Page 19 of Second Act
“Violet, you don’t have to tell me, but I’ve been wondering, how much of the story is true?”
“Does it matter?” She glanced at him cautiously and he shook his head.
“No, not technically. I was just curious. Some of it seems so real. Dash mentioned it too.”
She didn’t answer for several minutes, and he thought she wasn’t going to. “A lot of it is,” she finally said. “Most of it, but not all. I changed some things and left out others. And the end is entirely fictional.”
“It’s a great ending,” he said. “The whole story is great, and how you laid it out. The tension you built into it is incredible. Dash couldn’t stop reading till he finished it. Neither could I.” Violet started to walk more slowly as she answered him. There was a faraway look in her eyes, and an expression of bottomless sadness that tore at his heart. They sat down on the tiny pebbles on the beach side by side, close to each other, and she looked out to sea.
“His name was Gabriel Foster. He was a genius and came up with an incredible investment system. People were making money in enormous quantities, and so was he. He made billions, literally. He became a billionaire practically overnight. Everyone in the financialworld was talking about it. I was a reporter atThe Sunday Timesthen, in my first job, and they assigned me to interview him. He was already living here, in seclusion, and I came to see him. And he was everything people said about him. Gabriel is a genius, truly. He has an incredible mind. He’s completely twisted, but you don’t see it at first—all you see, and feel, is the amazing charisma. He sweeps you away with him. You believe everything he says. He’s like a magnet, drawing people to him. People begged him to take their money and invest it, and he did.
“I wound up staying for the weekend to finish the interview. It was the most unbelievable, magical three days of my life. I went back to London and wrote the article, and my editors were thrilled. I knew every detail about him, or thought I did. Later, I found out that everything he told me about his history was a lie. Eton, Cambridge. He grew up in a slum in Liverpool. He’s so convincing, he makes everyone believe him. He’d been married and divorced twice and lied about that too.
“And he came after me then. After I wrote the article, he pursued me and courted me and swept me off my feet. He was like a tidal wave. He wanted me and he wouldn’t take no for an answer. My parents were already dead by then, I have no family, and I had no one to talk to about him. My girlfriends thought he was fabulous, four dozen roses nearly every day, a diamond bracelet, weekends in the South of France, a trip to Italy, another trip to New York.
“One very old editor at theTimestold me to be careful, that men like Gabriel were dangerous. I thought she was crazy and a bitter old woman. She was right, of course. He was dangerous, but I didn’t see it then, or for a long time. I married him four months later, on ayacht he chartered in the Caribbean. It was a fairy-tale ending in my rather mundane life as a junior reporter, with very little money remaining of what my father had left me, and three roommates. I moved down here a few weeks before we got married. He was still putting the finishing touches on the house.” She turned to look at Andy then, as he listened raptly and didn’t interrupt her. He sensed a frightening tale unraveling, and he had read the manuscript. This had a familiar ring to it. “The house you’re renting was Gabe’s house. We lived there for eight years. That’s how I knew the secret panel in the library.” It made sense to him now. He nodded and didn’t comment. It was how she knew the housekeeper, who was so fond of her.
“Everything was perfect for the first year. Totally, completely, absolutely perfect. I was madly in love with Gabriel, and he was wonderful to me. The money was rolling in. I never worked with him, so I didn’t know how his system worked. He couldn’t seem to lose money, only multiply it endlessly. We had security guards to keep people away from the house. He wanted a baby, and so did I, and I got pregnant right away. We had a son, Liam. We both adored him.” Andy didn’t like the past tense she was using and watched her face closely, but her eyes were softened by the memories she was reliving.
“Everything stayed perfect for four years, or seemed that way. Gabriel isolated me from my friends and said he wanted me to himself. He invested the little money I had left, and of course I lost it like everyone else. He always had a plausible explanation and an excuse. He made every lie seem like the truth. I know he had some sort of business problems after our first four years, but I never knew thedetails. He went to Malta quite a lot, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, all the places where people hide money, or did then. Some of that has changed. He didn’t seem worried, and then I overheard some conversations, and I knew. I figured out that his whole structure and scheme was crooked. It was a scam. Gabe was cheating people out of billions of dollars, smart people with enormous fortunes who gave him millions to invest, and little people who gave him everything they had. That was the worst part of it. Rich or poor, he left them all penniless in the end, including me. Several people committed suicide once he was exposed and they found they had nothing left.
