by Tracy Wolff
I pull her closer, hold her as tight as I can. She feels so small, so fragile, so goddamn breakable in my arms that all I want to do is shelter her. To keep her safe. I know I’m already years too late for that, but that doesn’t make me want it any less. All it does is guarantee that I’m not going to say anything about Liam Brogan and the Red Ribbon Strangler. If I do, I’m afraid I’m going to break her wide open. And with the peace between us so new, so fragile, the last thing I want to do is put any stress on it. Not now, when it feels like the slightest misstep will shatter us to pieces.
And so I do the only thing I can do. I wait and listen and hope to God that I’m not destroying us before we even have a chance to start.
“My mom liked William on sight. He was a charmer, you know. Always flirting with her, always complimenting her, always making her feel special. In case you haven’t figured it out already, my mom’s a woman who needs to feel special.”
I nod, because I have figured it out…and because anyone who’s been around Melanie Romero for longer than five minutes can’t help but do the same.
“My dad was good at making her feel special, too, but when he was busy shooting or promoting his latest film he’d get wrapped up and forget what she needed. That’s when they would fight. And then Mom would go out and find a guy who made her feel what he didn’t. It was usually only for a night or two, because Dad would wake up to what was going on. They’d fight for a couple days and then make up and things would be good between them for a while. Until he got wrapped up in something else and started to ignore her all over again.”
Jesus. The profiler in me is fascinated by the whole relationship—and by how William Vargas had fit into it. Already, new avenues to explore are opening up in front of me, new threads to yank on and unravel. But at the same time, I’m horrified. Not to mention disturbed by the terrible and macabre love triangle I can see unfolding right in front of my eyes.
“You knew this at eight?” I ask, not even trying to keep the incredulity out of my voice.
She laughs, but there’s no humor in the sound. “I think I came out of the womb knowing it. But yes, I definitely knew it by the time I was eight.”
“I’m sorry.”
She shrugs. “It is what it is.”
It’s funny that she says it that way, when I’ve used that phrase over and over again through the years in reference to this case. It is what it is. Not what it could be, not what you can make it, but what it is. Some might see it as acceptance, but I can’t help hearing the utter devastation in that phrase when she says it. The utter heartbreak.
“Anyway, that’s not the part of the story I wanted to tell you. It’s just kind of background.”
That’s what I’ve been afraid of all along. “Okay.” The truth is burning a hole in my gut and I don’t know what else to say.
“So William took over and he was good at his job. Or, at least, he wasn’t bad at it. Sometimes I would see my mother talking to him in a way that made me uncomfortable. Too close, too intimate. Then again, sometimes I’d feel the same way when he was talking to me. I tried to tell my dad about it once, but he told me I was too young to understand.
“The thing is, I wasn’t. Living with them, traveling with them, by the time I was eight I knew more about power and sex and ambition than people three times my age.”
I can totally believe that. I realized the other day that the way she is today, the way she uses her sexuality as a weapon, is a habit that she was forced into. And a habit that started young. But as her story unfolds before me, I’m reading between the lines here, my blood running a little colder with each new revelation. Each shift of the puzzle pieces.
“As time went on and my father grew more and more engrossed in his latest project, my mom and William grew closer. I don’t think it was sexual between them at first—and that was more his choice than hers.”
Of course it was. Because he wasn’t interested in Melanie Romero. He was interested in her daughter. He pandered to the mom so that he could keep his unrestricted access to Veronica. It’s all coming together for me now, the whole Lolita-esque tragedy that was Veronica’s childhood.
I want to punch something. Or more specifically, I want to fly across the country to Liam Brogan’s cell in Lancaster and beat him within an inch of his life. And then I want to do it again. The sick, sick fuck.
Veronica has stopped talking now and I don’t know if it’s because she doesn’t want to say any more or if she just doesn’t know how to say it. I don’t push her, though there’s a part of me that wants to know just how bad it got, that wants to know just how damaged she really is. But this is her story and I’m willing to wait forever for her to tell it, if that’s what it takes.
Eventually, she starts talking again and I know that we’ve gotten to the bad part just from the sound of her voice. I hold her closer, press kisses to her hair, and wish with everything inside me that I could somehow make this easier for her. Somehow make what she has to say just a little less painful. Just a little less devastating.
“The Christmas I turned eight, my parents went to Greece for a month. My dad was shooting some scenes for his movie, Lush, and he wanted her to come with him for a kind of second honeymoon. She was all over that, of course, loved the idea of having his exclusive attention on her for that length of time. And so they went, right after Christmas. My nanny quit a couple days before they left and Mom convinced Dad that William could handle me. After all, I wasn’t exactly what you’d call a problem child. And we had housekeepers and other staff to feed me and take care of me. The nanny had pretty much been superfluous for a while, so everything was set.”
“Your parents flew off to Europe and left you in the care of a grown man whom they’d employed for only a few months?” I don’t even try to keep the judgment out of my voice.
“They did…and it went pretty much like you’d expect it to.”
