Twenty Years Later

by Charlie Donlea

Genres: Mystery; General Fiction; Thrillers

Synopsis

TWENTY YEARS LATER, to understand the present, you need to listen to the past... In this gripping, fast-paced new standalone thriller from USA Today, IndieBound, and #1 internationally bestselling author Charlie Donlea, a TV news host sets out to uncover the truth behind a gruesome tale of sex, betrayal, and murder twenty years after the investigation was abandoned in the wake of 9/11.
The remains of a woman at the center of a sensational murder investigation identified twenty years after the towers fell. A TV reporter hiding her own dark history in plain sight.
Avery Mason, host of American Events, knows the subjects that grab a TV audience's attention. Her latest story--a murder mystery laced with kinky sex, tragedy, and betrayal--is guaranteed to be ratings gold. New DNA technology has allowed the New York medical examiner's office to make its first successful identification of a 9/11 victim in years. The twist: the victim, Victoria Ford, had been accused of the gruesome murder of her married lover. In a chilling last phone call to her sister, Victoria begged her to prove her innocence. Emma Kind has waited twenty years to put her sister to rest, but closure won't be complete until she can clear Victoria's name. Alone she's had no luck, but she's convinced that Avery's connections and fame will help. Avery, hoping to negotiate a more lucrative network contract, goes into investigative overdrive. Victoria had been having an affair with a successful novelist, found hanging from the balcony of his Catskills mansion. The rope, the bedroom, and the entire crime scene was covered in Victoria's DNA. But the twisted puzzle of Victoria's private life belies a much darker mystery. And what Avery doesn't realize is that there are other players in the game who are interested in Avery's own secret past--one she has kept hidden from both the network executives and her television audience. A secret she thought was dead and buried...
Accused of a brutal murder, Victoria Ford made a final chilling call from the North Tower on the morning of 9/11. Twenty years ago, no one listened.

Release date: December 28, 2021

Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.

Print pages: 432

Reader says this book is...: plot twists (1) red herrings (1) terrific writing (1)

Sample

AVERY MASON WAS NOT LOOKING FOR FAME. WITH A GRAVEYARD OF secrets in her past, fame was the last thing she needed. Still, she had found it. Whether this had been by accident or with intent was a question that only counseling could answer. It would require a deep dive into her tumultuous upbringing, an examination of her complicated relationship with her father, and some honest soul-searching and self-reflection—none of which Avery had time for. Because however it came to be, what Avery knew for certain about fame was that it arrived like a colossal wave rolling toward shore. You either rode it, or let it drown you. She chose to ride it, and in spectacular fashion.

Avery Mason was thirty-two years old and the youngest woman to ever anchor American Events, the most popular prime-time newsmagazine program on television. Her ascension to the top of the ratings was improbable, statistically unheard of, and something Avery never expected. Mack Carter had been the long-running and popular host of American Events. His death the year before while on assignment covering the Westmont Prep slaughters had rattled the television news industry. It also produced a vacancy at the top of American Events. In a panic, the network tapped Avery to fill Mack’s massive shoes until a more permanent anchor could be found. As a frequent contributor to the show, Avery’s segments had consistently earned high ratings. So high, in fact, that she was named as the first co-host in the show’s storied history. Avery had held that position for exactly one month before Mack Carter died. Thrust into the hottest of spotlights and widely expected to fail, Avery Mason had stepped into the lead anchor role the previous fall and killed it. American Events not only stayed at the top of the ratings, but the audience grew by 20 percent.

Critics explained away her success as a fluke of morbid curiosity. People tuned in, the critics argued, to see how this inexperienced woman would handle the crushing pressure of replacing one of America’s most beloved anchors on television’s longest running news program. The problem with their argument was that Avery’s ratings never came down. That she was young and attractive certainly didn’t hurt her rising star, and Avery admitted that her looks likely drew a certain male demographic that might not normally tune in to a newsmagazine show. But her looks were not the source of her success. It was her talent, her charisma, and the content of her show that kept the ratings sky-high. The abundance of press hadn’t hurt either. During the past year she graced the covers of entertainment magazines, gave countless interviews and photo shoots, and was the subject of a three-part exposé by Events Magazine on her natural abilities in front of the camera and her rise to the top of the cable news food chain. And yet somehow, through it all, she had managed to keep her past hidden.

