Page 143 of The First Gentleman

“Do you know anything about Hanover twenty years ago? What it was like to be a skinny Black girl from Barbados? Nobody was going to listen to me.”

“I know about Hanover. I was there not long after you were. I know what it’s like to get the wrong kind of attention. Or no attention at all.” Bob Woodward’s comment about interviews suddenly comes to mind: “Let the silence suck out the truth.”

Slowly, it comes…

“I went to the homecoming bonfire with some other first-year students from my dorm and had some vodka shots. Then somebody brought us all to a party off campus. I barely knew anyone there and I lost track of the people I came with.”

“They left you there alone?”

Clarke shrugs. “People kept handing me drinks. I remember the music was really loud and I started feeling woozy. I was sitting on a sofa with my head between my knees. Then I felt a hand on my back. I heard a guy asking me if I was okay. I said I needed to lie down, which I know was a totally stupid thing to say.”

“Not if you’re about to get sick.”

“I look up and see a guy in a Big Green football jersey. It wasn’t until days later that I figured out it was Cole Wright. He picked me up like he was carrying a baby. I felt like I was floating. I didn’t even know where we were going until he put me down on a bed. I was kind of in and out. Room spinning, that old cliché.”

My pulse is racing. “What did he do next?”

“He put a blanket over me and left.”

“He didn’t…”

“He didn’t touch me. It was somebody else.”

“You’re sure it wasn’t Cole?”

“Yes. Cole was so big he filled a door frame. This guy was smaller. I thought maybe it was his room, so I started to get up and apologize for being in there. Then he came over and started kissing me. I told him I was feeling sick. And he said something like ‘I’ll make you feel better.’ Then he pulled the blanket down and got on top of me. I struggled, but I was about ninety pounds, all arms and legs. He pinned me down and he covered my mouth with one hand and he pulled up my dress with the other… and he raped me.”

“Eva, I’m so sorry that happened to you. Did you ever see the guy’s face? Do you know who it was?”

It takes her a few seconds to answer.

“I didn’t then. I do now.” She looks right at me. “He works in the White House. His name is Burton Pearce.”

CHAPTER

129

Kingston, New Hampshire

The whole drive back to the hotel, I’m seething.Goddamn Burton Pearce!

I’m thinking back to him calling me with his condolences after Garrett died. Giving me his private number. Playing Mr. Nice Guy. Bastard!

I wonder how Eva Clarke will sleep tonight. Is she relieved that somebody else finally knows her secret? Or is she worried about the whole world finding out?

In the hotel parking lot, I turn off the engine and open the Subaru’s door, then reach over to grab my backpack.

As soon as I start to get out, somebody rips it off my shoulder.

I see two figures closing in. I raise my arms and start swinging wildly.

Somebody grabs my wrists and pins them against the roof of the car. “Brea! Stop it!”

My watchers!

The woman has my backpack. Her arm is inside it, digging deep. “Just making sure you don’t have a gun in here.”

The man has my wrists. “I’m letting you go now,” he says. “Do not run.”

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