Girl of Vengeance (22 page)

He didn’t make sense at all. Sarah wanted to shake him. “Ray … what do I do?”

He took his feet off the stump, leaning forward and planting his bare feet on the ground. He looked her closely in the eyes, studying her for a moment. It was unnerving, his eyes boring into hers. This didn’t feel like a dream at all, and her heart began to beat rapidly, almost as if another panic attack were coming. Even the thought made her muscles tense.

“It’s okay,” he whispered. He rested a hand on her shoulder. “What you do is love.” He looked around then waved his hands vaguely toward the trees and jungle that surrounded them. “All of this … all of us … everything. You love. You … forgive.”

She took in a deep, shuddering breath. She thought again about her mother and the panic attacks and how much they hurt and terrified her.

“I’m afraid, Ray. I’m afraid.”

He smiled, and said, “Well, perfect love casts out fear, Sarah.” He reached out and with a bare fingertip, touched her cheek. “You can do it. Everything you need is right here. In your heart.”

She closed her eyes. For just a second, a tendril of memory took her back to the hospital, to a moment of crisis, when Ray had saved her life.

She didn’t understand. That never happened. She drifted, and opened her eyes, and Ray was gone, and she was in her seat on the train, rocking back and forth as the tracks rattled beneath her, and she heard his words,
Perfect love casts out fear.

She let her eyes close again and drifted into a deep sleep.

“Mrs. Wilson, I want to tell you I appreciate your cooperation. I’m going to instruct the bank to free up your operating accounts so that you can make payroll.”

Julia sagged in her seat in relief. The operating account wouldn’t last long—maybe three months—but at least she’d be able to pay her employees. She closed her eyes for a moment, rubbing the bridge of her nose with two fingers and a thumb, then looked back up. “Thank you, Miss Smith.”

Barrymore—Julia’s lawyer—leaned back and said, “We’ve provided you with full financial records of the company—with all the information you could possibly need. What else can we do to help here? As I stated this morning, my client is innocent of any wrongdoing and we want to help this investigation succeed just as much as you do.”

The IRS investigator, Emma Smith, said, “I’ll have my team look over the documents and we’ll get back with you. I do appreciate your cooperation.”

Smith stood, followed by Kelly and Shriver from Diplomatic Security and the FBI. Julia and Barrymore, with their assistant attorneys, also stood. In an awkward exchange, Smith, Kelly and Shriver all passed business cards to both Julia and Barrymore, then they all shook hands. It felt like the end of a standard business meeting or negotiation. Not a near apocalypse. Her mind was unfocused for a moment as Emma Smith made small talk.

Julia had never been much for idle chatter. But she couldn’t vent her frustration until she was out of the IRS headquarters and on her way. In the elevator, she said, “Marty, do you need a ride back to your office?”

“Nah,” he said. “I walked over, it’s only a few blocks.”

As he spoke, he was turning his phone back on. He gave her a sideways look, and opened his mouth as if he were going to ask what had happened during the brief period she’d met alone with the investigators. Julia started to turn her phone on, pointedly ignoring his unstated question then realized she was still holding the business cards. She glanced at them. Standard government business cards—the seal of the agency they worked for, name, phone number. But Scott Kelly’s had a short handwritten note on the back. It said, “Call me for anything.” A 703 area code number was handwritten below it. 703 was Northern Virginia—Kelly probably commuted to DC from Virginia. That would be his cell phone then. She put the card in her purse. Allies were necessary, wherever they could be found.

The elevator opened just as her phone finished booting up, and as they walked out the door of the building, the chime of several text messages rang out. She ignored them, dialing the Pinkerton driver instead. Moments later, a sleek black Escalade pulled up to the curb. A bodyguard jumped out of the passenger seat and opened the door. Julia slid into the car and turned toward Marty, standing outside.

“At least you’re well protected,” he said.

“It’s costing enough. I’ll catch up with you later. Let me know if you hear anything.” He waved and walked away, and the driver closed the door. She glanced at the text messages on her phone. Four of them were routine business related messages. One from Crank said:
All okay in Boston! The team is confident. On my way back, see you about nine. Love you, babe.

She smiled wryly as she texted him back:
IRS went well. Update later, but we’ll be able to stay open for now.

Then she looked at the last message. It was from Mike DeMint, the band’s publicist.
CALL ME, URGENT.

Mike didn’t use hyperbole, and an all caps message with the word urgent in it meant just that. She dialed the number.

“Julia?” he answered immediately. “Problems.”

“Mike, what’s up?”

“Okay, so you’re gonna be pissed. Are you sitting down?”

“Yes, Mike, I’m sitting down. What is going on?”

“It looks like Maria Clawson is making a comeback. She was all over Fox News this afternoon as an official commentator on your father’s hearings, which aren’t going very well.”

Julia burst out into language that would have made Crank blush if he’d heard it. When she calmed down, she asked, “What else?”

“That’s not the worst of it. She’s trying to tie it all up with the IRS investigation into your company. You’re going to have to respond.”

She found herself shaking her head as the car pulled out into traffic.

“I’m not responding to anything, Mike. Not without a lot more information. What exactly did she say?”

“She’s got a long blog post today. It digs back into your father’s hearings as Ambassador to Russia back around 2000. And mentions you and … your past. When you were in high school.”

Another string of curses from Julia.

“Anyway … looks like she’s trying to make a comeback—at your expense. The blog post was … sensationalist. Stupid. And it stops short of libelous; you’re going to have a very difficult time doing anything about it. And it was big enough that she’s out there now in public.”

Julia closed her eyes and took a breath, then said, “Let me look at her blog, I need to get caught up.”

