Payback, page 22
I glance to Caleb, finding his brows furrowed. It’s unsettling hearing Grayson refer to Dr. O as David, as a family friend, even now.
“He was very opinionated when it came to my dad’s career,” Grayson continues. “I think because he’d donated so much money, he thought he could have a say when it came to his politics.”
“How so?” asks Sam.
“He wanted Matthew to vote certain ways. In the best interests of the city,” Susan quotes with a growl in her voice. “Of course that meant protecting his precious Wednesday Pharmaceuticals.”
I remember what Dylan said during the Wolves party—that Dr. O had that company only because he’d blackmailed the previous majority shareholder to disappear.
“Of course it comes down to money,” Charlotte says.
“How do you think Vale Hall is funded?” Susan asks. “Our father despised him. He left David nothing. When my brother said he wanted to start a school, I gave him the estate. I thought it might clear some of the resentment he held toward me from our childhood.” She sighs, and I’m thrown back into Dr. O’s office, when he told me about how his father abandoned his mother, then walked her into suicide.
“I thought it did for a while,” Susan says, “but I was naive about many things.”
From the kitchen comes the shrill whistle of a teapot.
Susan stands, using her crutch to cross the room. She turns off the stove as the kettle quiets, and removes a series of mugs from one of the shelves.
Grayson’s fingers begin to drum on his knees. “My dad did what David wanted at first—I think he figured he owed him for all the campaign donations—but once he became a senator, all that stopped. He couldn’t do it anymore. He told my sister and I we weren’t allowed to talk to David—they’d had some kind of fight. He thought David might try to contact me, get me to guilt my dad into getting back in line. My dad…” Grayson rakes his hair forward. “You don’t know him. Not really. He’s a good person. He’d never hurt anyone. Bending his values to make David rich … it just wasn’t something he could do.”
I try to wrap my mind around this new version of the senator, but it’s like sticking a round peg into a square hole.
Still, I remember that moment in the stairway outside Matthew’s campaign office last summer. He’d been so desperate to find Grayson. I’d almost believed he was really scared for his son’s welfare.
Maybe he really was.
Susan loads the steaming mugs onto a tray, but carrying them proves difficult with her crutch. Grayson pops up before she can ask for help and brings it over to the coffee table for her.
“I knew my brother was upset,” she says, motioning for us to take the tea she’s made. “I didn’t think he would really hurt anyone. He was always righteous with his causes. Even with Wednesday, it was all for the purpose of feeding the school, raising savvy young people to fight corruption. We wanted this city to be cleaner, better. He saw Sikawa as a family, and its leaders as parents. He didn’t want anyone like our father in control.” She takes a mug for herself, scowling as she blows away the steam. “When Matthew refused to comply with his wishes, he became, to David, a man just like our father. A neglectful hypocrite. An obstacle to justice.”
Grayson has collapsed back into his seat, and he laughs dryly, though he looks slightly ill. “David doesn’t like hearing the word no.”
I once thought the same of Grayson.
Now, as I look at him, I’m not sure I know him at all.
Susan grasps the mug, but doesn’t sip her tea. “After their falling-out, David and I grew apart. He assumed I was the enemy, just like everyone else in his life. We talked little in those days. I distanced myself from the school, hoping it would protect the students. Then Margot Patel showed up at my art studio.”
I glance back to the bed to Margot—Caleb’s once girlfriend, Geri’s once best friend, the con who’d occupied my room before me. She lost everything thanks to Dr. O, just like Susan, and even as I’m worried about what she’s done, I’m sick at the sight of her lying still in that bed.
“She was sent by a friend, someone I trusted.” Susan’s brows pinch together, then relax with a forced blink. “She was a mess—with good reason. She told me that she’d been assigned to gather critical information on Matthew Sterling from a young intern working in his campaign office.” At this, Susan glances back to where Margot is laid out on the bed, her limp hand in Geri’s grasp.
