All Is Not Forgotten(78)

“You must have been very scared.”

You have no idea! She didn’t say anything. She just sat there, staring at me until, finally, she pulled out a small tape player. Then she let it play. It was Bob …

Charlotte broke down, remembering that moment.

“Wait, stop.…” [female voice, worried]

“What?” [male voice, alarmed]

“The bathroom door … It’s closed, but under the door … I think the light’s on.” [female voice, whispering]

[rustling, then silence]

[loud female scream]

“Oh dear Lord! Dear Lord!” [male voice, terrified]

[female screams]

“Help her! My baby! My baby girl!”

“Is she alive? Oh shit! Shit!”

“Grab a towel! Wrap her wrists, tight!”

“My baby!”

“Wrap them! Tight! Oh dear Lord! There’s so much blood.…”

“I feel a pulse! Jenny! Jenny, can you hear me! Hand me those towels! Oh dear Lord, dear Lord, dear Lord!”

“Jenny!” [desperate female voice]

“Call 911! Jenny! Jenny, wake up!” [male voice]

“Where’s my phone!” [female voice, shuffling]

“On the floor! Go!” [male voice]

[footsteps, shuffling, female voice speaking to 911, giving address, hysterical]

“You have to go! Right now! Go!” [female voice]

“No! I can’t! Dear Lord!”

I stared at that machine, listening to the recording of that horrible day. My baby! All that blood!

“My God. She was recording you,” I said. I am not easily surprised. This one did it.

For years. She had dozens of tapes. That’s what she told me. And then she pulled out a second tape and she played that one.

“Where are your parents?” [male voice, sexy tone]

“They’re out.” [female voice, flirtatious]

“Mmmm.” [male voice, a heavy moan]

[rustling, kissing sounds]

“I’m gonna f*ck you so hard while your mommy and daddy are away.” [male voice, aggressive].

“Oh no. But I’m a good girl. I can’t.” [female voice]

“You didn’t hear me, did you? I’m going to f*ck you right now. I’m going to bend you over and pull off your little pink panties.” [male voice]

[female gasp]

“No, stop, don’t . . [female voice]

It was disgusting. That man is a disgusting pig.

“Who was this woman he was with?”

One of the girls from his dealership. Lila something. She’s twenty years old! That makes her nineteen at the time. And he’s known her family for years. He plays golf with her father!

“And why did Fran Sullivan want you to hear this tape—out of all of them?”

Because this was recorded the night of the wine dinner at the club.

I had suspected as much—that Bob was with another woman that night. But I had not counted on there being hard evidence. I had counted on Bob not wanting to disclose his whereabouts and the woman being equally reticent. I had counted on more time.

This is where he was that night. He wasn’t raping my daughter. He was raping someone else’s.

“But you said it was all role play on the tape.”

She’s a child. He’s fifty-three years old. Call it whatever you want.

“I see. I’m very sorry, Charlotte. He certainly has turned out to be a horrible human being. I still don’t understand why she played those tapes for you.”

Blackmail. Plain and simple. She said she was bringing the one tape from that night to the police, Detective Parsons. The lawyer is going to ask for a confidentiality agreement before they hand it over. It clears Bob, and she wants to do it quickly and quietly. She still thinks she can keep this from the public eye. She said something like, “I imagine you will hear about this from the detective, one way or another. And I imagine it would make you feel scorned. Bob did sell you a bag of goods, didn’t he? Love, right? Might feel good to expose him? Humiliate him? Destroy his career?” Then she said, “You do your part and let this go. And in exchange, I will do mine and keep the tapes of you with my husband to myself.”

“I see. So Tom won’t find out.”

Yes. She said one last thing. “We are in the same boat now, aren’t we? If these ridiculous allegations about your daughter continue, all of this will come out. All of it.”

“So what will you do?”

Charlotte looked at me with that momentary but brilliant melding together of defeat and blind courage. It happens when there is nothing left to lose.

I’m going to tell Tom myself. Tonight. I won’t let Fran Sullivan tell me what to do. She can go straight to hell. You were right. I need to sit with the pain. I need to live through it. That’s what I’ve been trying to do since I saw Bob. Since he said “f*ck you” and left.

“I’m very proud of you, Charlotte. That takes a lot of courage.”

There are two things I can tell you now: First, Charlotte had been lying to me when she said she had been working on her feelings about giving up Bob. Second, Charlotte would not have the chance to tell Tom that night. Tom would not be home.

Parsons called me shortly after Charlotte left. It seemed Fran Sullivan wasn’t messing around.