She disconnected the phone. Moments later she was on Maria Clawson’s website, which had been inactive for three years.

Now it had a sensational headline at the top.

UH OH: RICHARD THOMPSON AND JULIA WILSON

BACK IN THE NEWS WITH NEW AND IMPROVED SCANDAL:

WILSON MUM ABOUT ACCUSATIONS OF DRUG MONEY LAUNDERING

Julia felt bile in her throat. Side by side photos at the top of the page, which was designed like a late 1990s Geocities website with flashing icons and multicolored text, showed her father at the witness table, right hand raised in the air, and an incredibly unflattering photo of Julia and Crank which had graced the cover of
National Enquirer
two months ago. In the photo of her and Crank, she was leaning over to pick her cell phone off the ground where she’d dropped it on the sidewalk. The asshole photographer had manned to get a shot right up her shirt at a particularly graceless moment.

Crank had stopped making a habit of punching photographers ten years ago, but there were times when she wished he’d start again.

The first three paragraphs of the blog post held no surprises—a recap of the hearing. She scanned through it, interested in how it had gone, but still incredibly resentful of her father’s lies. From the tone of the article, the Armed Services committee had raked her father over the coals.

But the third paragraph started to get interesting.

Not surprisingly, unnamed sources within the Special Prosecutor’s office have named Julia Wilson (wife and manager of obnoxious rocker Crank Wilson) as her father’s primary accomplice, by funneling millions of dollars through a network of shell companies and hidden accounts in the Caymans.

Loyal readers will recall that this is not the first time the two have been linked in scandal. Suspicions that Thompson had arranged a secret abortion for his then fourteen-year-old party-girl daughter delayed Thompson’s nomination as Ambassador to Russia.

Party-girl.
The accusation didn’t have the frightening sting it once held. During the first period of Clawson’s campaign against her father, Julia had been under eighteen, and Clawson never identified her by name. But a photograph that should never have been taken surfaced on the Internet—a photograph of Julia, fourteen, lying across the laps of two boys.

She’d been fourteen, scared, abused and desperately lonely and afraid. Harry Easton, now an attaché at the British Embassy in Washington, DC, had been her much older boyfriend back then.

She closed her eyes and shoved the old fears and resentments back. She didn’t have time for this. She could not fall apart. Carrie and her other sisters needed her. Her employees needed her.

She moved on from the blog post to
T
he Washington Post
.

Front and center on the paper was the same photo of her father at the witness table. She scanned through the article and winced. Twelve paragraphs in—far down in the article, but still present—Maria Clawson surfaced:

Media critic Maria Clawson linked the current outrage to a series of past scandals involving the Thompson family, including an accusation that Ambassador Thompson arranged a secret abortion for his then fourteen-year-old daughter Julia. In an interview on Fox News, Clawson said, “Before she started managing her drug-promoting counter-culture punk band, Julia had a history of drunken and drugged outbursts which scandalized the diplomatic community. It’s common really—the overprivileged kids of the rich and famous going crazy is almost a stereotype. It’s a shame, really, because with her platform, Julia Wilson could do some real good in the world.”

Julia wanted to kill someone. Starting with that bitch Clawson.

She dialed Mike DeMint back. He answered on the first ring.

“Mike, I want a strategy. We need to hit back and hard. What do I do?”

He didn’t hesitate. “You go on the air. Take her on directly. Tell your side of the story, especially the impact her blog had on your life. I’d suggest something like Barbara Walters. She’s retiring in a couple weeks, I bet she’ll do it. You’re a huge catch.”

Julia shook her head, feeling nauseous. Then she said, “All right. You make the arrangements and let me know. We’ll take it all public. Let me just get permission from my sisters. Some of the story is theirs.”

“Yeah, whatever. Just let me know quick. Your window to strike back is short.”

“How short?”

“With media cycles the way they are? I think you need to move tonight and probably interview tomorrow. I’ll do a brief statement tonight and get it on the website and social media.”

Julia closed her eyes and counted to five thousand. Or maybe five. She
hated
dealing with the media. “All right,” she said. “Do your worst.”

She disconnected the phone. Traffic was unusually light for DC. Of course, their interview with the IRS had run very late, a marathon session. The clock on the dashboard reported 8:30 pm, which was past time for rush hour. As the driver sped up Wisconsin Avenue toward Bethesda, she texted each of her sisters, telling them her plans. If they were going to survive this, all of this, they had to be there for each other like they’d never managed before.

Fifteen minutes later, the SUV came to a stop in front of the condo.

“Wait a moment,” the driver said. The bodyguard got out of the car and joined two more who were working the lobby.

What felt like thirty minutes later, but was actually only thirty seconds, one of the guards opened the door. “Mrs. Wilson, I’ll escort you inside.”

As she got out of the car, her phone started to ring. She took it out and answered without looking at the caller ID as she followed the guard to the front door.

“Julia.” She felt a chill. It was her father. Her gut reaction was to hang up the phone.

You’ve never done anything but lie to me.

Those were the last words she’d said to her father. When was it … four days ago? He’d tried to make excuses, to avoid taking responsibility for what he’d done to her mother.
Her mother.
Adelina Thompson had been the most hideous figure in her life. Frantic. Often crazy. Screaming attacks and rage and bitter, hurtful comments.

I woke up to find you on Maria Clawson’s website nearly having sex with a drug addict.

Julia had responded,
No
,
M
other, we were just kissing. Believe me, I know the difference.

I’m sure you do.
Her mother’s barbed response had wounded.

I didn’t raise my daughter to be a slut.

The words still bled, no matter how many years had passed.

Alexandra lost in the airport.
Can’t you do anything right?