“Jimmy Balder,” I say, thinking of the intern I was sent to dig up information on in Sterling’s campaign office. I watch Susan carefully, curious about this trusted friend. Who else knew about what Margot had done? Did they have to run from Dr. O as well?
Susan nods. “She’d fallen in love with him while they were working in Matthew’s campaign office together—the job my brother had sent her to do to earn her place at Vale Hall—and in the process she broke the school’s cardinal rule of secrecy. Jimmy knew who Margot really was, and that she had been assigned to gather blackmail information on Matthew. David, unfortunately, had already figured this out.”
“Because I told him what she’d done.” Caleb’s voice is empty, his hands clenched into fists. “I didn’t think he’d … I didn’t think.”
Because Dr. O had put him in an impossible position—spying on his own girlfriend. Losing his continued enrollment at the school, and his father’s health care, if he didn’t tell the director the truth. It hadn’t mattered if he’d wanted to cover for Margot, the cost was too high for his family.
In the end, he was forced out of Vale Hall anyway. Because of me.
I shudder, remembering that conversation with Dr. O after the fight between Caleb and Grayson in the pit. I’d been trying to protect them both. Dr. O had promised he’d take care of Caleb.
I should have known he’d play us against each other.
I won’t make that mistake again.
Susan’s stare warps with pity. “It’s not your fault. My brother will always be the desperate boy he was after his mother died. He will do anything to protect himself. To survive.” She leans closer and pats Caleb’s knee. “This wasn’t about you. It wasn’t about Margot either. It was always only about David.”
I know this, but to hear someone else—his own sister—say it warms the cold hollows inside me.
I take Caleb’s unburned fist and pull it over my thigh. His fingers stretch open, warmth pooling beneath his touch as he lets out a tight sigh.
Susan sets down her mug. “I tried to reason with David, but he was impossible to deter. He attacked me. He threatened to kill me, and Margot, and the boy she’d worked with.” With a scowl, Susan clears her throat. “I didn’t know where to go. David was watching me—his wolf, Min Belk, was on my heels all the time. I couldn’t go to the police, David had already told me what would happen if I did that. I knew I had to warn Matthew so that he could protect his intern, but I couldn’t get near his house, so I offered up a painting I’d done to one of his upcoming fundraising auctions at a gallery in Uptown—something for homeless children, I think.”
Family First. I see the campaign banner hanging in Matthew’s office, as clearly as I did my first day on the job.
My head is pounding as I absorb what she’s telling me. The threats. The attack. Mark Stitz—the internship supervisor at Sterling’s office—told me that he’d seen Susan and Matthew talking to Jimmy the night of a fundraiser. He’d overheard them offer him money to get out of town—a bribe I later learned was for Jimmy’s protection.
Silence has stunned our group. No one knows what to say. Henry’s biting his thumbnail. Charlotte and Sam are staring at Susan. Geri, listening from the bed, looks grim.
“I didn’t know Margot,” Grayson says. “I didn’t know any of this was happening. But I trusted David, even though my dad had said to keep my distance. When he came to me and said my dad was having an affair with Susan, I believed him.”
His eyes lower to the floor.
Susan gives a bitter laugh. “Another lie. Matthew was a friend, nothing more.”
“My dad and I were close,” Grayson says. “We did everything together. He loved my mom. They were always … I don’t know, on the same page. They got each other. I wanted to be like them.”
“That’s sweet,” says Henry.
Grayson’s scowl deflects the compliment. “David got in my head. He said they’d been caught together at some bed-and-breakfast outside the city. There was proof—the hotel in Susan’s name, paid for by Matthew’s credit card and signed by him.” Grayson laughs dryly. “I checked, of course.”
Beside him, Henry frowns. His heel taps against the floor, and I feel his tension spike across the couch to me.
I remember a story on Pop Store about that—I saw it when I first started researching for my assignment to befriend Grayson, and learn what I could about his family. Anything was fair game. Potential blackmail to feed to Dr. O.