Avery’s forte was true crime, finding an unsolved mystery and dissecting it for her audience in a way that hooked them and refused to let go. Her dark and edgy foray into some of the country’s most sordid crimes was where she made her name. But to contrast the sinister stories she covered, Avery also told stories of survival and hope. It was these stories of miracles and beating the odds that kept people tuning in. Not a week went by without Avery featuring some sort of real life, plucked from Middle America, feel-good story—like Kelly Rosenstein, the woman who sank her minivan into Devil’s Gate Reservoir in Pasadena after a drunk driver forced her off the road. The indomitable mother of four had not only managed to escape the sunken vehicle, but had miraculously done so with all of her children in tow. Avery interviewed the woman a week after the accident. With as many as six hundred people dying each year in the United States due to a submerged vehicle, how had this soccer mom managed to escape? It was simple. Years earlier Mack Carter had demonstrated the best way to escape a car after it sank to the bottom of a lake. Kelly Rosenstein had watched the episode and remembered what she saw.

So moved by the story, Avery decided to look up the old footage. It was how she ended up this afternoon strapped behind the wheel of a minivan that was parked inside a high school aquatics center, with a television crew ready to film the action. Today, the action would be a giant crane lifting the van over the pool and dropping it, and Avery, to the bottom. Cameras situated under the water would capture Avery’s attempt to escape from the submerged vehicle. She was, without doubt or shame, scared to death.

She knew America had loved Mack Carter for the stunts he performed, and Avery could think of no better way to wrap up her first full season as host of American Events than with a nod to her predecessor. Today’s taping was her rite of passage. This would be her last episode before summer sabbatical. A summer that was sure to be the most trying of her life. She was following a lead out of New York that she thought had potential—the remains of a woman killed in the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks had just been identified using promising new DNA technology, and Avery wanted the chance to tell the story. If she made it through today’s stunt, she was off to New York to chase some leads.

At least, that was her story. She thought it was the perfect cover.

THE HONDA MINIVAN WAS PARKED ON A HYDRAULIC LIFT ON THE SIDE of the Los Angeles high school swimming pool. Avery chose the make and model because of their connection to the middle class. The minivan was among the most commonly driven vehicles in the United States. Sinking a sixty-thousand-dollar BMW in a high school swimming pool might be exciting to watch, but demonstrating to stay-at-home mothers how to escape their sunken vehicle was much better accomplished using an average, run-of-the-mill automobile.

Avery checked the seat belt buckle for the third time in less than a minute. Christine Swanson, her executive producer, leaned through the open driver’s side window.

“Good?” she asked.

Avery nodded.

“Show me the abort sign again,” Christine said.

Avery took the four fingers on her right hand and waved them back and forth in front of her throat.

“If you ever get panicked, or just can’t remember what to do, give the abort signal and the divers will have you out in ten seconds. Got it?”

Avery nodded.

“Words, Avery! I need to hear your voice.”

“Yes, Christine! I’ve got it, for Christ’s sake. Let’s go.”

“We’re about to sink you, and the car you’re sitting in, to the bottom of a swimming pool,” Christine said in a calm voice, trying to control the panicked moment. “I want to make sure your head is in the right place.”

“Of course my head is not in the right place, Chris. If it were, I wouldn’t be doing this. And if we don’t do it soon, I’ll lose my nerve. So let’s get this show on the road.”

Christine nodded. “Okay. You’ve got this.”

Christine backed away from the minivan, stuck her fingers between her lips, and whistled. It was an ear-splitting screech that echoed off the walls of the cavernous aquatics center.

“Let’s roll!”

A loud buzzing filled the indoor plaza as the crane’s hydraulics activated and jolted the platform, and the minivan parked on it, upward. Avery grabbed the steering wheel and white-knuckled it as if she were driving through a torrential downpour. She rolled up the window and the noise outside the vehicle—the producers yelling instructions, the engineers guiding the crane operator, the ring of the hydraulics, and the murmurs from three hundred spectators that filled the retractable bleachers and made up the studio audience—went silent. All she heard now was her own exaggerated breathing. Even the smell of chlorine disappeared.

