spell out exactly what I’d feared for so many years made me hesitate, and I considered stepping back. Letting Danielle and Charlie’s evidence do all the work. No one needed to hear the details of my abuse in order to lay Maggie Moretti’s death at Rory’s feet.
And yet, I knew that if I didn’t, I’d be destined to live and relive moments like the one on the bridge. I would never be truly free if I scurried away to hide under another rock. I’d be complicit in Rory’s abuse as long as I continued to protect him. The world didn’t need to hear my story, but I needed to tell it. “I understand,” I told her.
“Live in five seconds,” someone says.
“Good evening.” Kate’s voice fills my earpiece, as if she’s sitting right next to me. “In the last hour, attorneys for Rory Cook, head of the Cook Family Foundation and son of the late Senator Marjorie Cook, have been fielding requests for questioning related to the death of Maggie Moretti, who died twenty-seven years ago on a Cook family property. But even more extraordinary is the fact that authorities received this information via Mr. Cook’s wife, previously believed to have perished on Flight 477. CNN has discovered that she is alive and living in California. We have her here now, via satellite, to discuss the accusations against her husband and why she felt she had to hide. Mrs. Cook, so good to see you.”
The light on the camera in front of me illuminates, and the director points at me. I fight the urge to reach up and touch my hair, aware of how different I look. “Thank you, Kate. It’s good to be here.” My voice sounds lonely in the empty space, and I try to stay focused on the television monitor that shows a background of the San Francisco skyline behind me.
“Mrs. Cook, tell us what happened and how you came to be here today.”
Now that I’m here, I can see that it was always going to come to this. For too long, I believed my voice alone wouldn’t be enough. That nobody would want to hear the truth and step in to help. But when I needed it most, three women showed up. First Eva, then Danielle, and finally, Charlie. If we don’t tell our own stories, we’ll never take control of the narrative.
I square my shoulders and look directly into the camera, feeling the terror of the last hour, the stress of the past week, and the fear of the past ten years slipping off me, now nothing more than the faint whisper of a shadow.
“As you know, my husband comes from a very powerful family, with unlimited resources. But what you don’t know is that our marriage was a difficult one. For the cameras, he was charming and dynamic, but behind closed doors, he became violent, triggered without warning. The world saw us as a happy and committed team, but beneath the veneer, I was in crisis. Guarding my secrets. Trying to do better, to be better. Desperate to live up to the impossible standards my husband set for me, terrified when I couldn’t.
“Like many women in this situation, I was stuck in a cycle of abuse for years. Afraid to anger him, afraid to speak up, afraid that if I did, no one would believe me. Living like that breaks a person down, one tiny piece at a time, until you can’t see the truth in anything or anyone. He’d isolated me from anyone I might have gone to for help. I’d tried before to leave him. To tell the truth of my marriage. But powerful men make powerful enemies, and no one wanted Rory Cook as an enemy. The only way out that I could see, that didn’t involve public scandal or a prolonged court battle, was to simply disappear.”
“But a plane crash?”
“That was a tragic coincidence. I wasn’t supposed to be on that plane to Puerto Rico. I planned to disappear in Canada. A last-minute scheduling change derailed everything. But then I met a woman at the airport willing to trade tickets with me.” I think about the people still looking for Eva and deliver my line. “Unfortunately, she perished instead of me, and I will forever be grateful to her, for giving me the chance to escape.”
“Tell us what you were escaping from.”
I imagine Rory somewhere, called to the television to watch the resurrection of his dead wife, rage pounding through him