Secrets Don't Sink, page 30
My chest heaved with a shuddering breath. “So, this is my fault.”
“Nope, it’s not. Your sister came here of her own volition. You tried to warn her. You couldn’t know she’d let Kimball listen to the voicemail.”
He squeezed my shoulders, and his warm breath brushed my ear, both comforting and unnerving at the same time.
“What happened after that?” A tear slid down my cheek.
“Apparently, Kimball spiked her drink. She must’ve figured she could explain it all to Viv once they were out at sea, call it a spontaneous romantic getaway or something. I’m not sure she thought it all the way through. When I told her you wouldn’t stop until you located your sister, she said she’d already dropped both of their phones in the water so we couldn’t track them. Eventually, they would’ve had to stop somewhere, though, and Viv would’ve found a way to reach out to you.”
Starting to feel lightheaded, my legs buckled. Holden caught me and lifted me onto the bed.
“Do you think she would’ve killed her?”
Holden grimaced in response. It wasn’t reassuring.
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. She was desperate, but I believe she’s in love with her. When I said I didn’t care what she did, but she wasn’t taking Viv with her, she said leaving her behind was unimaginable. That’s when I made my move toward the bedroom. Lacey jumped on my back, and we wrestled. I grabbed a tall wooden saltshaker off the table and whacked her in the head. She nailed me with something from behind. I think I blacked out.”
“My guess is it was that lamp over there.” I indicated the ceramic shards. “You couldn’t have been unconscious long, though, because you were standing over me pretty soon after I knocked her into the water.”
“I heard the scuffle. I should’ve known you could take care of yourself, even with your boot. I’m pretty damn proud of you, not just for figuring out this whole thing and stopping Kimball, but the way you were able to overcome your deepest fear to make it happen.”
I stared into his tender, crinkled eyes. He came closer. My breath became ragged in anticipation of his lips meeting mine.
“Hello? Everyone okay?” Darren called from the living room.
Holden sighed and pulled away from me. “Back here.”
I responded to Holden’s eye roll with a wry smile. “Be nice to him. He’s family.”
We both groaned and laughed.
“Is she okay?” Darren stood in the doorway. His forehead was creased with concern.
Holden nodded. “She will be. Kimball gave her something to knock her out, but she’s breathing okay. Speaking of, how is Lacey?”
“She’s stable. When she went in, she got tangled in a fender line. She wasn’t too deep, and we were able to revive her. She had water in her lungs but was able to cough it out after we rolled her onto her side. The gash on her head was bleeding profusely. Head wounds tend to do that.”
“Karma’s a bitch.”
Both men looked at me.
“What, you don’t see the great Karmic comeuppance in that she nearly suffered the exact fate she inflicted on Marcus?”
I had no empathy for Kimball at that point, not even in my reserve tank.
“Yeah, I guess she got what she had coming to her.” Holden rubbed the back of his neck.
Darren–Mr. Straight-and-Narrow, Mr. Law-and-Order–looked uncomfortable. He shrugged his shoulders and nodded reluctantly. “I’m not a fan of revenge, but I can live with the universe bringing justice to deserving parties. With regard to a person getting what they deserve, Mr. Villalobos, we will need to have a conversation regarding your involvement.”
“I’m prepared to face the consequences.”
My heart sank imagining what lay ahead for Holden, who’d admitted to having done some pretty sketchy stuff.
“Darren, you can vouch for him! He’s been helping us. He can testify as a cooperating witness.”
“I’ll do what I can. There are extenuating circumstances, and your testimony regarding Kimball, Whelan, and my Uncle Peter will go a long way toward convincing the U.S. Attorney overseeing the case some leniency is warranted, but you’ve committed some pretty serious crimes.”
Vivienne began to stir. I didn’t bother wiping away the tear of relief which fell down my cheek. I brushed platinum silken curls from my sister’s forehead.
“Wh- Audrey, what are you doing here? Where’s Lacey?” She squinted at her surroundings.
