A Fool To Think
Chapter Ten
"It all started about a week before our wedding day…" She didn't really want to continue on with the story, but figured maybe it would help to let someone else know. Maybe it would be a good idea to get another person's opinion.
Danny hated to do this, but had to. "Sam, as much as I really want to know about this and I do, we're here." Sometime during their talk they had arrived at the house where they were supposed to interview the mother of their missing person.
Sam looked over and saw that through the window that they were at the house. "Ok."
"Will you still tell me later?" Danny asked, hoping that she wouldn't close herself off to him. He really wanted to know what Martin did so that he could find a way to make everything better for them.
"Sure." She shrugged it off. Maybe this was a sign that she wasn't supposed to tell anyone what happened. She got out of the car and waited for Danny before heading up to the door.
That evening, after they found the missing person, Danny searched the empty office for Sam. Just as he had feared, Sam had clammed up after they were interrupted. On the way back to the office from interviewing the mother she had remained quiet and didn't go back to explaining what had happened between her and Martin.
It upset him. He was so close to finding out the truth but then it was ripped away from him. He just wanted to know what happened but the universe didn't seem like it wanted him to know. And that was just cruel.
He found Sam standing on the balcony and decided to go out and talk to her. Maybe he could finally find out the truth. "Hey. Good job today."
"Thanks." She replied, not looking over at him. "You too."
He went over and stood by her, leaning against the railing. "So you never finished your story today…"
"No I didn't, did I?" She knew that he would call her on that and also that he would still want to know what happened. She thought about not telling him, but she had already committed to telling him. Teasing him by holding it over his head like that would only be mean.
"No. Any chance you feel like continuing it right now?"
"Why not?" She laughed. "But you still can't tell anyone about what I'm about to tell you."
"We already covered this Sam. I won't tell anyone. I swear on my life, if I tell anyone then I should be assigned only mountains of paperwork until I retire." Danny grinned.
She couldn't help but chuckle at that. "Ok. I believe you Danny, but it's just that this is really embarrassing and the last thing I want is for a lot of people to know."
"You don't have to worry about that." Danny assured her.
"Ok." She composed her thoughts before starting to explain everything. "Well like I said before, it all started about a week before Martin and I were supposed to get married…"
"I have to go, or else I'll be late again." Martin told her. She had him cornered up against the door in an intense lip lock.
"I know you have to go." She smiled. "I just want one more kiss."
"Ok." He couldn't deny her one more kiss. "One more kiss then I really have to go."
"Absolutely." She grinned, pulling him close and passionately kissing him. Once she was satisfied, she released her grip on him and backed away with a huge smile on her face. "Ok. Now you can leave."
"You always do that!" He exclaimed.
"Do what?" She asked innocently.
"You make it impossible for me to want to leave." He playfully complained.
"I'm just trying to make you see why you should come back." She explained.
"Oh believe me, I know why I should come back." A grin appeared on his face as he moved in to give her another kiss.
But she held up her hand to stop him. "Don't you have to be going so that you're not late? I don't think your mother will appreciate it if you're late for lunch with her again."
"Probably not." He sighed. "Why don't you come with me? Then after lunch we could ditch my mother and go to the park or something."
"It's tempting, it really is, but you know that your mother and I don't get along. Sorry, but you're going to have to go alone this time." She explained. "Now go before you're late."
"Ok, fine." Martin sighed. "I'll be back later."
"I'll be counting on that." Sam replied, closing the door behind him and leaning against it.
Everything in her life was finally coming together. She had graduated college with honors, she had a few friends that really cared about her, and she had Martin. She was a long way away from the scared, abused little girl that she used to be. She was in control of her life and she was happy.
When the phone rang, she wondered if it was Martin. Sometimes he would call her on his cell phone only moments after leaving her apartment to tell her that he missed her. It was a little gesture, but it meant a lot to her when he'd do that. It was nice to know that he cared about her. "Hello?" She greeted as she picked up the phone.
"Hey, are you the girl from the website?" The male voice asked.
"What website?" Sam asked, confused. She had no idea what this guy was talking about.
"The website." The guy said. "You know, the website!"
"I think you have the wrong number." Sam told him. "I don't have any idea what you're talking about."
"Fine." He sighed. "Thanks for nothing."
After the guy hung up on her, she stared at the phone. Why was a guy calling about a website?
"I didn't think much about it at the time." Sam explained. "I thought that it was just some random wrong number."
"But it wasn't?" Danny guessed.
"No." Sam shook her head. "It wasn't random and it kept happening for the next few days. More and more guys would call and ask if I was the one from the website."
"Did you tell Martin about what was going on?" Danny asked, already guessing that she hadn't.
"No." She answered. "I didn't see the point in telling him about it. It made no sense to me and at the time I didn't want bother him with it."
