Emily
One Year Later
Emily felt like she had about ten pounds of pancake makeup on, and the stage-lighting beat down on her like the Sahara sun. Her chair was uncomfortable, reminding her of the ones Dane had used so well for her time-outs, and forced her into the perfect posture Geraldine West had drilled into her from the time she could stand on her own two feet. She sat there, legs crossed, with her hands folded on her knee like a prim and proper lady.
Across from her sat Charlene Padilla, newly elevated to talk show personality on cable news. It wasn't one of the major shows, but it was still a step up from her job as a news reporter.
A long year had passed, one filled with trials, headlines, bankruptcies, recriminations, and tabloid press. Emily, though, had come out on top. Or, as much on top as one could be when it came to a media dogpile like the one after Dane took Edward Barker hostage. But Emily had escaped all the stigma of Hymalete when the gravy-train ended, and the FDA and the Justice Department had come in. Edward and the rest of the board had been left holding the bag, and had taken most of the heat. The board itself, of course, got off scot-free, with BioSphere only getting sued into the ground and fined into non-existence.
But, Edward. Well, Edward was on trial and looking at some pretty serious time, especially with all the files that had escaped the data purge by ending up in Emily's personal email account.
“Tell us,” Charlene said, her beautiful green eyes shining like emeralds in the light. “What's it like one year on, after everything? The scandal with Hymalete was one of the biggest scandals to rock the world of Big Pharma in the last two decades, and it's always overshadowed your own personal experiences with the hostage hoax Dane Bishop used to bring it all to light. You've rarely spoken about the hostage situation in public since that day, but everyone is still curious.”
“Well,” Emily said, “it's still difficult to put it all into words. To be honest, I'm still trying to process everything that happened in that week. It all seemed to happen so fast, but so slowly at the same time. But I suppose everyone is still curious about the man behind it all, Dane Bishop, and how he, or anyone, could come to the decision he did about how to make the news hit the headlines, getting law enforcement and the public to take notice about the grave crimes he and I had uncovered at BioSphere.”
Charlene nodded, encouragingly, and Emily smiled.
She didn't want to talk about the bittersweet loss she felt every time she thought about Dane, or the intense longing in the pit of her stomach when she heard his name. She didn't want to tell them about how she still needed his touch, or that she dreamed of him at night sometimes. “It's just a testament, I feel, to the power of family, and what one brother was willing to do. As you know, Benton Bishop had been on death row due to the drug Hymalete, and Dane saw the injustice in it all.”
“Injustice?” Charlene asked. “What do you mean?”
“Injustice that his brother had ended up where he was because he had trusted BioSphere, and his doctors, to help. But, of course, they didn't, and he suffered. It was really that intrinsic injustice in the system that no one else saw, that made Dane Bishop snap the way he did. People at the top weren't doing their jobs, and executives at BioSphere, unbeknownst to me, were operating from a sick and twisted idea of shareholder value, so they could enrich themselves at the expense of the men and women who serve this country every day. What would you do in that situation, where your entire adult life has been dedicated to protecting the ideals of a nation, but all you were protecting was some giant corporation's ability to get rich off your brother?”
Charlene signaled a commercial break as Emily began to wind down on her little speech. “We'll be back in just a moment, after this break, and, when we return, we'll have a special guest.”
Emily kept her perfect smile, but she felt a little twinge, despite her poise. Special guest? She hadn't been told about a special guest.
The reporter leaned in as the cameraman signaled that they were clear. “Sorry to spring this on you,” she said. “But the next guest may cause a bit of a shock.”
“Guess you want to keep it as a surprise, then?” Emily asked, slightly incredulous.
“It'll make for better TV,” Charlene replied, as she fiddled with her mic and adjusted it. She caught Emily's wary eyes and gave her a warm smile. “I promise.”
Soon, the cameraman and state director were signaling that they were coming back up in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 ...
“I'm Charlene Padilla, and we're back with my special guest, Emily West, former CEO of BioSphere, which some viewers may remember from the Hymalete scandal just over a year ago. Now, we have a special guest, one whom is very happy to see our current one.”
At that cue, a tall, ginger-haired man with brooding, dark brown eyes came onto the stage. From his powerful build and the way he stood ramrod straight and moved with purpose, the casual observer could instantly tell he was ex-military.
Dane Bishop.
Emily's mouth dropped open a little as she watched him cross the studio stage. Every bit of him was just as she remembered, except for how smoothly shaven he was. She rose as he came closer and hugged him tightly.
