Chapter 28
28
Sophie
E very endorphin I possess has been released sometime in the last hour, and it’s all I can do to rein them back in and try to process even a single moment of it. There was no panic when I took that stage with Gabby tonight, no fear or worry or doubt. It was the same addicting thrill of theater I’ve always known. And yet ... it was also something else entirely. Something I didn’t even know existed before tonight.
And in the midst of it all, there was August.
It was impossible not to sense the cracking of his heart as he witnessed the miracle his sister portrayed on that stage. But it was equally impossible not to hope that this could be the beginning of something new for him and for the people he keeps in his orbit.
Emotion constricts my throat. I’m not one of those people anymore.
I’m the person he let go.
I’m the one he encouraged to board a plane in the wee hours of th e morning tomorrow and try for a job that could keep us apart for more than a year.
It’s that last thought that has me deciding to skip the meet-and-greet in the lobby and the possibility of a run-in with the man I can’t seem to stop loving. Portia knows about my flight and the packing I have left to do. She also knows I’ve spent the last twenty minutes standing twenty feet from my ex-boyfriend while I fought to keep my composure during his sister’s beautiful performance.
Portia will understand.
She’s the one who loaned me Nick’s spare pickup truck after I returned August’s car to his driveway the day after we broke up.
I collect my bag from backstage and am out the back door in record time. My keys are in hand as I cross the parking lot when I hear the text tone coming from the zipped pocket in my purse. I hold my breath as I take my phone out, hoping in vain to see a name on my screen I haven’t seen in over three weeks.
But it’s not August. It’s Natalie.
Natalie:
I’m really sorry to bother you. I know you’re at the theater, but something happened at the charity event. It’s too much to text, but I’m at the police station. I’m okay and the baby is okay, but I could really use your support. Will you come?
Natalie:
I have to turn my phone off for a while. But here’s the address to the station. Tell the woman with the blue headscarf at the front desk that you’re looking for me.
Only two steps from the driver’s side door of Nick’s old pickup, tiny ice crystals form in my abdomen as I read through her texts a second time and then check for a voicemail. Nothing.
What on earth happened at that charity event?
There’s a slight shake to my hands as I unlock the doors and slip inside the truck cab. I tap the GPS link Natalie sent to the station, praying I have enough battery to make it all the way there before my phone dies. And then I pray that once I get there, I will be the support Natalie needs.
The only other time I’ve stepped foot inside a police station was to give a statement after the cellar attack when I was sixteen years old. But something tells me tonight will be different. Something tells me tonight will be worse.
Once I enter the front doors of the large brick building, I struggle to find a clear path through the chaos. The waiting area—if one can call it that—is oversaturated with people who clearly aren’t here for the fun of it. The pungent aroma of unpleasant body odors causes my gag reflex to kick in as I search for a desk on the other side of a rowdy group of adolescent boys arguing over a stolen Xbox and gaming paraphernalia.
“Boys!” a woman barks from somewhere behind them. “Take a seat. I won’t ask you again.”
As soon as they shove to the side, I spot her.
The woman with the blue headscarf and no-nonsense expression.
I approach the desk, and she makes no effort to disguise her appraisal of me. I can only imagine how out of place my stage makeup must look under these fluorescent lights.
“May I help you?” Her voice sounds as craggy as I imagined it.
“Yes, hello. My sister-in-law asked me to meet her here....” I look around the dirty room, making sure I haven’t missed her by accident. “Somewhere. She told me to check in with you.”
“Name?”
“My name is Sophie Wilder.”
The woman arches an eyebrow. “I meant the name of your sister-in-law.”
“Oh, right, of course.” I lean onto the counter. “Sorry, this is only my second time in a police station, and things are quite different than I remember.” At her beyond-bored expression, I swallow. “Her name is Natalie Wi—”
“Ms. Wilder.” The voice at my back is brisk but holds an edge of familiarity.
Slowl y, I rotate.
And my jaw falls slack.
It takes me a moment to place him in this new setting, seeing as he’s no longer wearing a three-piece designer suit or asking me for a private tour of the wine cellar or chauffeuring my brother around in his brand-new Mercedes G-Wagon.
Or leaving my sister-in-law’s house around midnight.
The Clinton Owens in front of me looks far too authoritative to discuss the finer points of a quality wine aerator.
“Clinton—?”
“I’m Agent Terrell.” In a fluid movement, he extends his arm to indicate the hallway on the far left of the station. “I can take you to see Natalie now, if you’ll please follow me.”