“Kimball…Lacey…she isn’t the woman you, we, any of us thought she was. She’s a dirty cop. Really dirty. She killed Marcus.”
Vivienne pushed me to get off the bed.
“No, that’s not true. She’s been helping us.”
“What do you mean, she’s been helping us?” Darren asked, his eyes wide.
Vivienne, still woozy from whatever cocktail Kimball had given her, leaned against the edge of the bed.
“We’ve had several conversations over the past couple weeks brainstorming about what happened to Marcus. I told her everything Audrey’s discovered. She said she suspected Darren killed Peter on purpose, not on accident, and I should be careful about what I say in front of him. For good reason, right, Audrey?” She looked to me for confirmation. “Darren is Peter’s nephew, and he lied to you. He’s the one behind all this. He has to be!” Tears filled her eyes.
Darren muttered, “That explains why she’s been a half step ahead this whole time.”
I glared at him for his insensitivity, and he had the temerity to look affronted. Placing my hand over Vivienne’s, my voice was firm but compassionate.
“No, Viv. Darren’s with the FBI. He’s been investigating organized crime in Chattertowne, including his uncle’s involvement. Everything Holden said earlier–the smuggling, Whelan, the blackmail—Lacey was the go-between, and she was Peter’s mole at City Hall. She’s been following in her dad’s footsteps, Police Chief Andy Kimball, and his cousin Mayor King, who we think are still operating the local syndicate of the Whelan Crime Family. We’d assumed Chief Andy was a King, but he was a Kimball. When I found out, I knew you were in trouble.”
“I told her you thought the Kings might’ve been involved in Jimmy’s death and David Washburn’s disappearance. She said you were way off base.” Vivienne buried her face in her hands.
“That must have spooked her, knowing how close Audrey really was to the truth,” Holden said.
“She also told me she thought Renee wasn’t kidnapped. She was on the run because she was involved with Marcus’s death, and it was nothing more than a domestic dispute.”
“Speaking of, guess who I saw tonight, alive and well in a hotel room in Kirkland?” I said.
Viv removed her hands to look at me. “Renee?”
“Oh yes, Renee, but she wasn’t even the most shocking appearance. David was there.”
“David Washburn’s alive? Where’s he been all this time?” she asked.
“Canada,” I said. “Anyway, he’s the one who keyed us into the fact Andy’s last name is Kimball. I guess Lacey got nervous after hearing the voicemail I left for you. If you told her about Holden’s confession of involvement with Whelan and Darren’s newly-discovered connection to the Chattertons, she must’ve felt the walls were closing in.”
“Cornered.” Holden nodded.
We exchanged knowing glances.
“I remember her pouring me a shot of whiskey, then everything gets a little hazy….” The truth of what happened dawned across Vivienne’s heartbroken face.
“She laced your drink. No pun intended.”
Holden chuckled at his own lame joke, and I swatted at him.
“She was getting ready to leave the marina,” I said. “She’d already untied one of the lines when Holden arrived. If we hadn’t gotten here when we did, you two could be well on your way to Mexico or Canada by now.”
I didn’t want to think about the idea that any resistance from Viv once she’d regained consciousness could have put her in grave danger.
“Holden, you stopped her?” Viv asked.
“I wish I could take the credit. All I did was stall her long enough for your sister to take her down like a ninja.”
“Less like a ninja, more like Maxwell Smart,” I laughed.
Viv managed a sad smile in recognition of the bumbling secret agent from nineteen-sixties TV.
Holden threw his hands in the air. “For the love of all things holy, would you two please bring your pop culture references into this millennium!”
“So, what…what happened to Lacey? Is she okay?” Vivienne looked conflicted and ashamed to still care for her attempted kidnapper.
“She went into the river. They were able to pull her out and resuscitate her. She’s been taken to the hospital with an FBI escort.” Darren relayed the information as if he were giving a traffic report.
