Julie Clark - The Last Flight

Hearing Kate 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 as he stands, helpless, while I snatch his precious reputation and tear it to shreds. “Almost from the beginning,” I say, “he would berate me for laughing too loud, for eating too much, or too little. For missing his calls. For spending too long talking to one person at an event, or not enough time talking to another. If I was lucky, that’s all it would be. Yelling and insults, followed by days of silence and icy glares. But about two years into the marriage, the yelling progressed to shoving. And shortly after that, to hitting.”

A photograph fills the screen behind me, an image of Rory and me walking on the beach in the Hamptons. It had first appeared in People magazine, then quickly became one of several stock images news outlets used when reporting on Rory’s private life. “This picture was taken last summer. You can only see what’s in the frame—a couple walking on the beach, holding hands. What you can’t see is everything beneath it. How angry my husband was with me, how tightly he gripped my hand, so hard my ring cut the inside of the finger next to it. My long sleeves hide bruises from the night before, after I’d forgotten the first name of an old friend of Rory’s. You can’t see the lump on the back of my head from where it slammed into the wall, or the pounding headache I had. You can’t see how lost I felt. How alone.”

I look down at my hands, the fear and desperation I felt in that one captured moment cascading over me once again. And how much I didn’t want to do this, to have to recount every blow, every indignity, as a way to justify myself.

Kate’s voice is quiet in my ear. “Why come forward now? You’d gotten away. You were set up in California. You were free.”

“I was never free. First of all, I had no identity, and no way of getting one. I had no money. No job. I was able to get temporary work with a catering company, which led to my image being posted on TMZ , forcing me to come forward.”

I look into the camera, keeping my gaze steady, and imagine I’m speaking directly to Eva. For a short time, we inhabited the same skin. The same life. I know things about her no one else will know, and that binds you to a person, a gossamer-thin thread crossing time and space. Wherever I am, she will be too. And wherever she is…I hope it’s far from here.

“But I also felt that I needed to honor the woman who died in my stead,” I say. “There are people out there who loved her. Who might want to know what happened to her. They deserve to have closure as well.” I pause for a moment, thinking about the scrap of paper I found at Eva’s, still shoved in my pocket. “I’m ready to step beyond the fear,” I tell Kate. “I want my life back. Mine . The one that belongs to me. My husband has stolen a lot from me. He’s stolen my confidence. He’s stolen my self-worth. And I don’t think he deserves to steal any more. From anyone.”

Across the studio, the digital clock flips from 1:59 to 2:00.

Zero hours left.

I’m free.

Claire

New York City

One Month after the Crash

I’ve never been in the townhouse on Fifth Avenue when it was this empty. There was always someone here, cooking or cleaning, scheduling appointments, standing guard outside Rory’s office. But in the wake of my CNN interview and the subsequent grand jury investigation into Rory’s involvement in Maggie’s death, everyone has been dismissed. The rooms are silent, and I feel like a ghost, walking the same route I used to take in my middle-of-the-night wanderings. Perhaps I am one, returning to haunt the life I left behind, and finding everything changed.