Her ascent finally ended, and then the car jolted again as the back of the platform started to rise, pitching the nose of the minivan downward toward the water. A slew of engineers who consulted on the stunt had decided that thirty-eight degrees was the most accurate pitch angle to best represent a vehicle careening off the road and plunging into a body of water. To Avery it felt like she was hanging vertically off a cliff. The seat belt was tight across her chest as gravity pulled her forward. She straightened her legs on the floorboard to keep her position in the driver’s seat.

The whole of the eight-lane, NFHS-approved, competition-size swimming pool came into view through the windshield as the minivan tipped forward. The surface of the water reflected the stage lights that were erected around the indoor pool. Red lane markers swayed in wavy images made brighter by the underwater lighting. She saw the rescue divers hovering near the bottom, the bubbles from their SCUBA tanks rippling the surface as they waited for Avery’s arrival fourteen feet under the water. She had imagined during the planning phase that their presence would ease her nerves. That knowing help was just a few feet away would provide a sense of comfort as the minivan sunk to the bottom. That knowing all she needed to do was give the abort signal and the divers would immediately extract her from the vehicle would settle her nerves and give her confidence. But now, as she hovered above the pool with the weight of her body heavy against the seat belt, she felt no such comfort or confidence. Things could go wrong. What if she wasn’t able to successfully pull off the techniques the survival experts had taught her? What if her mind froze and she simply couldn’t remember what to do? What if the seat belt locked up because of the force of the impact? What if the window did not break like it was supposed to? What if the divers didn’t see her signal? What if—

The sensation of falling abruptly interrupted her thoughts. The harness holding the minivan in place had been released. She was in free fall. It felt like a hell of a lot longer than the three seconds it was supposed to take to roll off the edge of the platform and drop fifteen feet before impacting the water. During those frozen seconds Avery noticed the television camera across the pool, one of eight that were positioned around the aquatics center. Another four GoPro cameras were mounted inside the vehicle, their red indicator lights suddenly bright and voyeuristic. Just before impact, Avery caught a glimpse of the movie-theater-sized screen that would display her progress to the captive studio audience who lined the poolside bleachers. And then, there was a crash.

The impact was jarring. The seat belt dug into her breastbone as her head snapped forward. The minivan speared through the water and then, as if a rubber band were attached to its back bumper, began a backward trek as the natural buoyancy of the air trapped inside the vehicle pulled it back to the surface. The van rocked and bobbed as Mother Nature found the center of gravity and then began to slowly pull it under the water, engine first. Water poured in through unseen breaches and began filling the interior. Avery worked hard to control the panic that was growing with each second. Panic, though, was good. It meant she was aware of what was happening and had not suffered “behavioral inaction,” a symptom described by the survival experts who had consulted on the episode. Also called “dislocation of expectation,” it was the mind’s response to a traumatic situation. The brain attempts to correlate the current situation with a known experience from the past. As the frontal lobe loops in repetitive circles, trying but failing to find a similar situation to work from, the body freezes and waits for directions from the brain. It’s the science behind the proverbial “deer-in-the-headlights” phenomenon.

Fortunately for Avery, she was suffering no such dislocation from her surroundings. The synapses of her brain fired back to a previous experience when she found herself fighting the relentless water that tried to drown her. She remembered the day her sailboat sank off the coast of Manhattan and she came within an inch of losing her life. It was impossible to remember that day and not think of her brother. And now, those thoughts of Christopher brought her back to her current situation. The minivan was sinking and water was quickly filling the interior of the vehicle. She considered waving her hand in front of her throat and putting an end to this madness. But then she remembered Kelly Rosenstein, the mother who didn’t have the option of calling it quits when her car, filled with her four children, sank to the bottom of Devil’s Gate Reservoir. It was a miracle that Kelly had stayed composed enough to save herself, let alone her children. It was even more amazing that she credited her survival to watching an episode of American Events. If what Avery had learned from the survival experts over the past week could be used now to show anyone else how to save their own life, it was at least worth her best effort.

As the van filled with water, Avery unsnapped her seat belt. She turned sideways in the driver’s seat, lifting her legs out of the collection of water that filled the driver’s side leg well so that her feet were facing the door. She braced herself on the middle console and aimed her heel at the corner of the driver’s side window. The bottom right bend of the window was key, the survival experts had told her. The junction where the tempered glass met the frame represented the weakest part of the window. Struck properly, the window could be dislodged from the door frame in one piece. Striking the center of the window, on the other hand, would put a hole in the tempered glass and slice her foot to pieces. Opening the door would be impossible, as already the water had crawled halfway up the window and the external pressure would be too great.

