Page 51 of Kiss Me Now
“I don’t buy it,” I confirmed. “Why does a guy like that, married with a high-profile job, even have affairs?” I knew the answer. This was a test to see if Sherrie did.
“Childhood wounds, maybe. Power, definitely.”
“Bingo. Rink likes power. To him, seducing women is part of that. That instinct doesn’t go away because you’re caught.”
“It just finds a new hunting ground?”
“Yep.” My voice was grim as I thought about what Brooke must have gone through to only be getting back to work now, two years after her time working for the senator, and in a totally unrelated career. How many more young women had been victims of the senator before her and even since?
“So you think that Rink settled with Brooke Spencer to buy her silence about an affair?”
My eyes snapped to Sherrie’s. “I think it’s worse than an affair. That’s why it’s time to check in with the whisper network.”
“Wait, boss. You had me looking into herbeforewe caught this case. It’s an awfully big coincidence that we suddenly get to investigate Rink, isn’t it?”
“What have I taught you about coincidences, Sherrie?”
“That there are none.” She gave me a long look. “You’re a little bit scary.”
I gave her an easy smile. “Only if you’re a bad guy.”
She answered with a low laugh. “All right, then. Teach me how to crack the whisper network.”
For the next half-hour, I showed her how I’d combed through the Spilled Tea blog then met with Brandon himself to confirm my suspicions. But I also showed her how to comb through social media for staff photos from years past in Rink’s office, then to trace the women pictured through social media posts, sifting for clues that any of them may have had the same experience that Brooke did.
“I’ll reach out to his former chiefs of staff to see if I get anywhere with them, but chances are slim,” I told her. “They have a lot to lose by speaking out if they were aware of this kind of behavior during their time on his staff.”
“But you think this kind of thing definitely went on?”
I considered the question. “The alternative is that Rink put his predatory tendencies on ice for twenty years and Brooke Spencer was too tempting for him.” In a weird way, I sort of got that. She’d had a strong effect on me in a very short time. “But the reality is, these types of impulses and patterns are pretty ingrained, and a US senator has very few people attempting to keep him in bounds. It’s more likely that he grew sneaky rather than that he reformed.”
“Unfortunately, I think you’re right. I’m already stressed about how many more victims we’ll find,” Sherrie said.
“Comfort yourself that this ends with stopping him cold.”
She nodded and rose. “I’ve got a lot of research to do.”
“Keep me posted.”
When I reported to Don Schill before heading home, the only thing I could say definitively was that based on Sherrie’s research, Rink had a tendency to hire beautiful, young women as junior staffers. There was nothing concrete yet, but Rink’s hiring pattern alone told me that we would eventually find evidence. And when we did, Rink would pay.
