Chapter 22

The trial continued on without Royce and Kasey until the ninth day. The day she was going to tell her side of the story. She wasn’t thrilled about her time away from her son, but since Annamarie was keeping him for them, she felt marginally better. She was sworn in and asked to say her name. “Kasey Marie Hunter.” The room erupted in laughter when she had to stutter over her name twice. “I’ve only been married a short while, Your Honor, and I don’t have to say it often.” “Don’t you worry about it, Mrs. Hunter. When you’ve been married awhile, you’ll remember it right quick.” He glared at White when he snickered. “You’d best be on your best behavior. I’ve had about all I can take from you this week.” Kasey had heard how White had jumped from his seat to try and get to one of the other women who’d come to tell what had happened. A swift wrap on the head from the judge’s gavel had stopped his forward motion enough that the bailiff was able to get him into cuffs and out of the room. Connie McIntosh had finished her horrific tale to just the judge and the jury and Curtis as the judge had thrown everyone else out. White had been pissed to find out that she’d had a baby by him. But the DNA had come back positive, well, ninety-nine point seven percent positive. White, it seemed, had taken exception to the other point three percent. He said that the test had been rigged. “She can’t be here. It’s a conflict of interest or something like that. She’s got the family tied up all in a neat bow to try and frame me,” White shouted. His lawyer had been “fired” three days before. “I don’t think she should be allowed to try and take me down with her being married to the man who is accusing me.” The judge hit his gavel on the desk and made her jump. He apologized to her and looked over at Curtis. Both men were grinning. “Counselor, do you have any objection to me changing this proceeding right now?” Kasey wasn’t sure, but she thought that they’d hoped this would happen. “I don’t want the Hunter Corporation to come under fire for this. What do you say we change things up a bit?” “I’m all for it, Your Honor. I would like to be a part of this if Mr. White doesn’t mind. I would really hate to be simply dismissed out of turn.” They both turned to White and the judge asked him if he cared. “If it means that I won’t be tried by the Hunters, then okay. I guess. Would it mean that Shelia here doesn’t get to say her part to anyone?” “Nope, Shelia can’t say a word against you. Not now, not ever.” When Kasey started to say she wasn’t Shelia, she saw Curtis shake his head slightly. He continued speaking to White. “Shelia will agree to whatever is necessary to get this moving in the right direction.” “Well then let’s have at it. I would like to get myself home soon. Not that you all haven’t been really accommodating, but I have to find myself a job and all. Bills to pay, you know.” White nodded again as he continued. “Yeah, the faster we do this, the better I’d like it.”

Kasey noticed that when a folder was brought to the judge and Curtis was given a copy that White sat up in his chair straighter. He kept looking at her and grinning like a fool, but she simply sat there. When she’d tried to move back to her seat, she was told to wait. So wait she’d done. “All right then, Mrs. Hunter, continue with your side of the story.” She looked at Curtis, who nodded at her when the judge had given her permission. Before she could speak, White jumped up. “Now wait a damned minute. You said she couldn’t tell her side of the story. You said that you were going to make this go better for me. I don’t think Sally here is going to tell you anything different now than she’d been about to tell you.” “Her name isn’t Shelia or Sally, you moronic idiot. Her name is Kasey. Kasey Marie York Hunter, the woman who is going to put you away for a very long time.” Curtis tried to continue speaking over White, but he just wouldn’t shut up. The judge finally had the bailiff draw his gun and point it at the man. “You have got to be the dumbest man I’ve ever had the displeasure of meeting. What on earth made you think that I was going to do anything but try you and then sentence you?” When White started to speak again, the judge grinned. “I’d do what that man tells you. He retires in a few weeks and he’s just itching to take out someone before he goes.” Kasey laughed. She couldn’t help it. It was wonderful to see White get what he deserved. She looked at the judge. “Can I talk now?” He nodded at her. “I started working for the Hunter Corporation right out of high school. I was working my way through college at the time and it was a good paying job. Not a great job, but it paid well.” She looked over at Royce when he stepped through the door with their baby in his arms. He winked at her and sat right behind the table where Curtis had been sitting. She smiled then, the tension of telling this story going right out of her. She simply told it to him. “I learned the job quickly and when things started to look like an opening would come up, I would apply. Every time I did, Mr. White would shoot me down. It was one thing or another, but ultimately, it came down to him telling me if I slept with him, he’d promote me without any problems.” “Did you?” Curtis asked from his position near the desk. “Did you sleep with Mr. White?” She looked over at the man who had terrorized her for years. Who’d kept her from her mother sometimes and who on more than one occasion had hit her. She shook her head before answering. “No. He wasn’t worth it. And I have much too much pride in myself to ever think that he’d be worthy enough to give me what he’d promised.” “There were other women. Others like you that he’d lied to. Did you know that he’d hurt them? That he’d made the same promises that he’d made you?” She looked away from Royce, knowing that she’d made a mistake in not encouraging them to go to someone above White’s head. “Yes. I’d had a few conversations with them. Not all of them, but a few. I…I, like them, believed that there wasn’t anyone to help us. That we’d be lucky if we didn’t lose our jobs or, worse yet, be black balled out of the kind of work we were good at.” Kasey looked at the four women

