Kat rises to her feet. She crosses the room on her high, square heels. She spins, faces them both as they sit on the edge of the sofa. “The contents of that NDA make it pretty clear Annabelle Wentworth knew the truth of what happened that night. Probably because Daisy knew the truth of what happened that night. And so did the other rich boys and girls. And you know what hurts me most? That my mother never told me what she signed. I was devastated when she suggested we just make it all go away because we could never win against people like you. She coached me into keeping quiet. She said if I made a fuss, you might sue us for defamation or something—I imagine this was Annabelle’s threat to my mom. And my mother probably never told my father, either. He was old school. Old morals. My pregnancy, my accusations of assault, the fact I was drinking—I became a disgrace to him. My father disrespected me. He was disgusted by me. He heard everyone say I was a liar, a drunk little whore who threw myself at ‘JonJon’ Rittenberg and the other boys, and who got pregnant and tried to defend my promiscuity by crying rape.” Kat reaches for what looks like a television remote on the bar counter.
“And when I did get rid of the baby, my uterus was ruptured. I got an infection. And I could never have kids again.”
She presses a button on the remote. A huge television screen rises slowly like a phoenix from a white block of concrete. She hits PLAY.
Jumpy, grainy footage from the night at the ski lodge party fills the screen. The sound of laughter, jeering, music fills the house. Kat turns the volume up.
Jon’s jaw drops. He feels bile surge to his throat.
“Turn it off!” Daisy lurches to her feet. “Just stop it. Now.”
Kat hits PAUSE.
“What do you want?” Daisy’s words come fast. “Just tell us what you want.”
“Remember the newspaper headlines, Jon?” Kat asks. “They read, ‘It Never Happened.’ Tell me it did happen. Admit it. To my face. You raped me. You and your friends drugged and gang-raped me. I want to hear you say it.”
Jon’s gaze shoots in desperation to Daisy. He thinks of all the things Kat has already done to him. He’s terrified what she will do next. She’s crazy. Insane. He needs to buy time. They must placate her, get out of this house, and then figure out how to stop this, how to make her go away.
“Fine,” Jon says slowly. “It happened. You can see it happened by that footage. It was in the heat of the moment. We were all drunk, high from the day’s race events, our wins, our own sense of glory and power. Things went sideways. They went wrong. I’m sorry. Just tell us what you want.”
“Nine hundred thousand dollars.”
“What?” Jon blinks.
“She said she wants nine hundred thousand dollars, Jon.” Daisy’s voice is strangely calm. Her neck is wire tight, her mouth a thin line.
“That’s impossible,” Jon says.
Kat says, “I’d like it transferred directly from your CityIntraBank account to my CityIntraBank account. It’s an intrabank transfer. It can be done via this tablet here.” Katarina picks an iPad up from the bar counter, and she comes over to Jon. She holds the tablet out to him. “I’ve pulled up the bank website. And I’ve already alerted my account manager that I will be receiving a gift from the father of my child. It’s been cleared. All you have to do is open up your account page and make the transfer.”
“That’s absurd. My child? That’s a lie—”
“Is it, though?”
Jon moistens his lips. “I don’t have that kind of money. Not immediately accessible. Not—”
“Pay it, Jon,” Daisy says quietly.
He spins to Daisy. Her eyes are ice cold. Her face is all tight and ugly in its puffy thickness.
“Pay it,” she whispers.
“We don’t have the assets. We—”
“Pay it from our joint US dollar account. Pay it now. Do as she says.”
“Daisy—this is—”
“I believe her. She’ll send this footage to the media. It’ll go to the police. You saw what’s on there. And all those other guys who were present—you can see their faces. They can be identified. They’ll be named, too, after all these years. They also have jobs and kids and wives and lives, and mark my words, they will fight their damnedest to protect those things. They will smell blood in the water, and they’ll turn on you. They’ll do deals and testify against you. Pay that nine hundred K and you might save yourself from prison. You might get to see the birth of our son.”
“What the fuck did you keep that footage for, Daisy? This is your damn fault. Without it we would not be sitting here at this bitch’s mercy. Where did you get it anyway?”
“From one of your friends. I saw him recording at the party. I demanded his phone. I copied his recording to mine and made him delete his.”
“You copied it?”
She swallows.
“Why?”
Kat says, “Like mother, like daughter. She likes to keep insurance on her questionable man. With insurance she has leverage. She can make things go her way. I guess you never realized, Jon, how she controls you. She is in charge of everything in your relationship. She and her family and their money.”
“If we pay you now,” he snaps, “how can we be sure you won’t come back?”
“You can’t be.”
Every fiber of Jon’s being screams to attack this woman. Just shred and obliterate her, make her go away. Forever. So she can never rise again in his future.
“I want that video,” he says.
“Don’t be stupid, Jon,” Daisy snaps. “There could be any number of copies out there now. Buy her silence. It’s worked before.”
“Yet here she is, back again for more.” He spins to face Katarina. “I will kill you,” he says. “I will fucking kill you if you even think of coming back. I—”
“Remember, everything you’re saying now is being recorded, Jon,” Kat says. She nods at the tablet. “Transfer the money.”
Jon takes the tablet. Sweating, he punches in the password for his online account. He tells himself that the instant he leaves this house, he’ll go back online and attempt to reverse the transfer. His mobile pings. He checks his phone, then copies the code he was sent by the bank. He smells fear on himself. Acrid. Mixed with old alcohol from the day’s drinking at the park. He glances at Daisy.
Her eyes are flint. “Do it,” she says.
He inhales and asks Kat for her account details. She gives them. He enters the information, punches in the amount. He hesitates, then hits “Transfer.”
“Thank you, Jon.” Kat reaches for the laptop. She seats herself and taps away on the iPad.
“What are you doing?” Jon asks.
“Just transferring it to my offshore account. Don’t worry. Like I said, I did go into the bank ahead of time and clear all the details with my account manager. The bank is anticipating the transfer. Just imagine how much you might have had to pay in child support, education, medical costs. Not only for my baby if it was proved to be yours, but for Charley’s, too.” She hits a final button, glances up. “Or if I sued you in civil court, as I still can do, especially with this evidence now, I reckon that given what you did to me, how you destroyed my physical health, threatened my parents, the ensuing mental trauma, the stress, the loss of my own education and a chance for me to earn a more lucrative living, I’d get more than nine hundred K. Plus you’d incur legal costs. And there would be the press. So much press. Imagine the headlines: ‘Gold medalist, national ski hero, ex-Olympian, admits to gang-raping Whistler schoolgirl with members of ski team.’ Then he and his girlfriend’s family—TerraWest founder Labden Wentworth and top Realtor Annabelle Wentworth—tried to thwart justice? Consider this a simple solution.” She holds his gaze. “Consider this the justice that the system denied me.”