Chapter 5 - THE WOMAN ON THE NEWS
By breakfast, Jonathan’s failed wedding was national news.
Every major network had a version.
BILLIONAIRE ABANDONS PREGNANT BRIDE AT ALTAR.
CHILD INTERRUPTS HAYES WEDDING.
MYSTERY SURROUNDS FAMILY MELTDOWN.
Rebecca’s photograph appeared beside carefully chosen images of Jonathan looking furious as he left the chapel.
Nobody showed Emily crying.
Nobody showed the boarding-school paperwork.
Nobody played the recording.
Not yet.
Jonathan had refused to release it.
His daughter was not evidence for public consumption.
At 8:17 a.m., Rebecca appeared outside her mother’s Manhattan townhouse.
Reporters surrounded her.
She wore sunglasses.
No makeup.
A plain cream sweater.
She looked fragile.
Carefully fragile.
“I love Jonathan,” she told cameras.
“I love Emily.”
Jonathan watched from his kitchen.
Emily sat at the breakfast table eating exactly three bites of toast.
Margaret reached for the remote.
Jonathan stopped her.
Too late.
Rebecca continued.
“I understand that a grieving child can misunderstand adult conversations.”
Emily froze.
Jonathan turned off the television.
The silence that followed was immediate.
Emily looked at him.
“Did I misunderstand?”
“No.”
“But she said—”
“I heard the recording.”
Emily stared at her plate.
“What if people think I lied?”
Jonathan pulled out the chair beside her.
“I don’t.”
“Grandma doesn’t.”
Margaret immediately said, “Never.”
“But everybody else?”
Jonathan looked at his daughter.
He had spent his career caring too much about what everybody else thought.
Investors.
Boards.
Analysts.
Journalists.
People who would forget his name ten years after he died.
Meanwhile the opinion that should have mattered most had belonged to a child living upstairs.
“Everybody else doesn’t get a vote,” he said.
Emily looked at him.
“About whether you’re telling the truth.”
Her shoulders relaxed slightly.
Then Margaret’s phone rang.
She answered.
Her face changed.
“What?”
Jonathan stood.
His mother listened for another ten seconds.
Then hung up.
“That was Agent Cooper.”
“David?”
“They found him.”
“Where?”
“A hospital in Stamford.”
Jonathan grabbed his jacket.
“Is he alive?”
“Yes.”
Emily immediately stood.
“Can I come?”
Jonathan stopped.
The automatic answer almost escaped him.
No.
Adults will handle it.
Stay here.
Then he remembered.
“You can come to the hospital,” he said. “But you’re not going into his room unless I know it’s safe and you want to.”
Emily nodded.
At Stamford Medical Center, Cooper met Jonathan outside the emergency department.
“Your brother has a concussion, two cracked ribs, and a broken wrist.”
“What happened?”
“He says he was attacked.”
“By whom?”
“He didn’t see.”
“Do you believe him?”
Cooper’s expression revealed nothing.
“We’re checking traffic cameras.”
Jonathan looked toward the hallway.
“Can I see him?”
“Yes.”
David looked twenty years older.
Purple bruising covered one side of his face.
His wrist was casted.
Jonathan stood near the door.
For several seconds, neither brother spoke.
David finally whispered:
“You came.”
“Don’t make that sentimental.”
David almost smiled.
Then winced.
“What happened?”
“Somebody knocked on the motel door.”
“Who?”
“I thought it was Cooper.”
“You opened it?”
“Yes.”
“Then?”
“Two men.”
“Did they say anything?”
“One thing.”
Jonathan waited.
David looked at him.
“They said I had confused guilt with courage.”
Jonathan’s jaw tightened.
“Rebecca?”
“I don’t know.”
“Caldwell?”
“Maybe.”
“Northstar?”
“Maybe.”
Jonathan moved closer.
“Why did you write ‘ask Rebecca why’?”
David looked confused.
“What?”
“On the motel mirror.”
“I didn’t.”
Jonathan stopped.
“You’re sure?”
“I never wrote anything.”
That meant whoever attacked David wanted Jonathan to see those words.
Wanted suspicion pointed toward Rebecca.
Or wanted him to think Rebecca was being framed.
Cooper had been right.
This was larger than a family betrayal.
David glanced toward the door.
“Is Emily here?”
“In the waiting room.”
His face crumpled.
“Does she know?”
“She knows you’re hurt.”
“Not what I did?”
“She knows enough.”
David stared at the ceiling.
“I used to take her for pancakes.”
Jonathan remembered.
Saturday mornings after Sarah died.
David would arrive at seven.
Emily would come downstairs in pajamas.
For a while, David had been exactly the uncle she needed.