A dozen questions ribbon through my brain at once. “Wait, you said agent ... as in FBI?”
He confirms with a single bob of his head.
I can’t quite catch my breath. “So then you don’t work in stocks?”
“Afraid not, ma’am.” I swear I spot a hint of a smile before he repeats himself. “Please, just follow me.”
I clutch my purse to my abdomen and trail closely behind him.
“What is going on?” I ask in a hushed tone as I ignore the obnoxious catcalls coming from the waiting room we just crossed. “What happened tonight? Is Natalie hurt? Did my brother...?” I don’t finish as I picture the ultrasound image Natalie showed me last week. I wonder if Jasper found out. Even though she does her best to keep her baby bump covered, it’s there. “Did he—” Stop. Don’t go there.
When Agent Terrell answers exactly none of my questions, I get the distinct impression his silence is strategic. Okay, fine. I can play that game. For a time, at least.
The hallway he leads me down is narrow, with numbered doors on our left-hand side. As we pass door number six, it opens, and a woman in a navy blazer and slacks slips out. Only before she can close it behind her, I hear a voice that sends a shockwave down my spine.
“You’re making a huge mistake, Principessa . This is exactly why a woman shouldn’t be sent to do a man’s job!”
I whip my head around just as the door latches closed, but the movement is disorienting enough to throw my entire equilibrium off balance. Or perhaps it’s the voice that does that. I catch myself on the opposite wall, though it’s not quite supportive enough to keep my knees from buckling under my weight.
“Miss? Miss, are you alright?” The woman rushes to my side as the tight-lipped Agent Terrell reverses direction to grip my opposite elbow and help me stand.
The woman with the slicked-back bun and blazer steps to my other side, shielding me from passersby.
“Are you hurt?” Agent Terrell asks.
I open my mouth, but when no sound comes out, I resort to pointing at the door across the hall.
The woman follows my finger, and then eyes the agent curiously. I don’t miss the intrigue that flares in each of their gazes.
“W-w-who is that?” I ask. “The man inside that room?”
“Why?” Agent Terrell lowers his voice and speaks in a measured tone. “Do you know him?”
“No.” I swallow, desperately trying to return the moisture to my mouth. “But I do know his voice.” I’d bet the sizable balance of my family’s trust on it. Italian accents aren’t commonplace in our area, but it was the derogatory way he’d said the word Principessa that triggered my memory.
“Scream all you want down here, Principessa. Nobody will hear you.”
I’ve replayed that statement a thousand times over the last decade. It was the same voice. The same man who was never convicted of locking me in a cellar for the thrill of a stolen vintage bottle of wine.
Despite the hard knock in my chest, I force out the rest. “Ten years ago, I was attacked in my family’s place of business during a break-in. I was locked in a cellar for forty hours. The investigation was eventually dismissed, but I’m positive I remember that voice— his voice.”
The woman tilts her head to the side appraisingly. “You’re So phi e Wilder.” There’s something akin to awe in the way she says it, but I have absolutely no clue as to why. I’m certain I’ve never seen her before in my life. “I didn’t recognize you through all that stage makeup.”
“H-how do you know my name? Who are you?”
The inquisitive glance shared between these two professionals shifts into a nod of validation.
“I’ll let Agent Terrell fill you in on the details, Sophie, but I think you just more than proved your worth in our investigation.” She directs the gleam in her eye at me. “I’m Agent Trujillo, by the way.”
A second FBI agent? There’s a roadblock of information gathering too quickly for my mind to process, but a single word snags my attention: investigation .
Agent Terrell juts his chin toward the end of the hallway. “We’ll be in nine if you need me.”
“I’ll check in when I’m finished in six,” Agent Trujillo confirms.
The two agents offer each other cursory nods before I’m expected, once again, to trail after the first one with even fewer answers than I had before.
“What did she mean by ‘proved my worth’?’” I’m officially done with the quiet game. “Can you please just tell me what is going on here?”
He stops in front of room nine. “Agent Trujillo believed you were a good egg from the start.” He puts his hand on the doorknob. “That’s a high compliment in our line of work.”
“What line of work?” Frustration simmers low in my belly at his ambiguity. “You mean, back when you were pretending to be a pretentious stockbroker who propositioned me to join him for a night on his yacht?”