"So then what happened?" Danny was growing more and more curious as the seconds ticked by.
"Well, the phone calls only increased as the week went on…"
It was the night before their wedding and Martin had left about twenty minutes ago. She was going to go to be early and get plenty of sleep for the next day when the phone rang. She groaned because she wasn't sure if she wanted to pick it up. There was a fifty-fifty chance that it was Martin, or it could be one of those guys wanting to talk to the girl from some website.
She thought briefly about just not answering the phone at all, but didn't want to miss a call from Martin so she picked it up. "Hello?"
"You wouldn't happen to be the girl from the website, would you?" The male voice on the other end asked.
"No." Sam sighed. "You have the wrong number."
"Are you sure?" The guy was disappointed. "I know I copied it from the website perfectly."
She had an idea to get to the bottom of this whole thing and walked over to her desk so that she could get on her computer. "Why don't you tell me the address of this website and I'll tell you if you have the right number?"
The guy laughed. "You want to go to the website?"
"Well a lot of guys have been calling me lately asking the same question that you're asking. I think I deserve to know if someone is falsely giving out my phone number. Don't you?" She reasoned.
"I guess so." He finally replied. "Ok."
After Sam typed in the address that the guy gave her, she was shocked by what she saw. It was her. She was the girl on the website. There was a photo gallery that held naked pictures of her in the shower and various pictures of her getting intimate with Martin. How did this happen? Who could have done such a thing?
When she finally regained her composure, she asked, "where did you hear about this website?"
"All of my fraternity brothers were raving about it so I figured that I needed to check it out." The guy replied.
"Do you know who set it up?" She was aware that her voice was shaking, but couldn't control it. She needed to know who was responsible for that.
"I don't know his name, but I heard it was some guy at Phi Delta Theta. I guess this is his girlfriend and he decided to share her with the world, which is lucky for the rest of us who can't seem to get women like that." He laughed. "I bought some of the videos…"
"Videos?" She gasped. "There are videos?"
"Yeah." The guy replied. "They are absolutely worth every penny."
"Thanks." She told the guy before hanging up. Tears started to flow down her cheeks as she tried to process all of this information. She examined the website more and found that the guy was right. There were videos. There was one with various scenes of her in the shower and a couple of her having sex with Martin. She couldn't believe what she was seeing. Clicking on the photo gallery was even more heartbreaking. There were over two thousand pictures of her.
Who could have done this to her? She refused to believe that guy when he said that it was a frat guy at Phi Delta Theta. She refused to believe that Martin would do this to her. Not her Martin. Martin would never do something like this to her. Right?
She searched the entire website, looking for any information on the Webmaster. She found a contact sheet with a name and an e-mail address. Sure enough, it gave Martin's name and an e-mail address that looked like something he would pick: she saw that, she couldn't contain it anymore. She was going to be sick. So she ran into her bathroom and proceeded to fall apart. How could Martin do something like this to her? Didn't he love her?
"Wow." That was all that Danny could say once Sam was done with her story. That was the last thing he ever expected to hear.
"I'll spare you the rest of the details, but that's the general idea of what happened." She wiped away a few tears that had fallen while she was speaking.
"But how do you know for sure that it was really Martin?" Danny asked.
"I took a closer look at the angles of the pictures so that I could figure out where the camera had to be. I found cameras hidden in gifts that Martin had given me. There was a music box with a hidden camera, and a figurine with a hidden camera. There was also one hidden in the showerhead of my bathroom."
"But maybe someone else planted them there." Danny argued.
"I don't think so." Sam shook her head. "Look, you wanted to know what happened. That's what happened."
"I'm so sorry that you had to go through that." Danny said, bringing her into a hug.
She let herself be hugged by him and tried really hard not to start crying.
"Sam, it's alright to cry. You can let it out." Danny encouraged her.
"I just…I've tried so hard to just forget about it and move on, but…" She sobbed.
"It's ok." Danny assured her. Sam needed a friend right now, and he was glad to be able to help her. "It's ok."
Martin walked back into the office, having forgotten his cell phone. He had gotten halfway to his apartment by the time he realized that his phone wasn't with him. As much as he didn't want to have to trek all the way back to the office, he knew that he had to. So he reluctantly came back.
After retrieving his cell phone from his desk, he glanced out to the balcony. He was surprised to see Danny and Sam out there, and even more surprised to see them hugging. A surge of jealousy and anger raged within him as he finally realized the real reason why Danny was always so concerned with finding out the story behind his relationship with Sam.
It wasn't because he was trying to be a good friend and it wasn't because he was trying to be supportive. It was because Danny wanted to make sure that Martin wouldn't be an obstacle when he went after Sam for himself. Why couldn't Danny have just been honest with him instead of pretending? Well if Danny wanted Sam, it was fine with him. He was done with her anyway. Good luck to him. He'd likely need it.