“By our fifth anniversary, I knew Gabe was totally dishonest, a criminal. I confronted him, and I wanted to leave him. He turned into someone I had never known before then. He threatened to kill me and Liam if I exposed him, and I think he would have. He loved our son, but he had too much at stake to let me expose him. Liam was four. I couldn’t put him at risk, so I stayed. I had no choice. Gabe went on stealing from people, more and more as he got deeper in. There was some suspicion about him then, but not much, and he always managed to turn it around. I was trapped for three years, knowing what he was, and held hostage to protect our son. He bought a castle in the north of England, and we spent Christmas there. I hated it. It was a depressing place. It snowed and Liam loved it. We built a snowman together, with a top hat.” Her voice grew raw as she said it, and instinctively Andy took her hand and held it, to hold her back from the abyss of her memories. He was sorry he had asked her about the story and made her relive it for him.
“Gabriel took Liam out for a drive on Boxing Day, the day afterChristmas. They were going to go ice-skating on a frozen pond. Gabe was driving one of his Ferraris, he had many, and he loved to drive fast. Liam loved it too. The car spun on the ice and hit a tree. Gabe hadn’t put Liam’s seat belt on—he went through the windshield and was killed instantly. Gabe wasn’t hurt.” She choked on a sob then, and Andy pulled her into his arms and held her as she cried.
“You don’t have to tell me the rest,” he said gently.
“Yes, I do,” she said, sobbing. “I want you to know about Liam. He was such a beautiful little boy and I loved him so much. You asked me if I had children, and I said no. But I did. I had Liam.” Andy held her until she could speak again.
“I had nothing to lose after that. Liam was gone, and I didn’t care if Gabe killed me. I would have welcomed it. I had nothing left to live for. I went to the police the day of the funeral and told them everything. They believed me. I never went back to him. The police protected me and put me in a safe house. Gabe ran for a while, but they caught him very quickly. It was a huge story in the news for a long time. He went to prison, for forty years. Ten of it is for manslaughter, for not putting Liam’s seat belt on. That was three years ago. I hadn’t been in the house again until I came to interview with you. I didn’t want to be there, but I needed the money and you were so nice, and you seemed in a bad way, and I felt bad for you. I thought maybe you had lost someone you loved too, and then I read on the internet about what happened to you. I never go upstairs, I just stay on the main floor.” Andy realized that was true, and he felt terrible about the pain he had put her through just being there. “I can be in the house now, it’s okay. I’m better. It’s been three years. Italways stays with you, but the pain becomes livable. I was lucky to have Liam at all, even for seven years.
“At first, after he died, I wanted to die too. But then somehow, you put one foot in front of the other, you wake up the next day, and another, months go by and then years, and you’re still alive and somehow you make sense of it. The time around the trial was awful, and the police could have charged me as an accessory because once I knew that he was a criminal, I didn’t report it, but I was his wife, and because he had threatened me and our son, they didn’t press charges. I changed back to my maiden name because he was and is the most hated man in England and he hurt so many people. I feel terrible about the people I hurt by not reporting him sooner, but I couldn’t risk my son. Once he was gone, I had nothing to lose anymore, so I did. I thought for a while he’d have me killed for exposing him, after he went to prison. The best lawyers in the country couldn’t save him, but it would trace too easily to him if he had me killed. He’s already in prison for forty years. I suppose he doesn’t want to make it any longer than it is. I haven’t seen Gabe since the day of Liam’s funeral. They didn’t make me testify at the trial, since I was his wife. But they read my statement, and there were so many others, they didn’t need me. Those poor people, thousands of them lost all their money. We lost everything too. But we didn’t deserve to have it anyway. I gave them everything, jewelry, most of my clothes, anything that was mine and he’d given me, and they took everything of his. It will all be part of the sale. That’s why no one has bought the house in three years. It was all built with ill-gotten gains, and no one wants the association with it. I suppose a foreigner willhave to buy it, someone like you.” She smiled at him, and wiped away her tears.
