Chapter 11
Willow had the strangest dream that night. She had finally figured it all out. She was going to go to Tallahassee and make him pay for what he did. She hadn’t gotten a chance to tell Brandi about her plan yet. She was more than positive that she was going to try to talk her out of it. But still, she felt like this was what needed to be done. For Claire. She kept thinking about how she died of a broken heart. That could have been her had she not had the proper support. The man she knew was nothing like the man he actually was. He wasn’t a good man. He was horrible. He didn’t care about his actions either. In fact, he’d done it several more times afterwards.
Talk about a man with no remorse. She was disgusted again. The more she thought about him, the more she became unwell. He really lied to her.
When they first met, he’d take her wherever she wanted to go. He treated her like a princess. She thought he was a gentleman but he wasn’t at all. He was a snake. A liar. A con. And she had fallen for it. She felt stupid. She was so disappointed in herself.
She poured a glass of wine. Richy had just left after dropping a bombshell on her. And she hadn’t a clue how she was supposed to feel.
She was angry. The man she knew as her husband was nothing to her anymore. The more she uncovered, the more she felt her heart explode. It was clear that the man was a monster.
A monster.
Is this my fault? Did I cause him to be triggered? Richy said he’d been with me the longest. Does that mean he did love me? He cared about me, right? He sure acted like he did. And in bed, we were so compatible but how can I be compatible with a psychopath? A sociopath. I don’t feel like those are redeeming qualities. He told me he loved me and I believed it. Like all the other girls. I wasn’t special. I was just stupid. Na?ve. But why? Is it karma?
She needed answers and was desperate for them. She called his phone only to hear it ring.
That time was a little different. His voicemail wasn’t full anymore. She decided that was the best time to say what she needed to say. She might not get another chance.
“So, by now, I’m sure you’ve figured out that I know everything I need to know. I’m sure you don’t care. You’re probably out there doing the same thing to some poor soul. I wish you could have been a better person but judging by your family tree, I see that you were always just a spoiled apple. Don’t worry about calling me back. I don’t need to hear from you ever again. And when I come back to collect my things, I promise you’d better not be there.” She hung up.
She was smarter than she appeared in her dream. She had set her trap by letting him know she was coming. She needed him to know, so that he could show up to the house. Hopefully, that was enough. He was smart but he also seemed to be a narcissist. There was no way he wasn’t going to show up after she explicitly told him not to. The funniest part of this was that she never said when. Yet, she knew him enough to know that would be enough to get him within the vicinity of the house.
And the thing that made her mad the most was that she knew he was going to run to his mom. She was ready for them both.
When they met, his mom put on the perfect mom act. She baked cookies and spoke in a soft tone and really laid it on thick. But as their relationship progressed she became a monster. No one could was good enough for her boy. Even if Willow was perfect. She hated the way he gushed over Willow. It made her mad. It put her in the position to compete for his attention. Now, what kind of mother competes with her son’s wife? A crazy one.
Willow had read about emotional incest before but she had never seen it in real life. She thought it was strange. She almost felt bad for Charlie. He never lived a normal life. He was always trying to please his mother or garner her attention. As a result, it often left him upset when he didn’t get it.
Looking back, she’d seen the signs. They were so boisterous. The alarms were sounding off in her head. She was turning red at the thought of the two of them.
He’d never been physically abusive, but he was really good at manipulation. She thought about the night when they were out at the bar and someone recognized him. He kept saying they had the wrong guy. That he probably was mistaken but in her dream, it all made sense. The guy knew what he was talking about. He kept saying his name was something C.
“Christian Chavez.”
She had the epiphany. He was so uneasy with that guy. He’d almost been moved to punch him but he didn’t. She remembered he said there was a guy in his school who looked JUST like him and his name was Christian as well.
What if that’s their real name? Their real last name. Chavez. Think about this, Willow. You know for a fact that man acted irrationally when that name was mentioned. It was as if he saw a ghost. Charlie turned pale in the face and everything.
She grabbed her phone and called Richy.
“I need you to look up a name for me and tell me what you find.”
“Right now?”
“It’s important.”
“Fine. Tell me what the name is.”
“Christian Chavez.”
She waited for his response. She could hear the sound of the keyboard and then a big gasp.
“Holy sh—”
“What?”
And just before she got an answer, the line went dead.
“Shoot!” She panicked. She didn’t know what she was supposed to do next. She had no idea where he lived or how to get to him but she knew he was probably in trouble. The only person she could think to call was Brandi.
“Get here now. They got Richy!”
“What? Who?”
“I’ll explain when you get here!” She was frantic. She couldn’t help but think he was somewhere being tortured all because of her. He tried to warn her that these people were dangerous.
She tried calling his phone back but there was no answer. She couldn’t take it. All of the events brought her to a panic attack. When she was younger, she used to have asthma. Her grandmother cured her of it, but she still carried around a small inhaler just in case of emergencies.
She shook the inhaler and pumped it. She was gasping, trying to take huge gulps of air but she couldn’t catch her breath just yet.
One more pump and it was over. She had gotten what she needed. She was still very pale by the time Brandi got to the cottage.
“Okay, you’ve gotta be very specific and you have to let me in on EVERYTHING you know. Okay?”
She shook her head as she was bent over trying to maintain her breathing pattern.
“I called Richy because I remembered an incident years ago. With Charlie,” she explained in between deep breaths. “I told him about a name that I suspected may have been his real name all along. We were at a party and a guy came up to him and called him Christian. I could tell he wanted to respond but he didn’t. He stopped dead in his tracks and told the guy he had the wrong man. But the guy… he was relentless. He was so sure Charlie was Christian.”
“Christian. Christian, what?”
“Chavez. Anyway, in the middle of telling Richy that story, he decided to look it up for me. Well, as soon as he did, he gasped, and the phone went dead. I tried calling him back and there’s no answer. I don’t know where he lives or even if he’s okay but I do know that he was right when he said these people are dangerous as hell. We gotta go. We gotta do something before it’s too late.”
Just as her dream started to feel even more real, Willow jumped from her sleep drenched in sweat. She had to figure out who Charlie really was. Before something bad happened to Richy.