Page 30 of I Will Ruin You

This couldn’t be happening.

I went into the house in a daze, unable to get my head around the situation I found myself in. On Monday I felt myself perched on the edge of the abyss. Now I felt as though I had fallen in. I felt light-headed, almost dizzy. Like stepping into traffic without looking and having a car whip past you at sixty miles per hour, missing you by inches.

I was shell-shocked.

I wandered into the kitchen, still too fazed to consider my options. I went to the fridge for some vodka and soda and made myself a drink. Downed it and made another. I had to settle my nerves before I began to think about how to handle this.

Ten thousand dollars. By Tuesday. Four days from now.

It was ridiculous. Of course I wasn’t going to pay this man off. It was unthinkable.

Right?

I wouldn’t do it. Someone I don’t remember accuses me of something I didn’t do, and I’m supposed to hand over ten thousand dollars to him? Of course not.

And when I refused to comply, what would happen? I call his bluff. Would he really go public? Would he go to Trent? The police? The media? He’d be running an enormous risk if he did. Wouldn’t I then tell the world that he was nothing more than a common blackmailer?

Of course I would.

And people would believe me.

Except...

What proof did I have? I didn’t have our conversation recorded. There were no witnesses. It had just been the two of us. My word against his. Not only the conversation, but what he was alleging had transpired years earlier.

Shit.

None of this was as simple as it looked. When it came to an allegation like this, it didn’t matter whether there was any truth to it. Once it was out there, once it was public, it could finish you. Even if your accuser could eventually be discredited, charged, tried, and convicted of blackmail, there’d still be those who believed there was something there, some kernel of truth. Just because someone’s an extortionist doesn’t mean his story is bogus.

I could think of half a dozen celebrity cases to prove the point. That guy who made all the funny movies. That congressman from Florida. Convicted in people’s minds, even if never in a court of law. And for a teacher, well, the stakes were even higher. The rumors would be enough to end my career. They’d follow me for the rest of my life.

Again, Shit.

This could do more than finish me off. It could destroy Bonnie. It would scar Rachel.

How would Bonnie be able to continue overseeing a school, to hold a position with that level of authority, with her husband accused of molesting a student? I could imagine the attacks on her already.

If you’d cover up for your husband, you’d cover up for your staff.

If you didn’t know, you should have. And if you did, you shouldn’t be in any job where you’re working with kids.

Yeah, she’d be finished.

Rachel would be teased, ridiculed, tormented. We’d have to move her to another school. Or worse. We’d all have to move to another town, start over, find new, different jobs. And what if the accusation prompted an investigation that could remove Rachel from our home?

The potential fallout was immeasurable.

I was giving myself a nervous breakdown, imagining the various possible scenarios.

So then, what if I did pay him?

He’d made it sound like he was looking for a onetime payoff, but what was to stop him from coming back for more? I’d have to find a way to get money I didn’t have. If, at some later date, his extortion became known to the police, the big question would be: Why did you pay him off if you weren’t guilty?

If only he could step in front of a bus between now and Tuesday.

Maybe, just maybe, if I hadn’t dodged a similar bullet three years earlier, I’d have told him to fuck off, taken my chances calling his bluff.

But there was the issue of Lyall Temple.