And there it is, the confirmation I really, really didn’t want to hear. Fuck. Just fuck. Just FUCK. “That picture,” I ask, abruptly furious. “Why the fuck does she still have it in her room?”
“She likes me in that dress.” Veronica’s voice is flat now, nearly toneless. “Or at least that’s what she told me when I finally worked up the nerve to ask her about it.”
“That’s not why.”
“No, of course not.” She pauses. “But how do you know that?”
It’s a perfect opportunity for me to tell her the truth. But I can’t do that to her—not now and maybe not ever. I’ve spent years on this book, have already sold it and received an advance for it. And for the first time since I fell down this rabbit hole three years ago, I really think it was all for nothing. All the work, all the research, all the hours I spent trying to figure this shit out. Because now that I understand what happened, now that I know just how badly Veronica’s been hurt, now that I care about her as deeply as I do…how can I put it out there? How can I publish this book and let the whole world know about what happened to her? It could so easily turn into a feeding frenzy.
“Ian?” she asks again, her voice even quieter than before. “Did she say something about it to you last night at the party?”
“Of course she didn’t.” I insert my tongue firmly in my cheek as I continue. “But I’m pretty good at figuring out what’s going on in someone’s head.”
“Oh, right.” She gives her eyes a self-deprecating roll. “I guess I never really thought about how your years as a behavior analyst affect not just your books, but your everyday interactions with people. Is it weird, knowing so much about a person when you meet them, just from something they say or do?”
“You make it sound like I’m always on, always trying to figure people out.”
“Aren’t you?”
I laugh, but it sounds strained even to my own ears. “Not even a little bit.”
“So I’m wrong to feel like you’re always on around me?”
“That’s a leading question if I’ve ever heard one.”
>
It’s her turn to laugh. “It is, isn’t it? But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t answer it.”
“Baby, I have to be on around you. Otherwise you’d chew me up and spit me out in about three seconds flat. As it is, you’re always five steps ahead of me anyway, so who exactly is leading who in this relationship?”
“As if. I’ve had to work my ass off to stay half a step ahead of you since the day we met.”
“Well, then, let me be the first to let you know that it’s working.”
“Oh, darling,” she says, turning around so she can pat my cheek. “I already knew that.”
I cover her hand with my own, press it firmly into my cheek. Then turn my head and give her palm a long, lingering kiss. I’m hoping it will make her smile, but instead her eyes cloud over and her face falls.
“Do you want to hear the rest?”
“If you want to tell me.”
“I don’t want to tell you. I don’t want to tell anyone. But I feel like you’ve got a right to know what you’re getting into with me.” She clears her throat. “I mean, if that’s what we’re doing here.”
I lean forward, bury my face in her neck as her hands come up to pet my hair. “I don’t know about you, but it’s what I’m doing here. I’m crazy about you, Veronica.” I press kisses to the delicate line of her throat.
Her fingers tighten in my hair. For long seconds, it’s her only outward reaction to my declaration, but then she ducks her head so our mouths can meet in a series of light, gentle kisses that are somehow more intense, and more satisfying, than any that have come before.
“I’m crazy about you, too,” she eventually whispers against my lips. “I don’t know how it happened, but it did.”
“It’s my charm.”
“Hmmm, maybe. And here I thought it was your ability to make me orgasm half a dozen times in a night.”
“Oh well, that works, too. It’s always good to know where I stand.”
She laughs, and it’s real this time. Real and pure and so, so sweet. It’s a sound I could easily get addicted to.
But then the smile slips from her face and she turns back around to face the ocean. That’s how I know it’s time to finish this. “Tell me.”
“He was my bodyguard for almost three years and he had unfettered access pretty much the whole time. It was—” She stops, swallows. “It was bad.”
“I’m so sorry, baby.” I wrap myself around her as tightly as I can. “I’m so sorry. That shouldn’t have happened to you.”
“It shouldn’t happen to anybody, but…” She shrugs.
“Why did it end after almost three years? Was he fired?”
“Yes. We had gotten a new maid and she found blood in my bed, and semen. She went to my dad.”
“Blood? So he hadn’t—”
“No, I wasn’t a virgin. But he wasn’t exactly gentle, so…”
Images of all those girls, all those women, that he violently raped and killed flash through my head. No, Liam Brogan doesn’t have a gentle bone in his body.
Even with all the things I’ve seen in my life, I’ve never wanted to kill someone. But here, now, I want to end Brogan so badly that I can taste it. I want to wrap my hands around his throat and squeeze the life out of him as he begs for mercy.
I don’t think I’d even feel any remorse after doing it.
It looks like there’s more of my brother in me than I ever imagined. Because I can’t touch that thought right now, can’t handle even the idea of it, I focus on her instead. On the totally inexplicable fact that her father never called the police.
“So that’s it? Your dad just let him go? He just fired him? He didn’t even call the authorities?”
She shrugs like it isn’t a big deal. Like her father hadn’t betrayed her in the most unforgivable way. “He had a big film out that year, and so did my mom. The publicity would have been…unsavory.”
“More unsavory than a man he trusted repeatedly raping his eight- to eleven-year-old daughter?”
