The Truth of Never (The Never Trilogy Book 3) Read online

  He brought out a document and handed it over to Peter. "In there are copies of the letters exchanged between them and upon examination, you will see that he more or less told her that taking her own life would be the only way she could ever pay penance for her actions in the past. It started out with him just wanting to reach out to her, but her response was disappointing. She told him that she had left that part of her life behind her, and it angered him. Especially since as you will find in the letters, he blamed her for the depression his late father suffered from, and the unhealthy habits he picked up to cope with losing her which as we all know led to the deterioration of his health and his subsequent death."

  Peter was skimming through the document as the lawyer spoke, but I couldn’t take my eyes off Damian. Surprisingly enough, he showed no shame for what he was doing and boldly held my glare.

  His lawyer continued. "This led her down a spiral of depression, and as her housekeeper can attest to, a drastic change from her usually effervescent attitude. As the letters here read, she expressed her pain to Mr. Roque and his response was and I quote.

  "Of course you're responsible for the disaster in our family. In my honest opinion your death won't even be enough to pay for the damage that you've brought us."

  At that moment, a gasp escaped my lips but the lawyer misinterpreted what it meant.

  "Brutal? I know."

  "Fuck you!" I yelled at him. "You don't know anything. You don't know him. He would never say that."

  Peter placed a hand on my knee to calm me down. "Lenora." he called so I forced myself to take a deep breath and leaned back against my chair. I wanted to kill the both of them.

  "Miss Baker, I know you're upset but we can hardly deny the proof before us."

  "Really?" The other lawyer asked. "Because my first question to you is why you think Mr. Roque would use a letter to communicate with Mrs. Bach in the first place. This isn't exactly 1923."

  The lawyer sighed, and calmly proceeded to explain, just as if he'd expected the question. "Well I asked myself the same thing, so we dug deeper and found out the letters weren't even delivered by post but were given to Mrs. Bach through an ex-girlfriend of Mr. Roque. She says that her absence in his life was something that constantly saddened him but he never really considered reaching out to her so she convinced him to write in a letter what he would like to say to her. And when he did, she took it and delivered it personally. Of course he was upset at first but when he received a response, he decided to accept the means of communication with Miss Washington volunteering to deliver the letters.”

  "Miss Washington?" I asked. "Do you mean Stacy Washington?"

  The lawyer turned to me. "Yes, I do.”

  "This has got to be a joke." I said. "It’s just not possible that what is happening right here is actually real."

  "I have a question for you Mr. Chang." Michael Sugg said. "How were you able to obtain these letters, especially since our client is not involved in a relationship with Miss Washington anymore?”

  "She has a key to his place." He answered. "Mr. Roque will attest to this.”

  “That’s trespassing.”

  “I don’t think using a key that was given to her can be referred to as trespassing, but we will be willing to take the matter up with Mr. Roque the next time we meet. So, these are the facts on the table. Mr. Bach here is going through intense emotional distress and because of this unfortunate incident his personal and professional life, have both suffered a huge blow. He believes nothing less than justice will help him to begin the process of healing from this trauma, and that is what we’re here to ensure."

  "I still can't clearly make the connection between your accusation and what the police reports from that day say actually happened.” Peter said. “It has been established that it was a motor vehicle accident so don’t you think the person you should be going after is the driver of the vehicle that ran her down?"

  "That would have made sense but in this case we’re not pressing charges because of what happened. We’re pressing charges because we believe that Mr Roque provoked Mrs. Bach into attempting suicide. No one can be sure of what transpired between our clients before the accident but one thing we are certain of is the words of your client in the letters that he sent, telling our client that the only way to make up for her behavior in the past was to take her own life. Mr. Bach here who was present just before the accident claims that there was a brief exchange between them, just before your client crossed the road.”

  “Unfortunately, Mrs. Bach is currently not able to give her account of what happened but what we do know is that after your client had crossed the road, she threw herself in front of an incoming vehicle. Now your client was fully aware of her fragile emotional state especially since her ex-husband whom she felt much remorse towards had just passed away, so we do believe that something he said to her, drove her to the edge. And even if that is not enough to convince you of your client’s hand in her accident, then his reaction thereafter leaves little to be said. He didn't look surprised or even moved when he turned and saw that she had been knocked down. Instead, he turned around and walked away. Now I don't know about you but that is far from the reaction that most people will have when their parent has just been knocked down, but then again that's just our opinion. We’ll see what the jury thinks when this goes to trial. In the meantime, I suggest you prepare your client for his arraignment. Thank you." He concluded. He rose to his feet and so did Damian.

  I watched them leave and then turned to Peter.

  "It seems they've taken the time to build their case,” he said. “but we’ll get to work immediately and find a way to fix this. I'll contact you the moment I have something but in the meantime I want you to tell Nathan about this. These are serious allegations.”

  "No!" I said and rose to my feet, "I'll handle it."

