Beloved Liar (The Reed Rivers Trilogy 3)

Georgina chuckles. “You poor thing. You really thought I’d leave you for telling Henn?”

“Georgina, when it comes to you, I never know what you’re going to do. And I know we’re only just beginning to rebuild trust. I don’t want there to be any reason for you to doubt me, ever.”

She presses her forehead against mine. “Don’t cheat on me. Don’t lie to me. Don’t you dare smack me. But anything else, we’ll work it out. I’m not going anywhere, ever.”

Again, I breathe a sigh of relief. “Don’t cheat on me. Don’t lie to me. Feel free to smack me, any time. Especially in bed. But, please, for the love of all things holy, do not put a scratch on my Bugatti.”

“Deal.” She kisses my cheek and returns to her chair. “So, did Henn find something useful?”

“He did. And what he found led him to hacking the principal of your high school and another guy—a renowned criminal defense attorney named Steven Price. AKA the father of the Price Brothers: Brody, Brendan, and Benjamin.”

“I remember Brody. He was a year behind me. The star quarterback. I don’t remember his brothers, though.”

“You wouldn’t. Brendan was two years behind Brody, and Benjamin a year behind him, so you were long gone by the time the two younger Price brothers got their starting quarterback gigs.”

“What does the father of the Price brothers have to do with Gates?”

“Steven Price confidentially paid hush money to two female students who’d been assaulted by Gates.”

Georgina gasps.

“There might be more victims besides those two other girls and you. Maybe more girls, like you, who told nobody. But, thanks to Henn, we know, for sure, there were at least three total girls, including you. One before you. One after you. The before you was a sixteen-year-old named Katrina Ibarra. Gates raped her a year and a half before he tried to rape you.”

“Oh my God.”

“It was smack in the middle of football season, when scouts from all the top colleges were actively trying to recruit Brody Price. Hence, the motivation for Steven Price to keep that information from coming out and disrupting his son’s football program.”

“This is... crazy.”

“The second girl, the one after you, was a fifteen-year-old named Penny Kaling. It’s not clear exactly the nature of Gates’ sexual assault of her. All we know, for sure, from some text messages, is that Gates forced himself on Penny in some way, and she was scared and ashamed and extremely upset about it the next day.”

Georgina looks ashen. “You realize what this means, right? If I’d reported Gates, I could have saved Penny from whatever happened to her.”

“Not necessarily. Katrina reported him and it got her nowhere. She told a teacher, who told the principal, who then called Katrina and Gates into his office for separate interviews. After those interviews, the principal, in his infinite wisdom, determined Katrina’s claim ‘wasn’t credible.’ And that was that. He swept it under the rug and didn’t send it up the flagpole to anyone else.”

“How is that possible?”

I shrug. “Gates denied all wrongdoing, and the principal believed him. Gates said Katrina was an unstable girl with a crush who’d thrown herself at Gates and gotten rejected—and, now, she was getting back at him. Lucky for Gates, Katrina wasn’t a star pupil. She’d been suspended the prior year for plagiarism. Plus, she was known for being a ‘drama queen’ after a couple breakups. So, the principal decided it was a ‘he said, she said’ situation, where the accuser wasn’t credible, and the accused was a ‘well-respected and admired pillar of our community.’ Oh, and by the way, the football team was having an undefeated season at this point.”

Georgina hangs her head. “I should have known he’d do it to someone else.”

“Look at me, Georgina. You were seventeen and in survival mode. If you’d said something, I doubt it would have made a difference. There were no witnesses to your assault, any more than there were to Katrina’s. If you’d accused Gates of trying to rape you, maybe those mean girls from the newspaper class would have come forward to say you’d always had a ‘thing’ for Mr. Gates. Maybe you would have been labeled a ‘drama queen,’ the same as Katrina. Has there ever been a time in high school when you lost your temper, or maybe got highly emotional, or displayed some sort of behavior Gates or the principal could have pointed to in order to paint you as an ‘overly emotional’ and ‘unstable’ drama queen, too?”

“Well, of course. I was a teenage girl who wound up breaking down every year on the anniversary of her mother’s death.”

“Well, there you go.”

Georgina sighs. “So, how did Steven Price get involved?”

“Gates contacted him and told him some ‘crazy’ girl was making accusations against him. At the time, Brody was being courted by the best colleges in the country. So, Steven Price told Gates not to worry about it. He’d take care of it. And he did. He paid Katrina off. Well, Katrina and her mother, since Katrina was a minor.”