Avery bent her leg, bringing her knee toward her face, grabbed the steering wheel with her right hand and the driver’s side headrest with her left, and kicked the corner of the window. She closed her eyes on impact and waited for water to pour through the opening. When nothing happened she opened her eyes. The kick had done nothing. The van sunk lower in the pool, with the waterline now bouncing above the driver’s side window. She closed her eyes and kicked again. This time a spiderweb fracture twisted from the corner of the window. Sensing the lenses all around her—from the GoPro cameras mounted inside the van to the underwater cameras positioned in the pool and focused on her—she pulled her leg back one more time and kicked with all her strength. Immediately she felt the rush of water. It was colder than she imagined and the force of it was so great that it was over her head in an instant.

More panic followed when she realized she’d forgotten the survival expert’s instructions to take a deep breath first, before kicking the window, as the intrusive water would come fast and furious, preventing her from taking a good lungful of air before it was over her head. They were correct. Not only had she forgotten to fill her lungs with air before the water had found her, but the three kicks it took to blow out the window had exhausted her. She desperately needed a breath. A frantic moment followed before she looked around. It was peacefully quiet under the water, and her vision was less blurred than she imagined. She forced herself to calm down. When faced with a life-or-death situation, being calm was the number one rule of survival.

As the van completed its fourteen-foot descent to the bottom of the pool, Avery shut her eyes and allowed her ears to adjust to the pressure. When the van kissed the bottom, a much softer impact than a few seconds earlier when it crashed through the surface, she opened her eyes and saw the cameraman pointing his lens through the missing window. She saw the rescue divers watching closely for Avery to give the abort signal. Instead, she stuck her feet through the window frame, wrapped the fingers of her right hand around the grab handle, and launched herself through the opening in a smooth glide that took her into open water. Then she brought herself upright, gave the cameraman the thumbs-up, and kicked to the surface.

The underwater footage was spectacular. Christine produced the hell out of the episode, and the network leaked teasers across social media leading up to the run date, which would be during May sweeps week. When “The Minivan” aired, as the episode was titled, Avery Mason and American Events earned the highest ratings in the show’s history.

MOSLEY GERMAINE’S BACKYARD WAS THE PACIFIC OCEAN. IT WAS actually a flamboyant stretch of beach and the ocean, but the first thing anyone noticed upon entering the Playa del Rey home was the magnificent views of the water visible through every floor-to-ceiling window. The open concept design included a kitchen island that spilled into the vast living room. The retractable glass patio doors were open this evening, having disappeared into the walls as if they never existed and allowing the ocean breeze to gust through the house. The back patio was made up of multiple levels and built from imported Italian stone. A long, rectangular table that looked to have been plucked from a boardroom dominated the middle of the stone just a few steps from the pool. Fixed for forty guests, each place setting was meticulously ordered with two plates, three glasses, silverware at perfect ninety-degree angles, and a nameplate dictating a seating arrangement created by Mr. Germaine himself.

Tonight was the annual end-of-season gathering for the faces of the HAP News network, the current ratings leader. There were no close seconds. At the helm of the media giant was Mosley Germaine. He had been the head of HAP News since the nineties, hired when the prime-time lineup was headlined by no-name personalities, the ratings were in the tank, and the network barely made a blip on the radar. But Germaine possessed a vision for delivering the news. He chose the personalities and dictated the content. If a program failed to attract a proper audience, he replaced the hosts with someone new. If a hard news hour failed to compete with the major network’s evening newscasts, the anchor was pulled in favor of a new face. He did this often enough to keep his people in line and on their toes, and to let them all know that folks tuned in to HAP News, not just a single personality. But when a show succeeded and stood out from the rest, he made sure to keep the host happy—cornered and with no other options, but otherwise happy. Mosley Germaine was the master puppeteer controlling everything that transpired at the network. Tonight was a celebration of another successful season at the top of cable news—all of cable programming, in fact. It was an annual gala at the boss’s impressive waterfront property where success was celebrated, wealth was flaunted, and the idea that with dedication, hard work, and loyalty, anything was possible for the select few who were invited. Avery Mason hated every minute of it.