  *

  Less than an hour later, I was walking into the CNN studios at the Time Warner Centre with Nathan’s assistant. I told him to go ahead, and then headed towards Stacy's office. There were warning bells going off in my brain at what I was about to do but I couldn't stop myself. All I knew was that the anger crushing my heart had to be let out, and the person I was choosing to direct it at was Stacy. How dare she lie against him? Someone she claimed to care about.

  I didn't even pay any mind to the staff I passed on the way to her office despite the leery looks that they gave me, no doubt from my aggressive march. I took a second to read the name plate on the door that confirmed that I was entering the right office, and then barged in.

  “What is going on?” she asked surprised to see me.

  “You agreed to be a witness to Damian’s ridiculous accusation? Are you out of your mind?”

  “Please leave my office.” She said. “You’re not even supposed to be talking to me right now.”

  “Please leave your office?” I repeated. “You’re about to put an innocent person in jail and you’re asking me to leave your office?” Furious, I lifted my hand and with all my strength flung my purse at her.

  It hit her squarely in the face since she wasn't expecting it, and drove her backwards against her chair. It toppled over under her weight and deposited her on the floor.

  "How dare you lie against him?" I yelled and hurried towards her. I couldn't even stop myself if I wanted to. I was mad. The first thing I did when I got to her was grab her sleek black hair, and then I struck her across her face.

  All this was happening so fast that I could barely make out exactly what I was doing but each time my hands hit her, I knew that I felt considerably better. She shot her arms up to protect her eyes, but I pushed it away and grabbed my purse from the floor beside her. I continuously beat her with it and then threw it aside. However, just before I could leave a permanent mark on her face with my nails I was gripped from behind, and pulled up.

  "Get her out of here." Someone yelled but I struggled for them to let me go. The arms that held me didn’t budge so I just stretched my hands toward
s whatever I could reach on her desk, and sent it crashing to the floor. On my way I tore down some pictures from the wall and sent down a ceramic vase from a floating shelf; it shattered into a thousand pieces. “That’s what you're about to do to someone you claim to love.” I said, just before I was taken out of the office. “You selfish bitch!”

  When the door was shut in my face, I struggled to get free. "Let me go." I yelled, and started to claw at the hands that held me and instantly, I was freed. Trying to control my heavy breathing, I ran my hand through my hair to smoothen it out, straightened my blouse and brushed away an invisible crease from my skirt. Just then police men arrived and I looked up as they ran towards me.

  "You're under arrest." One of them said, and quietly, I stretched out my hands towards him.

  *

  It really surprised me how calm I was but I suspected that it had a lot to do with the shock. Not only because of what I’d done, but because of the fact that I'd never been arrested before, much less paraded through the floor of an international organization in hand cuffs and with what seemed like a thousand heads popping out of corners to watch what was going on.

  Most of them probably knew who I was and from the surprise on their faces, it hit me that it would only be a matter of time before the reason behind my attack would be revealed. That scared me, and occupied my thoughts as I waited in front of the elevator with the two police officers behind me. However, when I got into the elevator and turned to find myself staring into the lens of a video camera, I began to panic.

  Fear struck my entire body as I realized that I'd probably been caught on camera, and that it was probably already airing on the news. However, I still couldn't feel any remorse towards what I'd just done, so I glared at the lens in defiance and lazily moved my eyes away just as the elevator doors slid close. When we got to the ground floor of the centre, there was another camera waiting to film my exit so I tried my best to ignore it. The only thing that I allowed to bother me was that Nathan would no doubt see this, and find out what was going on. Hell the entire country might even become aware of the charges against him in a matter of hours, and it terrified me. I thought immediately of calling Peter to begin damage control but I knew that I wasn't going to have access to any of that anytime soon, so I just hoped he'd at least see the broadcast and be on his way.

  Inhaling deeply, I wish I wasn't restrained so that I could head over to Damian's and pour out the rest of my frustration on him. Nathan was going to be so mad at me when he found out but more importantly, I suspected that I had just made the entire case a thousand times worse. There was a law against approaching witnesses and since I had done a little more than approach her, I could very well be thrown in prison. However, I reminded myself of the shock, and pain I'd glimpsed on her face as I attacked her and that was all the distraction that I needed. When I got into the police car, I allowed a small smile on my face and closed my eyes.

  *

  Four hours later however, I wasn't feeling so cocky anymore. After I'd been booked and spent my time seated in a jail cell as stiff as a board so that my body wouldn't touch anything, I'd had more than enough time to come to terms with just how stupid my actions had been.

  But I wasn't surprised. I'd always been erratic, but this time the stakes were literally between life and death and I was terrified that I'd chosen the wrong option.

  It was much later that evening that Peter finally appeared and processed my release. He didn't say a word to me as we walked out of the station and got into the back seat of his town car. Eventually I couldn't stand the silence anymore.

  "Say something." I said.

  "What do you want me to say?"

  "Anything. Scold me if you want."

  "There's no need. What's done is already done so now we just have to find a way to fix it."

  "How badly did I worsen things?"

