Page 102 of Holding On to a Hero
Cole gently shouldered himself between Will and the woman. She glared at him, but it wasn't very intimidating from her position on the ground.
"Look, lady," Cole started in a just-the-facts way. "You don't seem to have thought this whole hiding-your-identity thing through." He gestured toward the street and pitched his voice lower. “Look at all of those people with their phones out. They know who I am and they’re live-streaming this right now. Maybe you’re lucky and they don’t have a clear shot of your face yet. But that’s going to change as soon as the police publish your booking photo and request help to identify the woman who put Cole Washburn in the hospital." Suddenly the woman looked uncertain. Callahan and Ochoa exchanged grins.
Cole continued. "And if you think the police and the Texas Rangers have investigative resources, well, they've got nothing on the gossip sites. TMZ or the like will have your name before you’ve even talked to your lawyer. And sure, they'll tell the cops who you are, butoops! Not before they've put your name and life story up on the internet with a big 'Exclusive' headline over it." He nodded at her. "That's right. Your family and friends will get hounded for quotes before they even know what you've done. Don't you think it’d be easier on them for you to just tell the nice detectives who you are and why you hate Will so much?"
The woman dropped her gaze to the grass beneath her for a moment. I snaked my uninjured arm around Will’s waist and he leaned into me while we waited. The woman raised her head again and said proudly, "It was all for Stuart. I did it all for him. I wasn’t going to let you ruin everything."
I felt Will stiffen. He struggled to speak for a few seconds and then managed, "Are you – are you talking about StuartLacosta? Myex? From like sixyears ago?" She looked away but didn't deny it.
“But I don't understand.” Will turned to the detectives. “I haven't seen Stuart in forever. We broke up but it was amicable. And I heard he's out of the closet now. Openly bisexual." Will trailed off, shaking his head.
Suddenly the woman shouted, "He's going to be governor! Then President someday!” The words came rushing out. "The campaign consultant told me it wouldn’t hurt his chances if people found out he was bisexual because he was married to a woman. And they have kids, which is even better." Suddenly I had a feeling where this was going. I felt a wave of disbelief roll over my entire body. I couldn’t imagine what Will was feeling.
"But you, you would have told everyone that he'd been with you – a man! No one would vote for him then!" The second ambulance's siren started to draw near.
"Uh, seriously?" Will stood up straighter but didn’t move out of my arm. "You know there are lots of openly bisexual, gay, nonbinary and transgender elected officials these days, right? You almost killed me. You shot Brian, and Cole was injured. And for what? So people would think of Stuart as straight?"
Will’s chest was heaving and I could feel the tension in his shoulders. The woman said nothing, just looked away. Cole gestured for us to move toward the ambulance. "Will, she's not right in the head. There won't be any reasoning with her. The detectives can handle it from here. Let's go get Jason taken care of."
Cole pulled Will and me back to the other side of the SUV. My last glimpse of the woman – that Stuart guy’s mother? – was as Callahan and Ochoa lifted her to her feet to take her to the station for booking.
For the rest of the night, through the hospital visit, the police interviews, and even once we finally got back to Foster's house, Will kept repeating the same thing over and over:
What the fucking hell?
Epilogue
Cole
“I had no idea who was living at the ranch. I just wanted to see if someone knew how long the beavers had been living across the road.” Will’s voice was calm and confident as he told Anne Shipman about the first time he’d met me. She laughed musically at all the right places in the story; the TV audience would have no choice but to join her. No audience had been allowed in the studio with us, but the crew and production people were all grinning at the appropriate times.
Anne then asked Jason to tell the – heavily edited – story of how he and I got together, appropriately timed after Charla and I had ended our supposed relationship, and then how he’d met Will. Then I got to tell the – again, heavily edited – story of how the three of us had started dating.
“And I understand that the story we’ve all been told about you getting shot was not exactly true.” Anne gave me a gently inquiring but also chiding expression, like I’d been naughty to think we could lie to the public.
“That’s the case. Since we thought at the time I was the intended victim, the police decided not to mention that Will was the one who was shot. They were trying to keep his name out of the press and avoid possibly drawing the shooter’s attention to him.” I described how Will had pulled up to the ranch house as the shooting started and had put himself between me and the shooter as we ran to the door.
“My coma,” since we’d decided to just roll with the coma story and lord knows everything else was already too complicated, “was caused by me hitting my head on the door as Will pushed me out of the way of the bullets that would have killed me. He’d already been shot in the shoulder.” Anne looked appropriately horrified yet impressed.
Will had spoken to his ex, Stuart, yesterday morning. He was in shock over what his mother had done, and we all felt terrible for him. Will, Jason and I were trying to steer the narrative toward mental illness rather than Stuart’s mother trying to bury – literally – evidence of Stuart’s sexuality. Anne allowed us to talk about the need for more resources to be spent on mental illness and where people could go to get help, but it remained to be seen how his mother attempting to murder multiple people would affect Stuart’s election chances next year.
We wrapped up the interview and thanked Anne for letting us tell our story. Once the cameras were off, I asked her why she hadn’t asked any questions geared toward changing the public’s perception of polyamory.
She gave me ayou-poor-innocent-childlook. “Cole, what do you think we were just doing for the last forty-five minutes?”
She shook her head. “Thanks for the ratings, though. I’ll expect a follow-up when you have your first baby!” She laughed at our expressions. “Didn’t you see the story about the three men in California who were able to sue to have all of their names put on their child’s birth certificate? I can’t wait.” With that parting shot she just turned and walked away.
“Ummm,” was all I could get out as the three of us nervously eyed each other.
Jason recovered first. “Who wants to get out of here and go home?”
Epilogue
Will
Cole and Jason watched me with concern as I paced anxiously across the floor in front of my laptop. It was sitting innocuously on Jason’s grandmother’s kitchen table, but as the clock ticked down to the hour it became more and more intimidating.
“You know you don’t have to do this, right?” Jason was sweet.
