Chapter 14
SELENE
Sutton’s childhood home is nothing like I thought it would be.
In the one conversation we’d had about her upbringing, Aubrey made it sound like she grew up in a shack on the side of the road not in a large Colonial style house in the suburbs of Lexington, Kentucky with a picket fence and the American flag flying proudly from one of the white columns bracketing the red brick steps leading to the front door.
He’d also said she had no one to fall back on, but after weeks of watching Peter and Janice Ellsworth gush over their daughter in interviews, I now know that’s a lie as well.
A warped reality presented to me for the sole purpose of inspiring pity for someone who never needed it.
Both of Sutton’s parents stand inside the entryway welcoming me, Agent Shaw and Agent Morgan into their home, and as they lead us into the cozy den right off their kitchen, I wonder if this is the first time they’ve had this many Black people in their home.
If Monique were here, she’d laugh at the question and tell me they’ve probably never had a Black person in this house at all.
The thought makes me smile even though I’m still annoyed at my best friend for going out of her way to facilitate this trip and then refusing to tag along.
I’d had to jump through multiple hoops to get out of Washington without anyone finding out.
An impromptu trip to Camp David for Aubrey and his consorts that began yesterday plus a private jet chartered in Monique’s name had made that incredibly easy, but now I have to do the hard part.
“You can take a seat here, Mrs. Taylor,” Peter says, gesturing to the cream couch with American flag themed pillows perched in the colors. “Janice loves decorating for upcoming holidays,” he adds, sitting down across from me in one of the armchairs on the opposite side of the coffee table.
Agent Shaw moves to the window to my right, peeking through the blinds into the blanket of darkness covering the backyard and then pulling the curtains closed tight.
Morgan does the same thing on my left, and I take a small comfort in the calm they’re both emanating.
Janice enters the room carrying a tray of coffee and cookies.
She leaves it on the table between us and takes a seat next to her husband. “No one in the neighborhood is up at this hour, and we haven’t had a news van parked outside in days.”
Meeting this early in the morning had been my idea, and I’d been surprised when the Ellsworths agreed to host me before sunrise without so much as a question about why I’d flown to Kentucky only to spend a few hours on the ground.
I was glad I didn’t have to explain what might happen to them, and me, if word of this little fact finding mission made its way back to Aubrey.
In an effort to be polite, I take a cookie from the tray and place it on a napkin without taking a bite. “Thank you for agreeing to speak with me. I promise we won’t stay long.”
Peter casts anxious looks in Agent Shaw’s direction as she shifts her weight from one foot to the other. It’s not lost on me that everyone in the room seems to be ready to get this visit over with.
Janice brushes imaginary lint off her pants. “I’m surprised you wanted to speak with us given your…history…with Sutton.”
“You’re referring to her affair with my husband.”
Candidness isn’t something people come to expect from someone in my position, so I completely understand why my response makes Peter choke on the coffee he’s just taken a large sip of. Janice, who looks more like her daughter than I realized, nods.
“Yes. The affair. I want you to know Sutton was incredibly ashamed of her actions.”
When the news broke, Aubrey did everything he could to keep me away from Sutton.
I was fine with that because I had no true desire to share space with her again.
Because of that, I never got to find out whether Sutton was actually sorry for fucking my husband.
Nothing about her presence on social media after leaving the campaign suggested remorse, but I could see her doing or saying things to her parents that would make them believe otherwise.
She wouldn’t have had to work hard at it.
Parents always want to see the best in their kids.
“Does that mean she was no longer sleeping with my husband?”
This isn’t the first time they’ve fielded this question.
Every single interviewer they’ve sat down with has wanted to know the same thing.
Each time, they’ve stated that Sutton’s relationship with Aubrey ended when she left his employ.
There’s never been an ounce of hesitance to their delivery, but this time, it’s there in the guilt creasing the corners of Peter’s eyes and the resolve weaved throughout Janice’s sigh as she slides to the edge of her seat, prepared to level with me.
Peter places a hand on his wife’s shoulder. “Jan, we signed those papers.”
She shrugs him off. “We also agreed to speak with her. What was the point of having her come all this way if we weren’t going to tell her the truth, Pete?”
“You signed an NDA? But you’ve been speaking with the press.”
Peter takes his hand from Janice’s shoulder and links their fingers together, squeezing hard. “They said we can talk about Sutton as much as we want, but Aubrey is off limits.”
“Who?”
“They didn’t give us names,” Janice says, using her free hand to drop cubes of sugar into her mug. “Just showed up on our door the day after Sutton died with paperwork for us to sign and a check for doing so.”
I wrack my brain for possibilities, but the truth is it could have been anyone.
Aubrey has an extensive network of people at his disposal, and I’m sure he deploys them without so much as a second thought.
There’s a likely chance he doesn’t even know who came to Kentucky to silence the Ellsworths.
Knowing trying to figure it out would be a waste of my time, I turn the conversation back to the original topic.
“So, the relationship hadn’t ended.”
Suspicion swirls in Janice’s irises. “You really didn’t know?”
It’s as close to verbal confirmation as I’m going to get, but it’s more than enough.
My heart rate increases slightly as all the reasons Aubrey might want Sutton dead rush through my brain.
I started crafting the list of possible motives the day I found out she was gone—threats to go public and demands for money to stay silent or a secret pregnancy were my first choices—but none of them worked if I couldn’t prove they were still seeing each other.
“No,” I say once it becomes clear my silence is making this so much more awkward. “I had no idea.”
“She was sorry,” Peter declares, attempting to defend his daughter’s honor. “I could see the way it weighed on her. All the sneaking around and lying and hiding. I told her she deserved better than an adulterer, but she wouldn’t listen.”