# # #
Dane
Dane watched Emily on the screen hugging the man who might as well have been a stranger to her. He grinned, despite the fact that he wasn't the one there holding her. It was good to see Benton moving around and not wearing an orange jump suit.
He could tell from the way she embraced Benton on screen that she instantly knew something was wrong. It was the way he held her, Dane knew. Not like a lover. Not like the man that was meant to be with her for the rest of her life.
“Emily,” Benton said.
She smiled as she realized who it really was, and, even though they were separated by guards, fences, cell walls, and many miles, Dane smiled right along with her.
Benton was finally out after all this time, finished with his treatments, with his hard-fought freedom finally granted. The two broke apart and took their seats across from Charlene, who seemed to have grown only more respectable in the intervening year.
The money from the lawsuit against BioSphere, for knowingly releasing a harmful product and willfully misleading customers and doctors, had fueled the legal defense they'd set for Benton. With the news breaking, they'd won an appeal for brand new evidence and been able to have his sentence changed, due to the temporary insanity. Now, after his time in a treatment facility, he was free to walk the world again with his own two feet.
Dane couldn't be happier, even as he sat in the TV room amongst the other inmates, watching the exchange on the screen.
“Honestly, it's been painful,” Benton replied to Charlene's question about what life was like with Dane being on the inside. “I feel as if my brother switched places with me, getting me out while he got himself in. But, even though I feel he's not truly guilty of any crime other than wanting to help his brother set things right, I understand that there have to be consequences.”
“It's a surprisingly light sentence for what he did, wouldn't you agree, Emily?” Charlene asked.
Emily made a face, weighing how she should respond. “Light compared to what?” she replied, by way of a rhetorical question. “He never injured anyone, even the man who masterminded the entire deception around Hymalete, or the men and women on the board of BioSphere. They're the ones who willingly hurt first responders and military veterans, an untold number who have been forced to take what's left of the corporation to court. Is it justice for a man who made a series of rash decisions to protect men and women all over the country should have to spend even a single day behind bars? Even the police who took him into custody told me right afterward that they appreciated what he had done for them, and that they would have let him go, if they had the choice.”
“Simply put,” Benton added where she left off, “my brother is a hero. Emily had tried to pull the drug off the market, but as soon as they forced her out, they were going to put it back on and try to reap more profits. Dane Bishop stopped that.”
Dane frowned. They talked about him like he was Robin Hood, or the second coming. He hadn't thought about any of the stuff they were talking about. He'd just wanted Benton out of prison for a crime he wasn't guilty of. Sure, maybe he had committed it, but that wasn't what guilt meant. Guilt meant responsibility.
And, as much as they talked on the screen, Dane knew he was guilty of everything they'd charged him with. He'd created a fake incident and soaked up valuable police resources. He'd taken Edward Barker hostage at gunpoint. He'd done that, and more.
Dane had no problem admitting to it, either. He was guilty of his crimes, and he had decided long ago to take responsibility for it, and leave the legal fund to Benton's defense. His brother had needed it more.
Besides, his time was almost up. His year behind these walls had been a small price to pay for his brother being alive and well outside in the world.
“What plans do you have going forward?” Charlene asked the two of them.
“Healing,” Benton said flatly. “A lot of personal healing. Ever since I came back, my life has just been dismantled, completely taken apart. I want to rebuild and try to move forward, despite my own losses. I feel like it's the only thing I can do to honor my family's memory.”
“What about you, Emily?”
Emily smiled and shyly raised her left hand. A giant of a diamond, probably costing far more than Dane could ever have afforded, stood out from her ring finger. “Well,” she said, “I actually met someone at my new company, and he and I recently became engaged.”
Dane's mouth dropped open.
She was . . . no. It couldn't be.
But, there was the evidence right in front of him, as plain as the day was long.
He closed his mouth and gritted his teeth shut. It was okay. He'd deal with this, just like he'd dealt with every setback. It wasn't going to kill him. It was just going to make him stronger. That's what life was—a series of things that made you grow as a human being. He'd taken down BioSphere with Emily's help. He could withstand the blow of her moving on and finding someone else.
Besides, she looked happy there, showing her ring off for the home audience. She looked much happier than when he'd first seen her as BioSphere's CEO. And, to Dane, that was what mattered most. Her happiness.
His? His was secondary. He was happy she was with someone who deserved her.
He swallowed hard and sighed, repeating his words back to himself again and again.
“I'm happy she's with someone who deserves her,” he said aloud, reminding himself one last time, even as he hung his head in defeat.