Relatively smooth sailing.
There had been some challenges.
This video was insurance.
Smith’s husband, Raylen, was on the party’s national committee. This video would destroy them. It would hurt Sellwin too, but he was willing to play that card because his ultimate goal was the US Congress and a shot at the White House, and he was determined to get what he wanted.
Sellwin thrived, living on the edge, playing by his rules, letting nothing—and no one—get in his way.
Remembering Smith moaning and pumping astride him, he thought: I wish it was Jennifer Griffin on top of me.
Jennifer was so beautiful.
She was so many things—I bet she’s the kind of woman who likes her hands bound. Good thing I always keep—
His thoughts were interrupted by his phone—his business phone—ringing in his chest pocket.
He didn’t recognize the number but answered.
“Hello?”
“Porter Sellwin?” a woman asked.
He warmed his tone. “Yes?”
“Claire Kozak, State Police.”
He caught his breath, tensing.
“Yes, Detective Kozak.”
“Mr. Sellwin, could you meet us today at Clarence Barracks?”
“Meet you—may I ask why?”
“We have a few follow-up questions concerning Jennifer Griffin.”
Sellwin looked ahead at the highway, thinking.
“But I already talked to you, gosh, it was a while ago.”
“Yes, sir, but we’ve had a few recent developments.”
“What’s happened?”
“We’ll explain when you come in. We just need to follow up and clarify a few things. Can you meet us at the barracks this afternoon at four?”
Staring ahead, thinking for a moment.
“Yes, I’ll be there.”
After the call, he’d kept one hand on the wheel while tapping his phone to his chin with the other and thinking.
What could this be?
A memory niggled at him from the back of his mind. A text his wife had sent, something about news of a mistake.
A mistake? What was it? I’ll find the text.
His mind had been on Lyyindelle Smith and Batavia. He hadn’t been paying attention to the news. He started scrolling through his phone, keeping one eye on his driving. He couldn’t find it and he didn’t want to call his wife. He’d search news sites.
Why talk to me again about Jennifer? What do they know?
A droplet of sweat trickled down the back of his neck.
Take it easy. It’s all good. Relax.
Jennifer.
She was all he could think of.
She was a lot of things to him. She’d been a pain in the ass in the battle over the lunch program. But she was so much more. Why did she deny the truth? Over the course of all those intense late night meetings, she’d developed a thing for him. He knew it, yet when he tried to move on her, she got all gun-shy after someone spotted them. Trying to cover her ass, she ran to Bickersley to complain.
To ruin me. No way was I going to let that happen.
He’d put a stop to that.
Then, in a twist of fate, Bickersley’s on his death bed and Jennifer Griffin becomes one more thing to Sellwin.
A solved problem.
But God, what a glorious beauty.
How he’d ached to own her, to possess her.
Sellwin slid his phone in his pocket then reached to the central console for his burner—the phone where he hid all his secrets—scrolling to his private photos of Jennifer Griffin. The ones he’d taken of her without her knowledge.
He drank them in.
Why’s the car shaking?
In an instant, the right side was vibrating because Sellwin had taken his eyes off the road before going into a curve, drifting.
Now his car was leaning and thudding over the dirt and grass embankment. He twisted the wheel, overcorrecting, making it worse as the car rocked. One side became airborne, the car rolled over. Sellwin gripped the wheel, cursing, the world spinning, airbag deploying, windshield exploding, window, dirt, and grass churning, seat belt cutting into him, debris flinging in all directions, his burner phone flung from the car, catapulted dozens of yards into the rushes and reeds of a large marsh.
The car came to a stop upside down in the muddied water of a culvert.
Pain shot through Sellwin. He was pinned, suspended upside down. He couldn’t move. Feeling the top of his head wet from the cold water flooding through the broken windshield, the car slipping on the mud deeper into the water.
“Help!”
Sellwin screamed as his temple, then ears, sank into the cold, then his nostrils, water filling them as he made his last gurgled scream before his entire head was submerged.
Sixty-Nine
Location Unknown
Jennifer Griffin felt a clock ticking down.
Scraping and scratching at the wood, choking back a sob, she prayed to see her family again, to get her life back, even if it wasn’t perfect before this happened.
Greg was consumed with the business, said someone was interested in investing, forming a partnership: Brooke Bollman. She owned a food truck company. Jennifer had seen Brooke a few times and thought she was a strong, intense person.
And pretty.
In fact, when Greg had recently grown cold toward Jennifer, it gave rise to her suspicions that he may have been seeing someone—like Brooke Bollman.
Another issue for Jennifer was Porter Sellwin. It wasn’t that he’d fought her committee on every key issue to help students from families who were struggling; no, the man was a disgusting jerk.
Sellwin considered himself God’s gift to women. He chose Jennifer as his next conquest. She was not interested. His groping and unwanted advances had humiliated and infuriated her. She’d made it clear to Principal Bickersley that she wanted to make a formal complaint and even press charges against Sellwin.
She didn’t want to talk to Greg about it. She was so shaken, gathering the courage to act on it. Then things got complicated with Eugene Bickersley’s sudden cancer diagnosis.
It was terrible.
While all this was happening, Kat got involved. Having seen what she’d seen that day in the parking lot, Kat got in Jennifer’s face.
“Why’re you cheating on Greg? He’s too good for you.”
Jennifer knew Kat had always resented her for coming between her and Greg. It was something Jennifer never understood and couldn’t stomach, especially then, with Kat’s accusations. So she’d unloaded on her.