“More than five hundred thousand dollars.”
“So? He’s a major author. That doesn’t seem out of the realm for someone whose books sell worldwide and regularly get optioned for film.” I stifle another yawn.
“No, but maybe it will strike you as strange when I tell you what the book is on.”
She wants me to ask. I can see it in her eyes, in the way she’s poised like a jungle cat ready to pounce. So I don’t. Instead, I deliberately wait her out.
It doesn’t take long. Big surprise. “He’s writing about the Red Ribbon Strangler, Veronica.”
The name sounds vaguely familiar, but…“Is that supposed to mean something to me?”
“It should,” she answers, reaching for the folder and flipping it open. “This is him.”
I glance down at the picture more to make her happy than because I have any interest in it, but the second I see it, everything inside of me freezes. “That’s…”
“Yes, it’s William Vargas. I’m sorry, sweetheart. I’m so sorry.”
Shock holds me in place, makes my thoughts even more sluggish. “I don’t understand.” And yet I can’t look away from the picture—or from my mom’s bright red fingernail pointing straight at the man who spent so many months molesting me. Raping me.
“Oh, Veronica.” She looks so sad as she shakes her head. “Everyone knows Ian Sharpe is the best at what he does. So what do you think the odds are that he’s writing this book about this man, and doesn’t have a clue who he is to you? His name might be different now—Liam Brogan not William Vargas—but in today’s age? It can’t be that hard to trace an alias, especially if you’re as good at what you do as Ian is. He knew, sweetheart. He wanted that interview with you, wanted to meet you, because he wanted to talk to you about what happened when you were young. He wanted to find out exactly what happened between you and William Vargas.”
“No.” I push back from the table, climb to my feet. But I stumble again, nearly fall. I catch myself on the edge of the table, but can barely hold myself up. The room is spinning around me. “That’s not true. That’s not…”
“I’m so sorry, darling.” My mother is on my side of the table in seconds, pulling me into her arms. “I’m so sorry he hurt you.”
I sag against her, too tired and worn down to do anything else. There’s a part of my brain that keeps telling me Ian wouldn’t do this. That he wouldn’t lie to me, wouldn’t use me as research for his book. Not when he held me so tenderly last night. Not when he took such good care of me.
I reach for the folder, scatter the contents drunkenly across the table. There’s not much there. Just the announcement of the book deal, several pictures of Liam Brogan who is obviously William Vargas, pictures of a few of his blond-haired, blue-eyed victims. Young girls, all of them, many of whom looked an awful lot like I did when I was young. Oh God. Oh God. Oh God.
“I’m going to be sick,” I say as I lurch away from my mother and half-stagger, half-run across the kitchen to the sink. I barely make it in time.
My mom stands right there through it all, rubbing a soothing hand up and down my back. When it’s finally over—when I have nothing left to vomit up—she gets me a glass of water. Helps me rinse my mouth.
I’m moving slowly, the shock of it making my body weak and my mind sluggish.
“I need to sleep,” I say, leaning heavily on my mother as she helps me cross the kitchen.
“I know, darling. I know.” She takes me down the hall to the elevator and as we step on, I bury my head in the crook of her neck. The room is spinning, my vision going dark and shadowy, and it’s all I can do to stay on my feet.
A couple minutes later we’re in the Picasso room, though I don’t have a clear recollection of how we got there. Then again, it’s not like I care. My thoughts are getting wilder and more confusing and all I want is to check out for a little while. To disappear into sleep where I don’t have to think about the fact that last night I told Ian everything he wanted to know, every dirty, disgusting detail of what William Vargas did to me.
God, I’m so stupid.
“Sit down, darling,” my mother says from what sounds like far away. “I’m afraid you’re going to fall down.”
I ignore her, bracing my hands on the bed as I kick my shoes off. And then I’m falling facedown into the white comforter, falling down, down, down the rabbit hole, and sliding—blessedly—into sleep.
Chapter 29
Where the fuck is she?
I check my phone for the twentieth time in as many minutes, hoping—praying—that I missed a text. A phone call. Something. Anything.