But it’s already too late for that. I’ve already missed whatever chance I had to tell her the truth before it got ugly. Because she’s already talking, her nerves strung taut as a violin string. And short of gagging her right this second, there’s nothing I can do about it. Nothing I can do about any of it except listen. And pray. Because if I interrupt her now I don’t think we’ll ever get back to this place and that is not a risk I’m willing to take. Not with her. Not with us.
Because she needs to be able to talk about that son of a bitch, but she also needs to know that she can trust me. The fact that right now those two needs are running counterintuitive to each other is just something I’m going to have to deal with. Because there’s no fucking way I’m leaving her alone in this. Not anymore. Not ever fucking again.
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.