WYNN
“Hey, Doc, long time no see,” Cedric says when I walk into the gym. He’s behind the front desk, and I usually stop and talk to him for a bit before I head in to work out.
“I’ve had someone to keep me busy,” I tell him and then feel Kate’s hand give mine a little squeeze.
“I can see that.” Cedric smiles politely at Kate. “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Doc.”
“It’s not—” Kate starts to correct him, but I don’t give her a chance to.
“We’re running a little late. Gotta talk to Maverick in his office,” I say and keep walking toward the back.
“We’ll catch up later,” Cedric says and gives me a sly wink before I’m out of sight.
“Are you sure this is safe?” Kate is having to walk fast to keep up with my steps, but I’ve been on edge since we left the house.
“I won’t let anything happen to you,” I tell her, and she smiles up at me.
“I know that. I trust you.”
I pull her to my side as we walk into the office, and as soon as Kate steps in, she squeaks with surprise.
“Juliet, you came,” Kate says to the other woman as they embrace in a quick hug.
“Where else would I be?” Juliet tells Kate. She smiles at me over Kate’s shoulder before her husband Maverick shakes my hand.
“Thanks for meeting me,” I tell him, and he nods.
“Why don’t we go over the plan,” Juliet says to all of us as we take a seat around a small table. “I appreciate you letting me know what was going on. I’ve been worried about Kate since you agreed to keep her safe.”
The other night when I couldn’t sleep, I’d sent a message to Juliet and let her know what I was thinking of doing. How I planned to end this.
“Are you sure doing this publicly is a good idea?” Maverick asks me the question, but he’s looking at Juliet and Kate as well.
“He won’t stop coming after her,” I tell him and cover Kate’s hand with mine. “Her father has made a public show of reporting her missing and claiming that she’s mentally unstable. In order for Kate to be free of him, we need to be just as public.”
“Are you sure you’re up for this?” Juliet has a true look of concern as she watches Kate carefully.
“Wynn is right,” Kate says. “And besides, I’ve done nothing wrong. He was the one who hurt me, and I’ve got pictures and documentation to prove it.”
“Can’t he just say it’s your word against his?” Maverick asks the same question Kate asked me when I first told her about my plan.
“He can,” I say. “But like I told Kate, the shame of what happened to her is in the secrecy of it. If we bring it to the light, then it doesn’t hold power over her anymore. The public will know what Boris Walton has done to her, and the shame will become his. That, along with my evidence, will show his history of violence.”
“What kind of evidence do you have?” Juliet narrows her eyes on me. I didn’t tell her any of this over the phone as a precaution.
“When he was blackmailing me into treating Kate’s mother, I recorded all of my visits.” Juliet lets out a small gasp, but Kate nods for me to keep going. I take a few moments to tell them about my visits to Kate’s house and how he was abusing her mom. “Recording the examinations was a habit from medical school. It made charting easier, so I kept up the practice. Every time I went to their home, I would turn on my recording device and talk quietly to myself as I examined Mrs. Walton. If she thought it was weird she never mentioned it, but looking back, she had to know. It’s why she was so tight-lipped and never implicated Boris in her injuries.”
“If she never implicated him, then what good are the recordings?” Maverick asks the obvious question.
“On my last visit, I started the recording as soon as I got there. But when I found Mrs. Walton at the bottom of the stairs, things quickly changed, and I forgot all about it. It wasn’t until the other night when I was telling Kate about her mother not suffering that I remembered my final conversation with Boris.”
The room falls silent as I turn to Kate and she gives me a soft smile of encouragement. She’s been so brave since finding all this out last night, and I’m reminded again of how lucky I am that she’s mine.
“After I realized she was gone and there was nothing I could do, I called emergency services and waited for the coroner to come so I could give him my statement. As soon as I hung up, I confronted Boris about what happened.” I take a deep breath before telling them the rest. “Last night I pulled the recording, and we listened to it. On it you can hear me telling him that I knew he pushed her down the stairs and that I would testify against him. Then he said that there wasn’t a jury in the country that he couldn’t buy off. He’d done it before and he would do it again. He told me that if I didn’t keep my mouth shut, I might have trouble going down the stairs too.”
“Oh my god,” Juliet breathes as her eyes widen. “You have that on a recording?”
“I forgot that it was still on. It didn’t occur to me that I had evidence against him until last night and I was able to dig it out of my old lab coat. For whatever reason, that night when I got home, I took it off and tossed it in a bag in the back of my closet.” I shrug before looking directly at Kate. “I think I was so ashamed of being a doctor and not being able to save her that I couldn’t wear it again.”