His demeanor made a lot more sense since his identity as an FBI agent had been revealed. All those frustrating encounters I’d taken personally where he’d seemed stand-offish and sometimes a little harsh were merely the result of his training and agenda.
Viv glared at Darren. “I want to see her tomorrow. Can you make that happen? I think you owe me that.” Her eyes were bloodshot, and her lip trembled, but her jaw was set firm.
He nodded. “I’ll do my best.”
After the medic examined Viv and gave the all-clear, Darren accompanied the three of us to Holden’s car. He promised to keep us apprised of any developments. Another agent would be assigned to interview each of us individually. He gave Holden a regretful smile, an indication his interview would not be pleasant.
I fluffed Viv’s pillows, cocooned her with the comforter, and kissed her on the forehead.
The drab, whitish room in our boring, basic apartment had become a haven from a scary, chaotic world. The notoriously unreliable furnace provided warmth in contrast to the frigid winds which howled outside, and the dowdy vertical drapes acted like metaphorical insulation from people with bad intentions. Compared to the jagged wood shards I’d crawled across earlier, the coarse Berber carpet felt like a soft mink pelt on my feet, although it still smelled like rodent.
As my sister drifted off to sleep, tears of relief and sorrow flooded my eyes. I’d cried more in the past three weeks than I had in the previous three years. I was grateful Viv was safe but devastated her heart had been broken.
I texted my mother that we needed to plan a lunch date so I could update her with everything I’d learned about our family history. She responded that she would love that.
I returned to the living room to find Holden standing near the sofa. He motioned me closer and wrapped his arms around me. I reveled in his warmth and inhaled his spiced skin. Tension seeped from my body like a leaky tire. After several minutes, he broke our embrace. He nestled me under a blanket on Viv’s sugar-daddy sofa and kissed my forehead.
With his hand resting on the doorknob, he turned to look at me. His gaze intensified. His broad shoulders rose and fell with each breath. His beautiful mouth hung, weighted with sadness. Slow blinks became more rapid until his lashes fluttered like the wings of a hummingbird. He jerked his head to look away.
Then he was gone.
Sitting by myself in the quiet room, my internal cacophony of fear, doubt, insecurity, self-judgment, and second-guessing swelled like a tidal wave, deluging my mind and heart. I’d spent my life avoiding those moments by filling noiseless spaces with music, TV, work, and friends. Social media had become a great and terrible mechanism to avoid having to confront my inner monologue.
Long-submerged thoughts and feelings floated to the surface where they could no longer be ignored. I grabbed a notebook and pen from the coffee table and began to write.
Eventually, we must stop blaming and forgive those who came before us for passing down their inadequacies and insecurities to us. Only then can we take responsibility for our own stuff while learning to love and forgive ourselves.
Eventually, we must look ourselves in the mirror and decide what to do with our thoughts, figure out how we feel about ourselves, our lives, the choices we make, the relationships we form, and the relationships we abandon.
Eventually, we must either choose to fight for a new way of living and thinking or surrender to dysfunctional legacies as our preordained destiny.
I refuse to accept I’m destined to follow in the footsteps of Aunt Fanny, who used and discarded men in order to feel desirable and worthy, was embarrassed by her heritage, and too prideful to be called grandmother.
I will not live like Nettie, who seemed to have accepted living in secret shame rather than as a legitimate wife because she fell in love with a coward and wanted at all costs to protect a man who was unwilling to do the same for her.
I have no right to judge them. They did the best they could with the circumstances they faced and the tools they possessed.
That doesn’t mean I have to become them.
When navigating seas, the calmest waters are often in the center of the wake created by the ships which have already sailed through the channel. Leaving that path can be daunting. It requires forging through rough ripples and swells to get out onto the open sea.
However, of one thing, I’m certain. If I never escape their wake, if I stay on their course, I’ll end up at their destination, not mine.
I want to set my own course. I must set my own course.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chattertowne Coastal Current
Kupit Special Edition
By Audrey O’Connell
Welcome Spring!
