Page 22 of Inside the Maelstrom: Part Two
Still, there were the odd little improvements which let you know an architect lived here. One of them was the atrium hallway. As we walked along, I was able to look up at the night sky and stare at the stars. Well, the ones you could see through the light pollution. I imagined it’d be beautiful during the day as well, giving light to the rooms.
The office was another place that definitely had an architect's touch, with a huge window replacing an entire wall so you looked out over a park across the road, and beyond that, the bay.
The desk was glass, and the room minimalist except for a large drafting table and a multifunction printer.
Otto typed some things into its touch screen, then pointed to the top feeder. “Put them all in there. It’ll suck them through and send them off all at once.”
Hendrick headed to the wet bar in the corner, pouring himself a small snifter of scotch, leaving us by the printer. I opened the first file and was confronted with X-rays, the break in the arm easy to see. The notes went into the scanner next, including doctor’s comments about Hendrick saying he fell down the stairs, and his father supporting it. There were notes about reporting to CPS, but obviously nothing came of that.
File after file was like this, and now I knew why they wanted me to load the documents. They wanted me to see the sordid history of Hendrick’s childhood without him having to talk about it.
I frowned as the years on the files got later and began to be interspersed with psychiatrist notes, about Hendrick’s bipolar and his ‘delusions’ regarding his father, as well as notes from other psychiatrists which stated very blatantly that Hendrick was being abused.
He watched me intently, like he was cataloging my reactions. “You can tell the ones who were being paid for by my family, compared to the ones I saw the moment I got access to my inheritance and could pay for my own. The opinions differ wildly between the two.”
Hell yeah, they did. It was like the reports were about two different people. But the emergency room files didn’t stop, though the excuses were less accidental and more focused on Hendrick hurting himself, either through lack of regard for his body, or through mental illness.
A cut on his head was blamed on a drunken fall down nightclub steps. A knife gash on his upper arm that needed stitches was blamed on a bar fight. Infected cigar burn was self-harm and not abuse.
The longer I fed those files through the copier, the sicker I felt. When I looked up at Hendrick’s uncharacteristically somber face, I couldn’t keep the tears out of my eyes. “Hendrick…” But I didn’t know what to say.
My mental illness didn’t stem from abuse; my parents had loved me. Arguably, neither did Hendrick’s; he could have come from a family as loving as Otto’s and still had bipolar, because it was a disease. But no one could argue that it hadn’t been made exponentially worse by the years of torture he’d suffered at the hands of his abusive father, and a mother who didn’t—or couldn’t—care.
Hendrick drew me against his body and held me tight, like I was his last lifeline to the world. “Never again, Aviva. Never.”
No, never again. Not as long as I drew breath.
Chapter13
Hendrick
I’d bared all my ugly parts to her, and she was still here. It was a fucking miracle. Last night, I’d spent the night pressed against her body, my best friend and lover on the other side of the bed, and I wondered briefly if Fate didn’t hate me after all.
Well, things were about to get uglier, and I hoped Fate remembered I was a nice guy and that she liked me now.
Why? Because the tabloids had found out I’d gotten married. It was bound to happen. It was publicly available information, and I had no doubt that one of the courthouse employees had recognized me. The information was probably worth a couple of hundred bucks, at least.
I slid silently from the bed and crept down the hallway so my phone blowing up didn’t wake up Otto and Aviva. The sun had barely risen, but Evan was awake, sitting on the couch and watching the news. He turned to look at me, a piece of toast halfway to his mouth.
“Have you seen this?” He waved his breakfast at the television like it was a pointer, and I walked over to the back of the couch so I could see. It wasn’t surprising journalism by any stretch though.
Hendrick Kenley’s Shock Wedding.
I flicked the channel.
Kenley’s Courthouse Dash: Pregnant?
I snorted at that one. It was all bullshit that I’d been expecting, though it would probably be a little confrontational to Aviva.
One story caught my eye, though—a shot of us leaving the club the night before we left for London. I had my hand on her spine, and there was a close personal source commenting that I was being played by a mystery woman.
Yeah, three guesses as to who that close personal source was.
“Are they outside?”
Evan nodded. “Started rolling up at five a.m. Just in case you’d been bodysnatched and decided to go for a run before dawn.”
I vaulted over the back of the couch, landing with a thump beside him. “Funny, asshole.”
