Prologue #3
“Look,” Roy said, reading my apprehension.
“The old files are helpful, but we’ve got a bunch of new sets of eyes.
We’re going to use them. I’ve asked Ms. Egan to come down today to be re-interviewed.
It took some convincing, but she agreed.
Let her just tell her story without any of us having any confirmation bias from reading the old files just yet. ”
“I like the idea,” Tony Vega said. If memory served, he did digital forensics for the State Police.
Roy reached across the table and slid the conference phone closer. He pressed the red button at the top. “Belinda,” he said into the speaker. “You can send Ms. Egan over.”
A moment later, Belinda, one of our civilian clerks, opened the double doors and ushered a young, pretty, blonde-haired woman through.
Petite, Corrine Egan wore a navy-blue print dress with a high collar.
She clutched a leather bag to her chest and took the only open seat at the opposite end of the long table.
She demurred when asked if she needed anything to drink.
“Thanks for coming,” Roy said. Corrine Egan’s gaze settled on me. I gave her an encouraging smile. As a young female crime victim in a room full of alpha males, I’m sure my presence was a comfort.
“Ms. Egan,” Roy said. “Corrine, is it okay if I call you that?”
Corrine leaned forward and put down her bag. “No, actually. My name… it doesn’t rhyme with chlorine. It’s cor-RIN. Rhymes with pin. And yes, first names are easier.”
“Sorry,” Roy said. “My mistake. Corrine, I know you know why you’re here. But if you have any questions before we get started, I want you to feel comfortable asking them. If you’d like to stop, if you need a minute… if you’ve brought someone with you, they can come in.”
“No,” she said. “I’m okay. I was surprised when you called me back. Nobody’s asked me about my case in almost five years. I’d given up.”
“We’re not promising this will go anywhere,” I said. Roy was good. But he was also a behemoth. Easily intimidating. Roy shot me a look of understanding and let me take the lead.
“We’d just like to hear your story in your words,” I said. “Let us get to know you and what happened to you. Then we’ll go from there.”
“Okay,” she said. “Where do you want me to start?”
“Wherever you’d like,” I said.
Corrine spread her hands flat on the table.
“You know, I think I’ve changed my mind.
Maybe I do need a glass of water.” She reached for one of the small water bottles at the center of the table and took a drink before continuing.
“This is… this is hard. It’s been a long time.
I’ve tried to put it all behind me. But if this man I knew is out there hurting people, I don’t think I could live with myself if I didn’t try to help. ”
“We appreciate that,” I said.
Corrine nodded. “Okay. It’s maybe five and a half years ago now. I joined WhisprMatch. It was mostly terrible. Like, the pond was small, and the fish were weird.”
This got a muffled chuckle from Tony Vega. He quickly covered.
Corrine continued. “I started connecting with this one guy. He said his name was Matt Woodson. We were just chatting. Getting to know each other. He was kind of shy. I was thinking he was maybe agoraphobic. But he was kind. We talked about all sorts of things. My family. My job. I work for my brother. He’s got a microbrewery in downtown Ember Falls.
So we talked about craft beers. It was all just easy. ”
I jotted a few notes on the pad in front of me as she talked.
“How long did this go on?” Roy asked.
“A few months,” she said. “We finally decided we were ready for a real date. Matt said he’d come to me. He picked the restaurant. Looking back, I don’t know why I just didn’t have him come to my brother’s bar. But my brother and sister are already in my business more than I want.”
“Understandable,” I said. Though I didn’t, not firsthand. I had no siblings. No family at all other than Lock.
“Anyway, before we met, he had these, I don’t know what you’d call them.
Rules, I guess. What he wanted me to wear.
And it wasn’t anything bad or weird. To be honest, it was kind of a turn-on.
I didn’t question it. Like I said, the way he presented it, it was kind of sexy.
I’m embarrassed to admit that. It sounds so stupid now. ”
I wrote the word “clothes” on my pad. As Corrine spoke, I kept circling it. I felt a bubble in my stomach.
“Everything went fine,” she said. “He was so good-looking, it should have been a red flag. A guy like him shouldn’t need to work so hard to get a date with somebody like me.
He wore a suit to the restaurant. So sophisticated.
He pulled my chair out. Guys don’t do that anymore.
He was a real throwback. A gentleman. I felt like I’d just met Don Draper or something.