“I wouldn’t want it either, knowing all this.” Andy thought suddenly of the children’s toys and furniture he had seen in one of the upstairs storerooms. They were Liam’s. And all of their seized possessions had been boxed up.
“Violet, are you sure you want to sell this story for a movie?” They were still huddled close together on the beach, and he had an arm around her, holding her tight. There was no child in the story she had written. That would have been too much for her. And she had left some other things out, but there were strong similarities to her own story, which was why it was so powerful and so mesmerizing.
“I think I need to tell it. Writing it freed me. I want to make the movie, and maybe a book from it after that. Can we dedicate the movie to Liam?” she asked quietly, and he held her even closer.
“Of course. I’ll tell Dash. Violet, you’re the bravest woman I’ve ever known.” She had lived through hell for years with a monster, and an even deeper hell ever since she lost her son. There was no coming back from it. She would never hold her little boy in her arms again. Andy had no idea how she had survived it and was still able to walk and talk and live and breathe and work, and write the story. It had probably been cathartic, but that was small consolation. He was overwhelmed with the enormity of her loss, and suddenly ashamed of how devastated he had been and how sorry for himself over his own losses. He had lost a job, not a child. His ego had been wounded, not his heart. He had never respected anyone more than he did Violet at that moment. They sat together side by side for along time, looking out to sea, and she rested her head on his shoulder. She deserved all the good in the world now. But no matter what he did to help her, it would never bring Liam back. She had to live with the loss forever.
Andy realized too that he had led a charmed life until now, and nothing bad had ever happened to him, except losing his parents, which had been in the normal order of the universe, and not a tragedy. Violet had been through the worst things anyone could go through: betrayal, terror, threat, fear for her own life and her son’s, being hostage to a criminal for three years, and losing her boy. Nothing Andy had experienced even remotely compared to it, and he wished he could make it up to her, but he couldn’t, except by being there for her, and doing what he could for her now. It was the least he could do for another human being. They had crossed into different territory that afternoon, and he knew when they stood up and walked back to the house together that he loved her.
—
Andy drove Violet back to her tiny, dilapidated cottage that night. Neither of them wanted dinner. He hugged her again and she got out of the car. It seemed wrong yet again that she was living in poverty, nearly in squalor, while he was living in the luxury and comfort of her old home. But that house was tainted for her now, and even for him. He was sorry he had rented it, even though it was so comfortable. He hoped it sold so she could try to forget about it. But she seemed to have made her peace with it, although he knew she must have countless memories of her baby there, and the first happy yearsof her marriage, while Gabriel Foster had still been able to fool her. But the unhappy memories far outweighed the tender ones.
He watched the light go on in her cottage. He hadn’t told her about his newborn feelings for her, because it seemed wrong in the context of what she had shared with him, and he didn’t want to take advantage of her. He didn’t know if the time would ever be right to tell her. But at least he could do whatever he could, and make life easier for her now.
Her story had put his own unhappiness into context. He had lost power, and a job. It had been exciting and exhilarating, even thrilling, and flattering for nineteen years, but it wasn’t who he was. His job didn’t define him. He felt humbled as he drove back to the house. The house had ghosts in it now for him too, a little boy who had died at seven, his life cut so short, a criminal brilliant to the point of genius who had destroyed countless lives, and one incredibly brave, honorable woman who had managed to survive with unimaginable courage and the love and memory of a little boy. He hated how cruel life had been to her, but maybe he could make it up to her somehow. For now, it was his only goal.
Chapter 10
In spite of the emotional revelations of the day before, Violet came to work on time in the morning. She looked tired when she saw Andy, but she felt totally at ease with him now. He knew all her secrets and had seen the scars, but only saw her inner beauty. She was a shining example to him.
He looked tired too when he met her in the study and smiled at her. He had hardly slept the night before, but he was thinking clearly, and knew what he wanted to do. He needed her agreement and then he planned to call Dash. He still had some qualms about her exposing a story that ran so close to the truth, and someone was bound to make the connection at some point, but she wanted to do it, to honor Liam, and he couldn’t argue with that.
He brought her a cup of tea the way he knew she liked it when he came to the study, and stretched out his long legs in one of the big leather chairs when he sat down.