There isn’t a shred of acknowledgment for my stellar memory recall or a hint of apology when he says, “I was building a case. Be grateful you were on the right side of it.”
I’m about to comment when he swings open the door to reveal the back of Natalie’s sparkly red ball gown. At the sight of her, adrenaline swamps my insides, and I forget all about the events in the hallway.
“Nata lie.” I plant myself in the hard plastic chair beside her and mentally prepare to see evidence of a physical altercation. But when she turns, there is no sign of dried blood. Just dried tears.
She rests a soft hand on the fabric covering her midsection. The baby. She offers me a tentative smile. “Thank you for coming. I know this couldn’t be happening at a worse time for you.” She flicks her gaze to the agent, who’s just taken a seat across the narrow table from us.
It’s then I scan the whitewashed walls and note the lack of furniture. Is this an interrogation room?
“What have you told her?” Natalie asks Agent Terrell.
“Not much. I figured you’d like to be a part of the discussion.” His voice is notably softer when he speaks to her. “Although, she did hear Andre’s voice in the hallway.”
Andre.
Andre.
Andre.
Where had I heard that name before?
“Oh.” My sister-in-law closes her eyes, exhales, and nods. “Okay.”
“Natalie, please.” A mix of desperation and fear churns in my gut. “Tell me what is going on here.”
She takes a slow, measured breath. “Your brother was arrested tonight. For art fraud and embezzlement.”
Of all the scenarios I’d imagined her telling me when I arrived, fraud of any kind hadn’t even made it into my top one hundred guesses.
I sink back in my chair. Words have failed me many times in the last few weeks, but this time it’s different. This time my speechlessness is because my brother is in jail and his wife appears as cool and collected as I’ve ever seen her.
Agent Terrell stakes his elbows on the tabletop and dips his chin. “We aren’t at liberty to discuss certain details as the investigation is technically still open, but considering how pivotal Natalie’s cooperation has been over the last three months, we decided to honor her request and loop you in as quickly as possible. She trusts you, and more importantly, so do I.”
My jaw unhinges. “You trust me? How? You don’t even know me.”
“Actually,” Natalie counters, “they know a lot more than you might think.”
The only thing I can manage to move is my eyeballs, which are currently focused solely on Natalie.
“I know this must be a huge shock.” She picks up my limp hand. “And I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you sooner. I wanted to, but...” She shakes her head. “It would have put the investigation at risk.”
Flustered, I make eye contact with the agent. “Can you please start from the beginning? When did all this begin?”
“Officially, seventeen months ago,” Agent Terrell answers. “Unofficially, who knows. Your brother has been brokering questionable deals with a loyal partner he’s known for some time—a friend he met in college with art connections both here and overseas. It started slow at first, with the two of them moving fraudulent pieces for a cut of the profits, but your brother—”
“Wants to be the one in control,” I finish for him, only to realize there’s another revelation that’s risen to the surface. My eyes blink wide as I recall all the strange reactions the day after the storm last fall. “The van. Was that involved somehow?”
Agent Terrell nods. “Yes. Which is why we thought you might have been more involved than we originally thought. But like I said, we ruled you out after reviewing surveillance and conversing with you under false pretenses. It wasn’t long after that the two men began curating their own orders and clientele and building a cover.”
Lights are flickering on in my brain one by one. “The private art and wine events in the tasting room?”
“It was an almost perfect cover,” Agent Terrell says before his gaze cuts to my sister-in-law. “With one minor flaw.”
I twist in my seat, my knee bouncing of its own volition. “What?”
“Me,” Natalie says. “And him.” She pats the tiny baby bump hidden under the layers of her carefully selected gown.
“I don’t understand. Why were you the flaw?”
“Who do you think Jasper put in charge of all the paperwork and the bills of sale at the end of those events?” Though the question is rh etorical, the answer is obvious: Natalie. “It was my signature on all those fraudulent documents. I had no idea that Jasper had acquired the art illegally, of course, but he was more than willing to pin me with the evidence that would have made me complicit to his crimes.” Her eyes harden. “A favorite pastime of his.”
“So after more than an entire year of stalemates in our investigation, we took a big but calculated risk,” Agent Terrell continues.
“Agent Trujillo followed me into Target. It was the day after I took my third positive pregnancy test in early September,” Natalie says. “And she watched me linger a bit too long in the baby department and buy the one and only baby item I have hidden away in my closet—a tiny lovey.”
“A lovey?” I question.