  "You can’t even begin to imagine." He told me. "Even if you were to be charged now it wouldn't just be with assault and battery. Stacy is a witness to a serious case that might proceed to trial, so what you did can be and probably will be portrayed as witness tampering. They'll label it as your attempt to intimidating her into changing her testimony and Lenora that is a serious criminal offense. Unless this entire case is dropped and the charges somehow go away, both you and Nathan will be in serious trouble and might be facing serious jail time. I'm not saying all this to scare you but to just inform you of how much harder you've made all of this." He glanced at me. "It's all over the news now. What the hell were you thinking?"

  "I'm sorry."

  "Well that doesn't help anybody, and speaking as a friend and not your lawyer, I am so fucking pissed at you right now."

  A long silence ensued after that, before I finally had the courage to ask. "W-whatt about Nathan? Has he called? Did he find out?"

  "I haven't heard from him yet, but I doubt that he's not already aware. It's his office after all."

  "He isn't." I said. "He would have called immediately if he had.”

  "Then it's only a matter of time now before the charges against him are brought to light, and that especially scares me because of his job."

  "What do you mean?"

  "He's a journalist Lenora. They have a ridiculous level of credibility to uphold. Their image is everything. Just saying the wrong thing on camera could ruin their career not to mention being accused of manslaughter."

  "Peter you're scaring me." I said, and he sighed.

  "Let's just get you home. Elisa's worried. Things are handled at your company so she says not to worry about that."

  "Okay." I said and we remained silent the rest of the way to Jersey. When we arrived, Peter immediately went back to the office so that they could continue working on the case, while I went in to find Elisa. Thankfully she didn't scold me and instead gave me a warm hug. Carlie was there too, and after making sure I was alright, they sent me to have a long bath and fed me.

  I couldn't sleep so I just remained in their guest room and tried calling Nathan but his line was not reachable. He was supposed to have been done with his last engagement today in San Francisco, so it bothered me that I couldn’t get to him. I continued trying until eventually, I fell asleep.

  Nathan

  It was just a few minutes past 10pm when I arrived at the residential estate in Doral Miami, and in no time, I found the town house. The last time I remembered feeling as nervous as I currently did was when I’d first met Nora again a few months back, and when I'd hosted my first political debate in Washington a few years earlier. It was not a good feeling, and somehow this one seemed worse to me than all the others. I walked up to the house and knocked on the door, and soon it was answered by a tall, slim man.

  "Good evening sir, I'm Nathan Roque." I introduced myself.

  "I know. It's nice to meet you. Come in."

  "Thank you." I said, placed my luggage in the foyer and started taking my shoes off. To my surprise he picked up my bag and took it with him towards the kitchen, and when I followed I saw that he placed it by a corner in the living room.

  "Take a seat." He told me, and I did on one of the kitchen stools.

  "Can I get you something to drink? Wine? Water? I just got back from work so I didn’t have time to cook but I'll put something together now.

  "That’s okay." I told him. "Thank you, and just water please."

  "Alright." He said, and passed me a bottle from the refrigerator.

  "How about I order something in? How do you feel about Mexican food?"

  "Sounds great sir." I replied, so he picked up the phone to place the order. When I brought my cell phone out of my pocket to see that the battery had run down, I retrieved my charger from my bag and found a socket to plug it into.

  I returned to the stool and took the opportunity to look around. It was quite a spacious home but what I was really looking for were pictures of Lenora. I found them in frames on a shelf in front of the room. I wanted to go a little closer but I stayed put and admired how she lo
oked as a child. Soon her father was done with the call so I returned my attention to him.

  "So, you're going to marry my daughter." He said.

  "Yes sir."

  "I know you. I’ve watched you on TV for quite a while now. You said you met at boarding school?"

  "Yes sir we did. We just recently reconnected."

  "Okay, and does she know you're here?"

  "No sir.”

  "I haven't seen you on CNN for a few weeks. Did something happen?"

  "No Sir, I just took a little vacation.”

  “Okay.” He said and went to take a seat in the arm chair in the living room. I took a deep breath and told myself to relax, but it was hard. He made me feel like I was attending an important job interview. There was nothing too harsh about his features that indicated that he was a hard man but his strictness, as insinuated by Lenora, was evident in his posture. I could also see a bit of a facial resemblance between them but that seemed to be as far as it went.

  "I was watching the debate you hosted, about two months ago," He said and took a drink of his beer.

  "Yes sir." I replied and waited.

  "What did you really think about Clinton’s comment?”

  His question launched us into an almost forty minute conversation, and never before had I been more appreciative of the fact that I had a solid grounding in politics because it saved me from seeming dull in front of my future father-in law. He was quite knowledgeable, and the more he spoke, the more apparent the difference between his rigid spirit and Lenora’s care-free one became. I wasn’t surprised they had a difficult relationship- their personalities were as different as night and day.

  The food finally arrived, so he came over to the counter to sit by me so that we could start eating. He turned on the television then and at first I didn’t pay attention to what was airing until I glanced at him, and saw that his expression was frozen. I turned to the television to see what had shocked him, and in the minutes that followed, I knew enough.