“If the whole truth came out, then yes.”
My blood runs cold at her answer, and the absolutely emotionless way she delivers it. “What’s the whole truth, Veronica?”
“At the time, my mother wasn’t well. She had to spend some time in a psychiatric hospital after that and she couldn’t have handled it if the story got out, too.”
“She couldn’t handle it? The bastard raped you. He should have gone to prison. Who the fuck cares if she couldn’t handle it?”
“My father cared. Because he loved her and because if William Vargas had to go to jail, then my mother would have had to go along with him. And that wasn’t going to happen.”
“Your mother? What does she have to do with—” It hits me then, with the force of a sledgehammer straight to the heart. “She knew. All along, your mother knew what he was doing to you and she let it happen anyway. She let him hurt you. That’s why your father didn’t go to the police. That’s why he let William Vargas go.”
She doesn’t answer, but then she doesn’t have to.
Chapter 28
I wake up the same way I went to sleep. Wrapped in Ian’s arms.
For a moment, I’m disoriented, trying to figure out why my head is pounding and my eyes are all but swollen shut. But then the fog of too little sleep and too much emotion clears, and I’m left remembering everything that I told him.
Or, more specifically, that I told him everything.
And that he handled it about as well as could be expected. Or, in other words, not well at all.
Oh, he was good to me—so good. So gentle. So kind. But through it all I could see the horror in his eyes. And the rage.
More, I could hear it in the ragged breathing he worked so hard to control.
Feel it in the fine trembling of his chest beneath my palm.
I could even taste it in the tortured softness of his kiss.
And still I spilled like an overfull pitcher, the memories pouring out of me like bitter water. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Harder even, I think, than living through it the first time.
When I was young, when it was happening, it had all been coated with a feeling of unreality. Like Alice tumbling down the looking glass, where nothing was quite what it seemed. I embraced the feeling, embraced the disconnect and the alienation, because as long as I didn’t focus on it, didn’t think about it, didn’t acknowledge it even while it was happening, then it wasn’t real. Then it wasn’t happening to me. It was happening to some other little girl, or better yet, to some long forgotten doll that nobody cared about at all.
That’s how I got through every disgusting press of his lips against my mouth.
Every glide of his fingers over my skin.
Every painful slam of his body into my sex, my mouth, my ass.
Telling Ian—watching his eyes, his face, his hands as the words tumbled out of me in a rush—was so, so painful. Opening up is anathema to me, but I went there for him. I laid out every painful detail of what had happened to me for one night only. Because he matters…and because any man getting involved with me, really involved, deserves to know why I’m as messed up as I am. They deserve to know who I am, and what I came from.
He listened to every depraved thing I said without a word of protest. And when it was over, when there was nothing left to tell, he cuddled me close.
Stroked my hair.
Held me through the long, dark night.
He’s holding me still. And while there’s a part of me that loves him for it, there’s another part that wants nothing more than to get away. I’m raw, my body flayed open so that even the feel of his skin against mine is too much.
Everything is just too goddamned much.
He shifts in his sleep, pulls me closer. It’s the straw that breaks my back, that has me wiggling out of his embrace and tumbling onto the floor in my haste to get away. From him, from me, from the words I’ll never be able to take back.
I crawl away from the bed l
ike a thief, pausing—breath held—every time he so much as shifts or sighs. I feel like an idiot, or worse, like the basket case I’m so afraid of becoming, but I can’t bring myself to wake him up.
I can’t face him. Not yet.
I don’t take an easy breath until I’m in the kitchen, far away from my bedroom and the man sleeping in my bed. But even the kitchen is tainted. By the confessions I made last night, and by the brooch lying discarded on the counter. Her brooch.
I still have no idea how it got in my hair. I fixed my up-do myself for the party, fastened a small diamond-and-onyx clip over the twist. How that clip got changed to this brooch—the Belladonna’s brooch—I don’t have a clue. Ian is the only one who had access, the only one who dared touch my hair.
And yet I don’t believe it was him. I won’t believe it. Not when he held me so tenderly last night. And not when he looked so shocked when he found out what it was.
No, it wasn’t Ian who did this to me. Wasn’t Ian who called the gardeners and had them tear out my father’s English garden. And it sure as hell wasn’t he who snuck into my house and left my bathwater running. When that happened, he didn’t have a clue where I lived.
So, who then? The question circles my thoughts as I make myself a cup of coffee heavy on the milk. I wrack my brain, trying desperately to come up with an answer other than the one I am so afraid to contemplate. The answer I’ve spent two days running from and refusing to acknowledge.
But nothing else makes sense. No one else had access. No one else had opportunity.
Only me.
God, just thinking it makes my skin crawl and my stomach churn. I don’t want to believe it’s possible, but what else am I supposed to think? What other answer can there be?
Suddenly, the walls are closing in on me and this house that has always been my sanctuary feels like a prison. I can’t do this right now, can’t be here right now. I can’t face Ian with everything that I told him lying between us like poison. I have to get out, if only for a little while. I have to think.