Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 93453 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 467(@200wpm)___ 374(@250wpm)___ 312(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93453 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 467(@200wpm)___ 374(@250wpm)___ 312(@300wpm)
Shocking everyone, especially the Cartwrights, who thought they were above the law, the judge granted the request and ordered Mr. and Mrs. Cartwright to produce their copy. You didn’t need to be a doctor or an expert to see the major differences between the Cartwrights’ copy of Waylon’s autopsy report and the report filed with the coroner’s office.
And lo and behold, it was all there in black and white. Waylon was indeed intoxicated. His blood alcohol level was three times the legal limit and now the entire town knew about it. The judge even ordered the Cartwrights to produce Waylon’s medical records to confirm that his blood type matched the legitimate autopsy report.
But of course, the blame was placed on the medical examiner, who—according to the Cartwrights—was not only incompetent but he chose a “low-level lab” that mixed up their son’s test results with someone else’s, and when they received a copy of the report, they didn’t bother to read it since the medical examiner said the results were negative for alcohol and drugs.
And now that they knew he was drunk, they blamed me. He drank alcohol because of me. I wasn’t good enough for him. I couldn’t make him happy, and I should have made him stop drinking. Mrs. Cartwright even spread the rumor that I was giving Waylon several bottles of whiskey from my family’s bar. That’s funny, considering he only drank vodka, which eventually was his downfall.
The truth of the matter was, the Cartwrights paid the medical examiner off because they knew Waylon was drunk. There was no financial trace of it. However, it was rather ironic that the medical examiner abruptly retired, sold his house a month after filing the autopsy report, and no one has seen hide nor hair of him since.
The Cartwrights were well aware of Waylon’s habitual drinking, and like everything else in their life, they disregarded it. Rumor was, Mrs. Cartwright made an emotional plea and requested that they refrain from desecrating her son’s body by performing an autopsy on him. I heard she put on quite a show too. She even wiped her “tears” with her silk handkerchief while clutching her Tiffany pearls. However, because Waylon was the driver and it was an ongoing investigation, her request was denied. As soon as she received that news, those fake tears dried up like the Sahara Desert. This was also probably why Waylon was cremated a week after the autopsy was performed. They didn’t need to wait on the results because they already knew what they were going to be.
The blackmail the family had done over the year was all brought to light because of me. The government contracts to build everything from the roads to high-rises were all done with an inside person who would tell them the bid to put out or would make sure there would be no other bids brought to the table.
Slowly, the cards came tumbling down.
I expected some pushback, but I wasn’t expecting the onslaught that would come my way. The Cartwrights might have taken a dip in the status department, but there were still people who stood by them, which meant I was public enemy number one. And after me was my family, who were in the direct path of their ammunition. I shouldn’t have left. I should have stayed and bore the brunt of it, but I couldn’t take it, and the last straw was when Charlie showed up at my house, drunk off his ass, and he stood there and blamed me for it all.
A couple of days later, I left with every intention to return, but one day turned into one month turned into one year, and so on. Now, here I was, still living in the shadow of being the woman who sullied a good man’s name. But tonight, all the secrets have come out. I have nothing left to give, not to the Cartwrights, not to the people who hate me, and not to Charlie Barnes. Especially not to him.
Tonight was the end of whatever the fuck was happening between us. It was the end of us hate-fucking each other. It was the end of me paying penance for something I’d already been paying for secretly. It was the end of the road for all of it. I would get up tomorrow and try to rebuild the company my father was proud of. I would bring it back to how it was before everything happened, and then I would leave, just like I did the last time. But hopefully this time I would do it in one piece and not shattered.
Chapter Nineteen
Charlie
I storm into my house, slamming the door as hard as I did Autumn’s, wondering if any of the windows will shatter. Not caring if they do. As I walk over to the cabinet on top of the fridge, I grab the bottle of whiskey, not even waiting until I’m sitting on the couch before I take a pull from it. Putting one hand on the counter, with the other one holding the bottle in my hand before I take another pull, I try to block out her voice, try to block it all out, but the words come to me louder and louder each time.