She arrived alone. She wasn’t in a relationship—another topic to be discussed with her therapist—and even if she had been, bringing a date to this annual ordeal was a bad idea. She needed to be sharp. She needed to be on her game. She could allow no distractions when she entered the lion’s den. Mr. Germaine was notorious for cornering his talent and coercing them into agreements to which they had not planned to commit. With Avery’s contract ending in a short couple of weeks, there had been only light negotiations to this point regarding her future at HAP News and as the host of American Events. Avery had turned down the contract extension that was offered to her a few weeks back. It was a feeler offer meant to see what sort of resistance the network was up against. Avery, with the help of her agent, rejected it outright under the argument that she wanted to concentrate on the final two months of American Events and keep it at the top of the ratings before she worried about something as juvenile as money and the future of her career. It was nonsense. She knew it, Mosley Germaine knew it, and every other suit at the network knew it. But Avery had framed the rejection in such a way that made it difficult for Mr. Germaine to push back. So he hadn’t. But tonight, in his own home, he surely would.

As far as leverage went, the move was golden. She ended the season on the highest of highs, and could now go back to the negotiation table with some ammunition. Avery and her agent were working on a counteroffer but, up to this point, had left the network hanging. Now, as Avery drove toward her boss’s beach house, she was on edge. Her presence at Mosley Germaine’s home was sure to lead to a discussion with her boss about her plans for the future. The night was billed as a celebration, a time to put business on hold and enjoy the success they had all found at HAP News. But Avery knew better. Tonight was a well-choreographed ambush, and she needed to be prepared.

She pulled her red Range Rover through the gates and into the circular drive. Germaine had hired a valet service for his guests’ convenience and Avery surrendered her vehicle—a gift she had purchased for herself after she signed on to host American Events—to a polite young man who handed her a tag in return. Avery had dressed strategically for this evening’s event. She wore tapered slacks that accentuated her long legs. At five-ten she didn’t need much help. A white, sleeveless blouse displayed her toned arms and gave off an aura of strength, which she always needed when dealing with Mosley Germaine. Her auburn streaked hair was pulled back in a stylish ponytail to keep it out of her face when the Playa del Rey winds kicked up. Standing face to face with Mr. Germaine and constantly having to swipe wild strands of hair behind her ear was a disadvantage she would not allow. She headed up the front steps, her high heels clicking on the stone as she went—another tactical move. The heels put her squarely at six feet. When Germaine managed to find her, she would be eye to eye with him.

A hostess greeted her at the front door with a tray of champagne flutes. Avery took one and sipped it. As usual, it was some of the best she’d ever tasted. Germaine spared no expense at these annual galas, to which Avery had been invited twice before.

She had just passed through the entry foyer and walked to the edge of the kitchen when she spotted Christine Swanson.

“Ah, you made it, girl!” Christine said.

“Thank God.” Avery grabbed her hand. “Give me some recon. A quick lay of the land.”

“Ooh, you’re in fighting mode. I love it.”

“I should have worn camouflage.”

“Germaine is on the patio and in a festive mood. And Mr. Hillary has honored us with his presence, as well.”

“Hillary?”

David Hillary was the billionaire owner of the communications conglomerate HAP Media, of which HAP News was one of many affiliates. As executive chairman, very little happened at the company that did not contain his stamp of approval.

“Yes. He’s in a white seersucker suit, looks like he just came from the tanning booth, and has his fifth wife on his arm. She looks like she just graduated from college.”

“Probably with a degree in communications.”

This made Christine laugh. “She won’t need a degree. If she’s smart, she’ll divorce him in a couple years and take a hundred million with her.”

“I always love when one of his exes takes another chunk of his fortune,” Avery said. It had happened twice before during Avery’s short tenure at HAP News.

“Why are fabulously rich men so stupid when it comes to women?” Christine asked.

“Because they think with their groins and can’t help themselves.”

An image of Avery’s father popped into her mind. She quickly pushed it away. She could allow no stray thoughts tonight, and the hatred she carried for her father was the biggest stray of them all. Her father was another topic to discuss wi. . .