Janice’s hand shakes as she brings her coffee to her lips. “She was in love. You know how intoxicating it is to be caught in the snare of Aubrey’s affection…or at least you did once.”
I take a bite of the cookie I’ve been holding for a while now. It’s a little on the crisp side, so crumbs sprinkle onto my lap as I laugh at her attempt to insult me even though the affection she’s bragging about her daughter receiving are likely the reason she’s dead.
“You’re right. It not hard to imagine how someone like Sutton could be ensnared by a man like Aubrey.”
“Someone like Sutton,” she repeats. “What do you mean by that? What exactly are you insinuating about my daughter, Mrs. Taylor?”
Leaning forward, I set my napkin and half-eaten cookie on the coffee table.
“It’s not an insinuation, Mrs. Ellsworth.
My personal belief is that women who sleep with married men grow up viewing other women as competition.
Affairs aren’t about love for them. They’re acts of dominance, attempts to best women who are nothing more than surrogates for the mother who treated them as an opponent from the day they were born.
If I had to guess, Sutton’s inability to leave Aubrey’s bed probably had more to do with who he is than the quality of his affection.
After all, I’m sure none of the men you’ve fucked have possessed nuclear codes. ”
Agent Morgan hides a laugh in an unconvincing cough as Janice’s face turns red.
“You dare to sit in my home and speak that way about me, my daughter, our relationship?!”
“You started this catty exchange, Mrs. Ellsworth, all I’ve done is finish it.”
Her nostrils flare, but she doesn’t respond, looking to her husband for defense. Something about Peter’s expression suggests my assessment of Sutton and Janice’s relationship isn’t far off. When he doesn’t say anything, Janice snatches her hand away from him and stands, huffing dramatically.
“I want you out of my house.”
She storms out of the room, leaving me with a stressed out Peter. Since I have no desire to overstay my welcome, and no need for the awkward silence we’ve been left in, I push to my feet. “I’ll see myself out.”
Peter doesn’t reply, remaining in his seat as Agent Shaw steps in front of me and Agent Morgan takes my back. We’ve made our way back to the door when he finally finds his voice.
“Mrs. Taylor, wait!” I turn to see him coming up the short hall with his phone in his hand. The screen is lit, displaying an image I can’t quite make out. “I need to show you this.”
I step around Agent Morgan, meeting him halfway. “What is it?”
“A photo.” He pushes the phone into my hand, shame a hard shadow over his features. “Sutton sent it to me a few days before she died. She was convinced someone was following her. I told her she was just being paranoid, that the guilt of the affair was getting to her, but she was insistent.”
My heart is pounding again, slapping against my ribcage so hard I’m scared the repeated collision of muscle and bone are audible.
I study the photo. It’s a blurry shot taken with Sutton’s front camera somewhere on the streets of Lexington.
Her face is mostly obscured, blonde hair blowing in the summer wind, and it’s clear that she didn’t care if anyone could make her out.
What she wanted the viewer to see is the man a few steps behind her.
The top half of his body is cut off, so I can’t see his face.
I can’t see anything but the dark wash of his jeans, the hem of his black t-shirt and the crescent moon shaped scar on his right hand.
It could be anyone with any number of reasons for walking down the street at the same time as Sutton.
I tell Peter as much when I give him back his phone.
“Why did you come here, Mrs. Taylor?”
“To find out if your daughter was still sleeping with my husband.”
It’s the only answer I feel comfortable giving.
The only one that keeps me safe and the integrity of my investigation intact.
As far as motivations for flying across the country and visiting a stranger’s home in the middle of the night goes, it felt pretty solid to me.
No one would have trouble believing that a public figure who’s already been caught unawares once would do anything to avoid that embarrassment again.
Peter doesn’t believe me, though. He scrubs a hand down his face to temper his frustration.
“No, if it was just about the affair, you wouldn’t have gone through all this trouble now that she’s gone. It just doesn’t make any sense. I know that’s what you’ve told everyone else, but it’s not the truth. Or at least not the whole truth.”
“What exactly do you think the truth is, Mr. Ellsworth?”
His eyes bounce from my face to the expressionless masks of the agents behind me and then he leans in, voice low and urgent.
“The truth is, you think your husband had my daughter killed, and you came here hoping to find something to help you prove it.” He holds his hand out, showing me the photo once more. “This is all I have. I’m sorry it’s not more, but she was only brave enough to try and get a picture of him once.”
“Wait, so she saw him before this?”
Peter nods, and I resist the desire to ream him out for burying the lead.
“Multiple times in the week before she died. Outside of her apartment and a few times when she was leaving work. She was scared, Mrs. Taylor, and I know that might not mean much to you given your history, but it’s true.
She spent the last few days of her life paranoid and afraid, and when she came to me, I dismissed her because I was angry that she kept debasing herself for him. Maybe if I had listened—”
“No.” I cut that line of reasoning short, placing a hand on his arm to get him to look at me. “Nothing you could have done would have stopped this, Peter.”
Hope sparks in his eyes. “So you do believe there’s more to her death than they’re letting on?”
Folding my lips together to prevent myself from saying more, I step back from the grief-ridden man and turn back towards the door.
This time he doesn’t give chase or call for me to stop, he lets us go, holding the door open as we retreat into the pink, orange and red hues of a dawning day.
Agent Morgan opens the back door for me while Shaw climbs behind the wheel and starts the engine of our rented SUV.
I find myself lingering, one foot on the sidewalk and the other inside the safety of the car, all my attention on the person who just gave me the first real lead I’ve had in weeks.
“Mr. Ellsworth?” I call out to him, a sad smile of commiseration curving my lips ever so slightly. “I’m sorry for your loss.”