“Like a miniature security blanket,” Natalie clarifies. “Agent Trujillo met me at my car and asked me if I pictured raising my baby myself or letting the system raise him while I sat in jail.”
I cover my gasp with my hand.
“Yeah.” Natalie nods. “She gave me her card and told me to call when I was ready to discuss a few matters in a private location. But I handed it back and told her I could be ready right then. I didn’t need an ultimatum to choose my baby.” She lifts her head. “I followed her to a safe place, and there she told me of my husband’s dealings, and in turn I gave her every passcode I knew to every account we shared, including my written permission for any and all law enforcement to access the security cameras around our property and on our vehicles. Once she knew she could trust me, she introduced me to Agent Terrell ... or Clinton, as I’d known him up till then.”
Shocked, I glance between them again. “You’ve been feeding him information since September?”
“Yes, which is partly how they knew about you.” She gives me a meek shrug. “They also tapped the Escalades and the utility van.”
I’m nodding, though my body doesn’t quite feel attached to my head.
“I haven’t known a life outside of Jasper’s control since I was fifteen years old. He was my hero back then, a sanctuary outside my ab usive home life. But then he became the abuser. Mentally, emotionally, and sometimes ... physically.” She swallows. “I’ve been a passive girlfriend and wife, but I refuse to be a passive mother.”
I want to hate my brother for what he almost cost my sister-in-law and nephew, but instead of hate, I’m flooded with relief and love for the woman in front of me.
“I’m so proud of you, Natalie. You did the right thing.”
“Your parents won’t think so. They’ll blame me for this.”
I pull back. “My parents have refused to see the truth about their son for my entire life, but they can’t deny these facts. This isn’t about you—it’s about him. He doesn’t get to evade the consequences for his actions any longer.”
Natalie’s face crumples, and the atmosphere grows charged and uncomfortable once again. Agent Terrell must feel it, too, because he excuses himself a few seconds later. “I’ll give you two ladies a moment.”
As soon as he’s gone, Natalie’s voice begins to shake. “I’ve done a lot of things for Jasper I’m not proud of.”
“Natalie, if anybody understands what it’s like to live in his shadow, it’s—”
“I lied to the cops about Jasper’s whereabouts the night you were locked in that cellar. He needed an alibi, and I was too weak and brainwashed to stand up to him.”
She must see from my expression that I’m struggling to make the connection. “What are you telling me, exactly?”
She blows out a weighty breath. “Your brother was a terrible student. He cheated his way through college, paying for essays and purchasing the answer sheets for every test and exam, all while continuing to party and mess around with girls behind my back. But then one day, he got caught. His business professor held him after class and told him he had less than twenty-four hours to tell your parents before the dean would expel him.” She drops her eyes to her lap. “But instead, he concocted a plan with his new friend, Andre. Since the professor was a known wine connoisseur, Jasper offered him a deal: your dad’s rarest wine for an A and a clean record. The p rofessor agreed, and your brother learned how to cheat the system on a whole new level.” She takes my cold hands in hers. “It was Andre’s voice you heard that night, and it was Jasper who left his only sister in that cellar without a second thought. But it was me who kept their secret for a decade and couldn’t look you in the eye for almost as long.” She studies our joined hands. “Out of all my sins, I know that one is the most undeserving of forgiveness. But I truly am so, so sorry.”
I’m too numb to name the multiple emotions coursing through me at her confession or to feel the gravity of all my brother’s grievances against me and my family, but I do know one thing: The same grace that set me free was given to Natalie, as well.
If this confession had come a year ago, or even six months ago, I can only imagine how I would have reacted. The resentment, the hurt, the bitterness, the re-victimization I would have clung to like a trophy of validation. None of those would move me any closer to a place of healing. And they certainly wouldn’t do that for Natalie, either.
“I forgive you,” I say quietly at first, and then again with deeper conviction. “I forgive you.”
She covers her face with both hands, and for the first time since she told me of her husband’s arrest, she falls apart.
I wrap her and her unborn child in my arms. “I told you I’d be here for you when you needed me. I meant it then, and I mean it now. You are not alone in this.”
We stay this way for nearly a minute as the scratchy poof of Natalie’s full skirt doubles as a protective shield against the world.
If only it could shield us against the familiar bellow we hear approaching, despite several authoritative protests for him to calm down.
We’ve just pulled apart when the door to our room bursts open and an angry pointer finger is jabbed at my sister-in-law.
“What did you do to my son?”