Chapter 13
Marti was sitting at the table staring out at the ocean when Dante entered the kitchen twenty minutes later. She looked up. “That man who tried to kill me. Where is he?”
Dante met her gaze. “For now, I’ve got him tied up in my shed out back.”
“Why aren’t we calling the police?”
“There are questions I need you to answer first.”
She nodded. “Alright.”
He went to sit across from her. His coffee was hot, and the muffins were warm. She had timed his arrival just right. After taking a sip of coffee, he decided to get right to it. “Who wants you dead, Marti?”
She released a deep sigh. “I believe it’s Malcolm Edwards.”
“Who is Malcolm Edwards?”
“He’s the guy I told you about. I fell in love with him when I was twenty-four.”
Dante frowned. “That was thirteen years ago. Why would he want to harm you?”
She didn’t say anything for a minute. Then she shook her head and said, “I need to start from the beginning.”
“Okay.”
“After I finished college at Harvard, I--”
“You went to Harvard?” he interrupted to ask.
“Yes, I got my law degree from there.”
He hadn’t known that. “Another thing we have in common,” he said. “I also attended Harvard Law School.”
“You told me you went to Harvard, but I figured you went there for business because of your profession,” she responded.
He nodded. That it was a justifiable assumption to make. “Did you ever practice law?” he asked.
She nodded. “For a few years I worked at a law firm in Charlotte before realizing I didn’t like being in the courtroom. What about you?”
“No, after Harvard, I went to work for the FBI for a few years.”
She took a sip of her coffee. “While I was at Harvard, I took classes to become a dual-licensed attorney-CPA, so I’m licensed as both. It’s advantageous for my clients that I’m able to combine both legal and financial expertise.
She took a deep breath. “Anyway, after college, I was hired to work at a CPA firm in Sacramento. I met Malcolm in my second week there. He was six years older, and I was young, na?ve, and way too trusting. My head was filled with romantic notions of love and happily-ever-after.”
She paused a moment. “Although we dated exclusively for only five months, I honestly thought he loved me as much as I loved him. He even said he did. Things were going great for us, so I definitely wasn’t prepared for what he did.”
“Betraying you with another woman?” Dante asked before taking a sip of coffee.
“It wasn’t another woman.”
Dante went still with his cup halfway to his mouth. “It was with another man?”
“No.”
He set his coffee cup down. “Then how did he betray you, Marti?” He could see the pain in her eyes and wondered just what the hell the man had done.
“One Saturday, he had four of his closest friends over to watch a football game. We hadn’t moved in together, but I hung out at his place a lot on the weekends.”
She drew in another breath. “I knew the guys. They were always nice. I figured I could hang out in the bedroom and study for my upcoming CPA exam.”
She picked up her cup, and he noticed her hand trembling. “And what happened after that, Marti?” he asked softly.
She met his gaze, and he saw tears well up in her eyes.
“I honestly don’t know what happened, Dante.
I recall Malcolm coming into the bedroom during halftime and offering me a glass of wine.
He said I was studying too much, and it would relax me.
All I remember after that is waking up sometime during the night in bed, naked… with five men.”
“What the hell!” he said, jumping out of the chair and nearly knocking it over. “Are you saying those five bastards raped you?” he bellowed in a voice filled with rage.
Marti wiped tears from her eyes. “Yes, and before I could dress and leave, they tied me up and gagged me so I wouldn’t scream. Then they raped me again, just to make sure I knew what they had done.”
“Jesus!”
He walked around the table and pulled her into his arms. “Oh, baby, how could your boyfriend drug you and let his friends do that to you?” he asked, his voice filled with intense fury.
She lifted her head and looked at him. “Malcolm raped me first, then told his friends to enjoy me. He watched as they took turns with me and said that as best friends, they shared everything. Just to add to the insult, Malcolm told me that he didn’t love me, and that he’d never loved me.”
“The bastard!”
“When they headed out for breakfast, I quickly left.”
“What about the police? Did you not call the police?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No. One of the guys, Larry Upshaw, was a cop. He threatened to do all kinds of things to me if I reported them. Larry said he knew other cops and would tell them where I lived so they could set up an accident. One that would be fatal. I believed him.”
“Oh, sweetheart.” He pulled her back into his arms and held her. Closing his eyes, he had to contain his outrage, which was full-blown. “I’m so sorry they did that to you. Did you tell your parents or your sister?”
“No. I didn’t tell anyone. I was both too afraid and ashamed. I resigned from my job, left Sacramento, and moved back home to San Francisco, and worked there for a while before moving again to North Carolina.”
Dante took her hand and led her from the kitchen into the living room. Sitting down on the sofa, he eased her down beside him. “So your ex-boyfriend and his friends got away with what they did to you,” he stated as fact and not an inquiry.
“No. I couldn’t let them get away with it, Dante.”
He saw the icy fury that appeared in her gaze when she turned to face him. “What did you do, Marti?”
She lifted her chin. “You know what they say about payback being a bitch. Well, I became that bitch, Dante.”
“How?”
“A few years later, all five of them had married, had good careers, and were highly respected in their communities. One of them was even running for mayor. And Larry had been promoted to lieutenant in the police force. Based on the bragging Malcolm had done that morning, I knew I wasn’t the only woman they had assaulted like that.