“It was a story for the news—Matthew may have gone to that B and B, but it certainly wasn’t with me,” Susan says. “I couldn’t get anywhere close to Matthew without Min Belk knowing.”
She pulls at her necklace again, and I can’t help wondering where Moore was in all of this. Did he follow her as well? I can’t see him co-signing any efforts to attack a woman.
I wish he were here with us now.
“I believed him,” Grayson says, defeated. “He asked me to call him if I ever saw Susan with my dad, and I did—the night of that fundraiser. I saw them leaving together. I didn’t know David had threatened to kill Susan or the rest of them. I just thought he was going to confront them.” He sends a bitter stare Caleb’s way. “Bet you don’t feel too bad about what you did now, do you?”
Caleb’s gaze turns to pity, then understanding.
“You didn’t know,” he says.
Henry, his cheeks now blotchy and pink, touches Grayson’s shoulder. The small gesture makes Grayson shudder, then warily, tentatively, lean into him.
“David showed up at the fundraiser.” Grayson stares at the floor, as if holding it down with his gaze alone.
“Gray,” Susan says softly. “You don’t—”
Grayson shakes his head. When he continues, his voice is thin enough to snap. “I went to his car, and told him that Susan and my dad had gone to the campaign office. It was just a few blocks away.”
A tear trickles down Grayson’s cheek, and I feel my own throat swell as I picture the dark city streets. Part of me still wants to question the truth in this story, but I can see it. Grayson’s struggle to understand what his father was doing. The way Dr. O must have clouded his judgement and filled him with doubt. Grayson had needed someone to trust, and Dr. O had filled that gap, just as he’d done with me when I’d come to Vale Hall.
“I shouldn’t have followed him. I wanted to see it, I guess. I wanted him to call her out for sleeping with my dad. I thought if I did, maybe I’d have the courage to call my dad out too.”
Tears are streaming freely from his eyes now, and he swipes at them with the back of his hand. Henry moves closer, so that they’re sitting thigh to thigh. His arm wraps around Grayson’s shoulders.
“Susan didn’t see either of us when she came out of the building. She got in her car, and David followed, and I followed him, all the way to Route Thirty-nine. It’s so dark out there at night. There weren’t any other cars on the road. I started getting sick about the whole thing—I thought he was going to talk to her, but they just kept driving. I tried calling him, but he didn’t answer. He just kept going faster, and faster, until she started swerving to get away from him.” Grayson blows out a quaking breath. “They came around the turn, and he hit the side of her car. She went straight into a tree.”
The story I’ve been over so many times in my head shatters, and pieces back together in a different way. It brings a throbbing between my temples.
Grayson wasn’t driving the car.
Dr. O ran his own sister off the road.
Beside me, Grayson is barely holding it together.
“I pulled over behind him, I guess. Everything kind of jumbled together after that. The next thing I know, I’m outside Susan’s busted-up car, yelling at David to tell me why he did that. He told me that sometimes you have to do terrible things to do great things. He said if I ever talked, my dad and mom and sister were next.” Grayson closes his eyes. “He thanked me for calling him.”
I think of all the anger and shame I’ve seen reflected in Grayson’s gaze since I’ve met him. He’s blamed himself for this. Even when he told Henry and me that Dr. O ordered him to do it, he blamed himself.
My hate for Dr. O is potent, and cold as ice.
Grayson shifts. “He started to leave. I said we needed to help her … she might still be alive. He told me to go check. As soon as I did, he took off. I didn’t realize then that he expected me to take the fall.”
“Of course he did,” mutters Charlotte.
“I didn’t know if she was alive,” Grayson continues, faster now. “She wasn’t moving. I couldn’t tell if she was breathing. I didn’t know what to do. I was too scared David would kill my family if I called the police.” His body clenches in a sob, and he hides his face behind his hands. “I thought he was already on the way to my house to hurt them.”
“Okay,” says Susan. “That’s enough. We don’t have to—”
But Grayson barrels on.