who had been there every time she’d been in the court room. “We were good at our jobs. Very good. What he did was…what White did to all of us was wrong. Not just because he’d raped and hit, but that we’d allowed it to happen to us. We should have been braver. Smarter even. I’m so sorry.” Gurt stood up and a hush came over the room when she did. “You saved me. He could have killed me that day, but I knew that I’d be letting you down if I died. You told me to kick his balls the next time he did anything to me. I tried. I lived because you told me that I was stronger than him.” May stood too and nodded. Then Shawna Parks. Kasey didn’t know much about her other than she’d had a child before working there and had almost lost custody of her when White had told someone at the welfare office that she was a whore. Of course there was no evidence to say it, but her reputation had been blackened and she’d left town. She’d only been found when Kasey had remembered her father lived here still. At the end of the day White was taken away and the jury was sent to deliberate all that they’d been told. Kasey went to her husband and new baby and cried all the way home. She wanted something from the Hunter Corporation and she wasn’t sure how to get it. She called the only other person she knew who would understand her. Bobbie met her at the office the next morning and the two of them started to work. By the third day of meeting, first there then at her home, the two women had a proposal to give to the board. ~~~ Annamarie knew when she saw Kasey that the woman was going to blow them out of the water. She had an air about her that said “fuck off.” Annamarie thought maybe she’d put her new daughter-in-law on the next committee she had to form. The woman looked like she could hold her own. “In the past several weeks I’ve noticed an expansion in the security department. I think that as a company Hunter Corporation should work at—” “You’re the Hunter Corporation now too, sweetheart. You own as much of the company as I do.” Annamarie looked at Royce when he cut his wife off. “If you want to try something here then by all means, simply tell me what it is and I’ll make it happen for you.” “No. I mean thanks, but no. I want to make you make this happen as you said, but not because I want it but because it’s a sound idea. And unless you make the company move more to the twenty-first century then I’m not so sure I want any part of it.” Annamarie laughed when Royce and Daniel sputtered. She wasn’t surprised when Jesse just leaned back in his chair. “Oh come now. You can’t be upset with her for voicing her mind. I, for one, would like to hear how we’ve lagged behind. Go on, Kasey. Tell us what we can do.” “What is it then? Are we not hiring enough females? Do we not have enough female bathrooms? Come on. Tell us how we’ve gotten so antiquated.” Curtis rubbed his forehead as he continued. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry, Kase. Please, tell us.” “She thinks we should educate our employees. And not just the security team, but all of us. Had we been better equipped to handle someone coming to us, none of this would