So I hired a private detective to dig up anything he could on Malcolm and his buddies.
During his investigation, my private investigator discovered that all five men were operating a very successful child pornography ring of which they were participants.
There were actual videos of them gang-raping children. Can you believe that?”
“Damn!”
“Once we had obtained enough evidence to assure convictions, I sent an anonymous, detailed report that included numerous videos to the Sacramento DA’s office.
It became a huge scandal when Malcolm and his four besties were arrested.
To spare their families the embarrassment of a trial, since there was so much evidence against them, the five pleaded guilty and were each given thirty years with no chance of parole. ”
“Good. Since you sent the report anonymously, did they ever learn of your involvement?”
“Yes. A year later, I paid a visit to each of them individually in prison and told them that they had me to thank for their current situation. It made me feel good to let them know they hadn’t gotten away with what they did to me after all.
I told them that since they had shared everything, I hoped they enjoyed sharing their time in jail. ”
At that moment, Dante couldn’t help but be proud of her. She had settled the score in her own way. “Poetic justice.” He lifted his coffee cup in a salute.
“Yes, poetic justice,” she said, doing the same with her cup.
“Are they still in jail?”
“Yes, however, last month someone sent me a copy of an obituary for Larry.”
“The police officer?”
“Yes. He was murdered in his cell. And knowing how Malcolm’s mind works, he blames me.
I did some digging when I received the obituary and discovered that Larry wasn’t popular with the other inmates, considering he was an ex-cop and involved with child porn.
So, I guess what happened to him wasn’t really a surprise.
“I was surprised, though, to get his obituary sent to me in the mail. Nobody knew my address in Charlotte or my new address in Billings. Two weeks later, a small hawthorn tree was delivered to my home.”
“The shrub of death and misfortune,” Dante said, familiar with the plant. Back in the day, Mafia families would send one as a warning to their enemies.
“Yes.” Marti then told him about the note that had accompanied the shrub.
“I hope you got the police involved this time.”
“I did, but I couldn’t tell them everything, Dante.
Especially not about my association with those guys.
I’d never filed a rape report, and no one knew I was the one who sent that anonymous report to the DA’s office.
I only got the police involved a week after the shrub showed up.
Then I started getting more mail, photographs of me out shopping, taking a jog in the park, and watering the flowers in my yard.
My face was mutilated in all the photos.
Then one day, while driving home from the spa, someone tried to run me off the road.
That’s when I knew I had to get away for a while. ”
He nodded. “Now I understand why you told your family you were in London and not here in Wild Rose Point.”
That also explained the fear he had seen in her eyes that first day. And now he knew the reason she had screamed that night. She was a woman who was being stalked.
“I take it your parents or sister still don’t know what those bastards did to you.”
“No, my parents don’t know, but I eventually told Kara. I had to do so, to end the rift between us.”
Dante raised a brow. “How was that connected?”
Marti sat back and met his gaze. “Malcolm and those four guys had been best friends. They did practically everything together and bragged about sharing everything. When Kara introduced me to Virgil, I discovered he had five best friends. They were godbrothers, actually. When you saw one, you saw them all. They were thick as thieves, even closer than Malcolm and his friends, who had met in college. Virgil and his friends had known each other all their lives.”
“Let me guess,” Dante said. “You assumed because of those guys’ close relationship, the same thing that happened to you could possibly happen to your sister.”
“Yes. I even went so far as to have a short affair ─ one lasting a month ─ with one of Virgil’s godbrothers. Kara was sure that Virgil loved her. I figured if I got close to one of them, he might let something slip that I could use as ammunition against Virgil.”
“And did he?”
“No. In truth, Xavier was a nice guy. However, like his other godbrothers, he was a womanizer with commitment issues. I honestly thought Virgil wasn’t any different.
So to protect Kara, I made up a lie that I had seen Virgil at a hotel with another woman.
” She shook her head. “It ruined our relationship when she discovered I had lied. Finally, to make peace with my sister and help her understand why I had told the lie, I told her about Malcolm and his friends and what they had done to me.”
“I take it she doesn’t know you’re presently being stalked.”
She grimaced. “No. Kara’s pregnant and I don’t want her to worry about me. She doesn’t need to be stressed out right now.”
Dante didn’t say anything for a moment as he thought about everything she had told him. “I agree your ex-boyfriend is likely behind what happened today, as well as those other stalking incidents. The question is how? He’s still in jail, right?”
“Yes, but I’m sure there are ways to get around that. I couldn’t make my connection to Malcolm and the others known to the police before. But after today, I don’t really have any other choice but to go to the police and tell them everything.”
“There’s another option.”
She lifted a brow. “But how can I not go to the police, Dante? That guy failed, but Malcolm will only have someone try again. He hates me that much.”
Dante took her hand in his. “I told you I’ll handle this, and I meant it.”
“But what can you do? I don’t want you to get hurt.” She sighed. “It’s probably best for you not to get involved.”
“I’m already involved, Marti.”
He stood and began pacing. When he stopped, he met her gaze. “And to answer your question as to what I can do, there’s a lot about me that you don’t know. Considering what happened today, I think it’s time I told you.”