet you there at five.
Three hours. My pulse steadies instead of spikes. That's new. Fear has burned itself down to something more useful.
"Alright," I murmur to the empty room.
I take a deep breath. In through my nose. Out through my mouth. Slow enough to convince my body we're not running anymore, we're planning. Let's do it.
Three hours to sit here and wonder… or do some research.Come on, little girl, man up.I open the file folder on the laptop again, fingers moving with purpose now. No more spiraling. No more doom-scrolling. The thirty thousand dollars sits there like a bruise I can't stop pressing, but I force myself to zoom out instead of drilling deeper into it. Context first. Patterns. What surrounded that payment, not just financially, but geographically.
Travel logs.
I pull them up and start scrolling.
New York.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Some of the trips look clean on paper. Meetings with the governor. Fundraisers. Panels. Conferences with names so bland they could hide anything. Those don't surprise me. New York is where deals happen. But then there are the others. Friday toSunday. I can't find any official schedule. Any logged meetings. No entourage. Just… trips.
Pleasure trips, if the accounting language is to be believed. My stomach tightens. I've always known he went to New York more than necessary. It used to bother me in a vague, distant way, the kind of unease you file under ‘not my business.' I'd chalked it up to networking. To ego. To the kind of ambition that requires constant stroking.
Now, looking at the frequency, the timing, and the lack of documentation? It doesn't feel like politics. It feels personal. I scroll further, and my eyes catch on a familiar category: Consulting fee.
The amount isn't outrageous. Carefully chosen. Enough to be meaningful without being memorable, still, something bugs me about it. The check was made out to a Louise Keller.
The name means nothing to me. Which makes me pause, because now we've entered a time where I was very active in Daddy's campaigns and daily routine. I click. Nothing else is there. Only that one-time payment. Just like it had been for the Northstar Advisory Group.
My stomach tightens again, and I open a browser window and type her name. Too many results. Authors. Professors. Realtors. A jazz singer. Too many to individually check out. That's okay. I can narrow it.
Louise Keller Kingsley.
The screen refreshes. And there it is. My breath catches. The name opens a door I didn't know existed. I keep digging. Louise Keller. Stripper. Twenty-three at the time. Arrest record for public intoxication. A few modeling shots buried under a dozen tabloids that never bothered to spell her name right. A few social media tags, nothing big, until: The article is old. Buried deep. Two clicks from obscurity.
Senator Accused of Sexual Assault by Manhattan Dancer.
My vision narrows. She accused him of beating her. Of raping her. The press in New York had a field day. A senator. A stripper. The kind of story that practically writes itself. They quoted anonymous sources. Questioned her credibility. Dug into her past with surgical cruelty. Grain of salt, one headline read. Troubled woman seeks payout, another implied.
Two days later, Louise recanted. There is a teary-eyed one-minute clip of her from a TV network. She sniffs through most of it. I have to replay the tape a couple of times just to understand what she's mumbling. She looks drunk. Or high. She says she'd made it all up, she apologizes, mistaken identity. The senator visited her, and she realized her mistake. It wasn't him.
The apology statement is dated the day after the check was issued. I stare at the screen until my eyes burn. My stomach turns, sharp and immediate, like my body understands before my mind finishes catching up.
I didn't know. The thought lands, heavy and sickening.
I didn't know, and that feels impossible.
By then, I'd been married to Carter for over a year. Amauri was already born. I was working full-time, juggling motherhood, optics, and exhaustion. I'd wanted to stay home with my son—we could afford it—but Daddy and Carter had insisted I work.
"It looks better," they'd said. Like motherhood was a campaign accessory.
Which means I should have known about Louise. Yes, I was exhausted at the time, taking care of an infant and a man in a wheelchair takes its toll, but I did have help. I got enough rest so that I don't get to say those years were spent in a fugue state.