You know, from Mad Men. He kinda looked like a younger version of Jon Hamm.
I couldn’t stop staring at my legal pad. I felt like I’d just eaten a basketball. I pressed my hand to my stomach.
“He ordered for me. Which really took me by surprise. But he was very insistent that we both have what he ordered.”
“Did you ask him about that?” Lou, a retired sheriff from Winnebago County in Wisconsin, asked.
“I didn’t. I mean, there wasn’t anything wrong with it; it was just strange.
Anyway, we had dinner. We talked. It was easy between us.
Then he drove me home. Walked me up to my door and kissed me.
That’s it. A perfect gentleman. I was excited.
Soon we were sexting, and it was… it was good.
Exciting. I started thinking maybe Matt was it. Maybe I’d finally found a good one.”
“All your communications were through the app?” Roy asked. “You never communicated by phone or regular text?”
“No.” She shook her head.
“What happened next?” I asked.
Corrine shifted in her seat. “We kept on chatting. About a month later, Matt said he wanted to spend the weekend with me. He rented a house not far from where I live. He was very gentle about it. Telling me he didn’t want to do anything I wasn’t comfortable with.
But by then, I was just completely smitten with him.
He pushed all my buttons, checked all my boxes.
Even the weird things like the demands about what I wore.
He just… took control, you know? In an exciting way.
So, I said yes. He sent me the address of where we’d be staying.
Told me not to bring anything but the clothes I was wearing. I went.”
“It was just the two of you?” Tony Vega asked. “I mean, this house, was it in a neighborhood? Were there other people around?”
“No,” she said. “It was this cute Frank Lloyd Wright-style home tucked away in the woods. Two miles from me, but I didn’t even know it existed.
When I got there, things were good. He made dinner.
He thought of everything. He, uh… gave me this really skimpy blue negligee to wear.
Lacy and pretty. Not something I’d ever buy for myself.
And then, we were… together. You know, intimately.
And at first, that was good. He was… attentive to my needs.
He made me feel safe. Protected. He was always checking in with me.
Making sure whatever he was doing wasn’t going too far.
Some of it was. But when I told him, he stopped. So it was okay.”
I put my pen down. The room started to spin a little. I closed my eyes for an instant, letting my head settle.
“Did it ever change?” I asked, finding myself asking questions as if she were on the witness stand.
“It did,” she said, breaking eye contact.
“That second day. He finally did go too far. It started as nothing. I took a shower and came out. We were going to go out and get lunch. I put my makeup on. I just forgot. Things were so easy between us, I kind of let my guard down. Well, Matt went a little crazy when he saw me. See, I put my red lipstick on. He yelled at me to take it off. Like… really yelled at me.”
“Did he explain why?” Roy asked.
“No,” she said. “But he did calm down by the time I’d washed my face and came back into the living room. He apologized. Then he gave me something. It seemed romantic, but also a little sad.”
“What was that?” Roy asked.
“He had this red silk ribbon,” she said.
“He asked if he could tie it around my wrist. He said this was the only red he ever wanted me to wear. That if I did it, it meant he knew he could trust me. I was starting to get uneasy at that point, but I let him tie it on me. It just… it made him so happy. And he went back to being that kind of alpha male gentleman. We ended up staying in. I thought whatever upset him before had passed. So when he asked me to come back to bed with him, I went.”
I couldn’t move. My stomach flipped. I covered my mouth. I didn’t want anyone to see. I didn’t want to draw attention, but right there, sitting at that table, I knew I was about to be sick.
“But this time,” Corrine continued, “he got even more intense. Really started pushing my boundaries.”
“He hurt you?” I asked. It earned me a few dark looks from the men at the table. Even I knew better than to lead her like that.
“Well,” she said. “He didn’t injure me, if that’s what you mean.
It’s just… things went beyond my comfort zone.
I asked him to take me home. He got really quiet.
Even more intense, if that’s possible. But he let me gather my things and drove me home.
Well, to the park right across the street from where I live.
As we sat there, he asked me to sign an NDA.
I couldn’t believe it. And he seemed… it’s hard to describe.
But it was like a snake. All coiled up, but ready to strike.
Just red flags everywhere. I got out of that car and ran as fast as I could to my front door. ”
“He didn’t follow you?” Roy asked.