have gotten out of control.” Jesse got up and took the folder from Kasey that she was using. “I’ve been looking at what you’ve put together. You’re a smart cookie.” “Have you been going to Jesse and not me?” Royce sounded hurt. “Kasey, you know I would have helped you with anything.” “No, I didn’t go to him.” Kasey jerked her folder from Jesse. “And I may have to put him through the privacy classes twice. Where the hell did you learn about this?” Jesse winked at her. “I’m learning how to observe and report. You know that nothing goes on around here that I’m not at least partly aware of. Besides, you had to log the computer time in. Shouldn’t have looked on all those sites without checking to see whose computer you were using.” Annamarie looked at Bobbie when she said, “damn it,” and then laughed when she glared at Jesse. “Remind me next time a girl calls in for you that I tell her your home phone number. Ungrateful child. You should be horsewhipped taking her thunder away like that.” Bobbie smacked at him before she smiled at Kasey. “Go on, Kasey, tell them.” Nodding, she continued. “Those women should have been able to go to someone higher than White. I should have gone to someone, but who? There’s no list that tells us who to go to. There isn’t anyone that is there for us on our level, not HR or even a member of management. Most all of those women worked third shift, as did I. White could pretty much do what he wanted because there was no one on those shifts that we could talk to that had anything to do with him. I’m not saying that you need to hire someone that would be there on the off chance—” “Yes, we do. I know just where you’re going. A sort of neutral person. One that has no say in security but knows the people who work in it. A person that when the door is closed to their office, nine hundred people aren’t aware that you’ve gone in here to speak your mind. Also the rumor mill won’t be so bad with all sort of things going on before the first word is spoken because no one will be the wiser.” Jesse started making notes as he continued. “The office would be on another floor than the one we have the security office on. The person we get needs to be aware of the laws governing HR and also know how to defuse a situation without it becoming a media playground. Oh, Royce,” he said suddenly. “That office on the second floor, the one that we have the luncheons in. That would be perfect.” Kasey looked over at Annamarie when she lost control of the meeting. “I just wanted them to give me a phone number that they could set up weekly meeting and training classes with. I didn’t mean for them to spend money like they had it to spare.” “You’ve saved them a great deal, honey. If we have the right people in place, then there won’t be any more Whites in the building and no more lawsuits. This is just the breath of fresh air that they need.” Annamarie looked at Bobby when she laughed. “You probably saved them from killing White with this. This will give them something else to focus on besides whether or not he’ll get off. The turd seems to think he will and he gives me the creeps the way he keeps looking around and licking his lips.” Annamarie had noticed him doing that too. Especially when Kasey was in the court room. She wondered if Royce had noticed and decided that he hadn’t. If he had, or any of the boys for that matter, then White would already be dead. She looked up when Curtis called for Kasey.

Three hours and four large pizzas later they had a committee, a person to run the program they were piecing together, and Kasey Hunter was now an official board member. She still looked a little dazed about it all when they went to the office so that she could nurse little Lee. This time, she asked Royce if she could sit with her. Lee was a beautiful baby. He had a full head of dark hair and his downy skin was so soft that Annamarie found herself touching him just to feel it beneath her fingers. She’d never been more in love with anyone as she was her first grandson. “They really will do it, won’t they?” She looked up at Kasey when she asked. “They really will just put me in charge of the whole thing like I have any idea what the hell…heck I’m doing.” “I’m sure you know a great deal more than you think. You banned them together easily enough.” Kasey snorted. “Well, you certainly have my vote for pulling it off.” “You’re just saying that because you want to watch Lee when I have to go to meetings.” Annamarie nodded. “Okay, but you know all you have to do is ask. Other than me being his lunchbox, he pretty much doesn’t care who holds him.” “Not true. I saw him cry his head off when that cook of yours held him. I don’t think he liked him one bit.” Of course, the man had been terrified out of his mind, but she didn’t say that. Best to let that one go. “I don’t know. I just don’t want to disappoint anyone.” Annamarie laughed gently and told the girl she couldn’t even if she tried.