“This phone started ringing—Susan’s phone. It was on the floor by her feet. I grabbed it, and saw my dad’s name on the screen.”
“He was calling to make sure I’d gotten home all right,” says Susan weakly. “He’d known Min Belk was following me.”
“He asked where Susan was, and what had happened, and I panicked,” says Grayson. “I told him she’d been in an accident. That it was my fault. I knew about the affair, and couldn’t stand what he’d done to my mom, and I’d tried to scare Susan and run her off the road. He told me not to go anywhere. He’d be right there. When he showed up, Susan was starting to come around. We pulled Susan out of the car. Her leg … was broken.”
The way he says it makes it seem like it was not a clean break. I glance to the crutch, now leaning against the side of the couch.
“I told him I’d made a stupid mistake. I didn’t want to go to prison,” Grayson says. “I begged him to call his contacts in the police and cover it up—make it look like a hit-and-run.”
“You were trying to save his life,” I say, my voice raw.
Grayson’s red, swollen eyes turn my way, and the breath locks in my throat. “A doctor my dad knows fixed Susan up as best he could outside the hospital, and my dad agreed to move her to the cabin, all to protect me from the fallout.”
“Your dad knew I was in danger,” Susan says to Grayson. “It made sense for me to disappear.”
The word strikes me like an out of tune key on a piano. Does everyone Dr. O come in contact with disappear?
“Let me get this straight,” says Sam. “You all faked her death to protect her from Dr. O?”
Grayson nods. Henry hugs him tighter.
Sam blows out a stiff breath.
“And your dad still went to prison?” I ask. “Doesn’t he know the truth? This happened two years ago!”
Susan’s face turns grave.
“He still thinks I did it,” says Grayson, the shame making him look years older than eighteen. “The only piece of evidence that Susan wasn’t alone that night were my fingerprints on her phone. I gave it to you to give to David, remember?”
I nod, remembering too well the phone in the plastic bag, hidden in the old tree at the site of the crash.
“I thought if I gave him that, he’d let my family off the hook. He had enough to pin me for her death. I hoped that was enough.”
“You gave up?” I ask. I can’t believe this. Susan’s alive. She can testify that Dr. O tried to kill her—that she’s been in hiding for two years because of him. She could have gone to the press. Ended this.
“Yeah, I gave up,” Grayson says, his voice sharp and familiar now. “He sent you after me, remember? You came into my house to spy on me. You talked to my sister and dad. You don’t think that was a threat?”
I slouch into the sofa, realizing how this must look from his side. There were times I felt bad for conning Grayson, but I never thought of myself as a threat to him.
Now that I know what Dr. O’s capable of, I see how I must have looked.
“But you took the phone back,” I say. “You got Henry to plant it on your dad. Why would you do that?”
Henry’s arm slides off Grayson’s back. Again, all eyes turn to the senator’s son.
“Because my dad’s detectives had gotten another warrant to come back to search Vale Hall. You remember when they came the first time? They were there for me. My dad was convinced Dr. O was holding me there against my will.”
“And he was right.” A wave of unsteadiness crashes through me as I finally realize the angle I was sure Grayson was hiding behind.
He’s been blackmailed, and the life-or-death game he’s played has gone on for two years.
“Of course he was right,” Grayson says. “You think I chose to live with him after what he did? What he made me do? My dad thinks I killed someone.” He shakes his head. “It was just a matter of time before his detectives figured out I was a prisoner there. If and when they found me, how was I supposed to explain what had happened? David made it one hundred percent clear what would happen if I talked.”
“You had your dad arrested to protect him?” Henry asks.
“It’s safer in prison than at home. And with all of the press around my mom and sister right now, there’s no way David would try to hurt them.” Grayson swipes at his eyes. “I call Susan once a week to check in. If she doesn’t answer, it means Dr. O’s found her.”
“It means you run like you should have a long time ago,” Susan says in a firm voice, as I remember Grayson outside June’s window on the bench, phone in hand.