Then money had turned him into somebody else.
Or revealed somebody already there.
“I’m going to testify,” David said.
Jonathan looked at him.
“To everything.”
“That doesn’t undo it.”
“I know.”
“You may go to prison.”
“I know.”
“And the company is done with you.”
David nodded.
“I know.”
Jonathan studied his brother.
Then asked:
“Is the baby yours?”
David closed his eyes.
“I don’t know.”
“Rebecca said you realized who the father is.”
“She’s playing with you.”
“Did you sleep with her during the likely conception window?”
“Yes.”
“Did I?”
David opened his eyes.
“That’s between you and her.”
“No.”
Jonathan’s voice hardened.
“She used that baby to convince Emily she was being replaced.”
He leaned closer.
“So now it’s between all of us.”
David looked away.
“Yes.”
The likely dates overlapped.
Jonathan had been with Rebecca.
David had been with Rebecca.
Either could be the father.
Jonathan felt disgusted.
Mostly with himself.
He had almost married someone he knew less well than he knew half his board members.
A nurse opened the door.
“Mr. Hayes?”
Jonathan turned.
“There’s a little girl asking if she can give the patient something.”
David’s eyes filled.
Jonathan stepped outside.
Emily stood beside Margaret holding a folded piece of paper.
“You don’t have to see him,” Jonathan said.
“I know.”
“Are you sure?”
She nodded.
Jonathan walked her inside.
David started crying when he saw her.
Emily remained near the foot of the bed.
“Hi, Uncle David.”
“Hi, Em.”
She held out the paper.
He took it awkwardly with his good hand.
It was a drawing.
Four stick figures.
Emily.
Jonathan.
Margaret.
David.
But David had been drawn far away from the others.
David stared at it.
Emily said quietly:
“I’m still mad at you.”
“I know.”
“You helped Rebecca.”
“I did.”
“You knew I didn’t want to go away.”
David looked at her.
“Yes.”
That answer hurt him to say.
Emily’s lip trembled.
“Why didn’t you tell Dad?”
David’s face collapsed.
“Because I cared more about saving myself than protecting you.”
Jonathan watched his daughter absorb that.
Adults lied to children constantly because they believed the truth was too ugly.
Sometimes the truth was the only thing that gave a child solid ground.
Emily nodded once.
“Okay.”
David stared.
“Okay?”
“That’s all I wanted to know.”
She turned.
Then stopped.
“Uncle David?”
“Yes?”
“If you’re sorry, you have to help fix it.”
David covered his eyes.
“I will.”
When they returned home, three satellite trucks waited outside the gates.
Rebecca had given another interview.
This time her attorney stood beside her.
They had filed a petition.
Rebecca wanted access to the estate.
Financial support for the pregnancy.
And a formal paternity declaration.
Jonathan’s attorney, Amanda Collins, read the filing in his study.
“She’s forcing DNA testing.”
“Good.”
Amanda looked up.
“You’re not concerned?”
“I want the truth.”
“There’s more.”
She turned the page.
“Rebecca is also claiming you are emotionally unstable and that Emily’s accusations were encouraged by your mother.”
Jonathan laughed.
“Of course.”
“She wants the recordings excluded from any civil proceeding.”
“Can she do that?”
“She can try.”
Amanda’s eyes narrowed.
“But that isn’t what worries me.”
She placed another document on the desk.
“What is that?”
“A letter from Briarwood Academy.”
Jonathan recognized the crest.
“They contacted us this morning.”
“Why?”
“Because somebody called them yesterday and tried to accelerate Emily’s enrollment.”
Jonathan stared.
“After the wedding was canceled?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“They refused over the phone but saved the voicemail.”
Amanda pressed play.
Mark Caldwell’s voice filled the room.
“We need Emily Hayes physically present on campus before Monday morning. Her father’s consent is already on file.”
Jonathan looked at the calendar.
Monday.
Two days away.
Amanda continued.
“And there’s something else.”
“What?”
“The trust transfer doesn’t require six months before David can act in every circumstance.”
Jonathan felt dread return.
“Explain.”
“If Emily is physically delivered into institutional residence under your signed delegation, David can assume limited administrative authority immediately.”
“For what?”
Amanda looked at him.
“Enough to execute the Northstar collateral package.”
Jonathan’s jaw tightened.
“Then we stop it.”
“We are.”
“No.”
He stood.
“We end it.”
Amanda stared at him.
“How?”
Jonathan looked toward the upstairs hallway where Emily was laughing softly with Margaret for the first time all day.
“By making sure every person involved understands one thing.”
“What?”
May you like
Jonathan picked up the original boarding-school envelope.
“My daughter is not going anywhere.”