In two weeks, Chattertowne will celebrate the annual Kupit Festival. When first given this assignment, my intention was to honor tradition while also bringing a fresh perspective on Kupit, on Chattertowne, and on all the people who’ve called this place home.
What I found was quite surprising.
Beneath the surface of our idyllic community were long-submerged stories anchored in shame, pride, fear, greed, and prejudice.
They say a family’s as sick as its secrets. The citizens of Chattertowne are family, and the truth is, we’ve been fighting these secret cancers since our town’s inception. We’ve propagated a charade of unblemished heroes while exercising purposeful ignorance of our whitewashed history.
I was warned against dredging secrets and casting our town or its founders in an unfavorable light as if my intentions in seeking truth were to destroy our legacy in the process.
I love this place and my childhood memories of Kupit. My identity was molded on these streets, in Chattertowne’s parks, within its schools, by its leaders, teachers, and coaches. The person I am, because I was raised here, can never be satisfied with less than an authentic account.
We all claim to love Chattertowne, but can we be genuine in our love for it without knowing and accepting its entirety…the good, the bad, and the ugly?
We’ve never appropriately honored the People who called this valley home prior to Jonathan staking his claim a hundred and fifty years ago. One tepid effort to rename Chattertowne was fueled by hatred of the Chatterton family, not a sincere desire to pay respect to the Coast Salish.
How many residents even know about the woman for whom the Jeannetta River was named? I’d never given it a second thought and was stunned to discover it was in tribute to a Flathead woman called Nettie, who Jonathan Chatterton was too ashamed to publicly declare his wife, despite a spiritual and physical union resulting in a son. Had he possessed the courage to assign her rightful place by his side and the respect she deserved, her story would have been known.
Over the next two weeks, in a series of feature articles, I’ll be sharing the history of this valley, its people, its heroes, its villains, and its unsung contributors, along with Nettie’s story and a more complete version of Jonathan’s. The truth is, he was both a brave man and a coward. It’s okay for us to be honest because that makes him human, not legendary.
It’s well past time to take a candid look in the mirror and decide what legacy we want to leave, one of unvarnished truth or one crafted and molded from cherry-picked facts. I posit the greater is the one which values honest appraisals of history and spurns false narratives designed to highlight certain aspects while ignoring others.
Recent developments leading to the arrest of former Mayor Harold King, former Chief of Police Andy Kimball, Assistant Police Chief Lacey Kimball, and others have exposed an underbelly of corruption and affiliation with organized crime. Assistant Chief Kimball has agreed to plead guilty in the death of Marcus Washburn, which she claims was committed under the duress and direction of her father and his cousin. The weapon, reportedly lying at the bottom of the Jeannetta River, has yet to be located. In exchange for a reduced charge, Kimball has chosen to testify against her father and others involved in the conspiracy. (Full disclosure: my sister Vivienne has chosen to remain in a relationship with Lacey Kimball and plans to support her through her upcoming legal battle.)
Port Commissioner Armand DiLupo has been indicted under the RICO statute (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act). Councilwoman Margot Hennepin has been charged with fraud for using her notary business to legitimize altered cargo manifests and various legal documents.
Former City Manager Holden Villalobos has also agreed to a cooperation agreement in exchange for a reduced sentence on the guilty plea he entered last week for his part in the illegal operations at the Port of Chattertowne. His testimony is sure to bring other unpleasant revelations into the public purview.
I believe we are strong enough to confront our flaws as a community, and this cleansing, while painful, will lead to a brighter future for Chattertowne, one of which we can all be proud.
Delving below the surface of this town has been both unsettling and affirming for me. I feel more connected than ever before, more invested in its potential, and more cognizant of how our collective past has shaped us. Discovering my own family’s story has changed how I see myself in relation to Chattertowne and the people from whom this land was taken. My goal isn’t to undermine good feelings or nostalgia about our history but to give a comprehensive picture to celebrate the whole story and honor all the people who have contributed to making this place what it is today.
