33
“It’s not the same.” Julia’s voice is ice cold. “We were kids when you disappeared. When you came back and did this awful thing you were an adult, and you understood what would happen to me. You knew.”
I beat back the mounting anger and compose myself. There will be no getting out of this unless I stay calm. Emotion will only make me more vulnerable and less observant.
“You’re right,” I say with all the semifake regret I can infuse into my tone.
“When I made my move to get back at you, you were packed for an extended vacation in Europe. Imagine how that felt after what I had lived through for nine and a half fucking years.” Memories pop into my head, reminding me of little things long stored in that place I rarely visit.
The uncontrollable fury. The hatred. The renewed hurt. The damned disappointment.
Julia’s own fury is mounting. She’s not nearly so good at hiding her emotions now. Not a plus in a moment like this.
“I could see only one thing,” I admit. “Revenge.”
“I had just lost my parents. I had no idea where to go or who to turn to. I was spinning. After the funeral and all the legal issues, I needed to get away for a while so I could clear my head.”
“And you forgot all about your long-lost best friend.” How foolish I was. All those years I clung to the idea that I was suffering that awful fate for her and that Casey was the only bad guy in the equation.
Julia lifts her chin. “I was not in a good place. Mentally. I hadn’t been since you disappeared. I needed to reset myself.”
Exactly what a trained therapist would say. At least that PhD came in handy for something.
“But you protected yourself by lying about being abducted.” The moment I read the interviews conducted with her back then and watched a few of the videoed ones, I knew she was lying.
She just hid out to protect herself from her parents.
Then I heard Casey confirm it while she laughed at the idea of what I was going through. But I keep that part to myself for now.
I have no doubt that the investigators in the case twenty years ago noticed how shaky her story was, how unlikely, but who was going to cross Carlisle Anderson? Who would dare accuse his daughter of lying, much less anything worse? No one. Not even our old friend Rick the FBI guy.
“I did what I had to,” she confesses.
I laugh, an ugly sound. She doesn’t even have the decency to lie about it. In almost all situations, it is best—certainly more acceptable—to tell the truth. But there are times when a lie is just the way to go.
“So you did lie about that?” Alicia asks this as if she is somehow appalled at the idea.
The woman who watched her boyfriend kill an elderly person and who drugged me repeatedly is taken aback by a twenty-year-old lie. Give me a break.
The two stare at each other for a long moment. Well, well, the first crack appears. Yay, team me.
Except Alicia’s demand isn’t about how Julia lied to the police.
She couldn’t care less. It’s about the concept that if Julia lied to her about being abducted, she could lie about anything else—like whatever story she gave Alicia and her boyfriend.
More importantly, what else—like promises of money—might she have lied about?
I’m sure Alicia’s head is spinning with the possibilities.
“I didn’t make the decision to become you permanently until it was almost time to return from Paris,” I say, drawing their attention once more.
“Then I spent weeks preparing before I dared go out in public. No one suspected a thing under the circumstances. People always said we looked alike. Like sisters. You’d been in Boston for most of the previous ten years between college and grad school.
I knew you probably didn’t come back here often—you hated your parents.
Change was expected. Time changes all of us. ”
Julia’s gaze is cold, unflinching. Whether she agrees or not, it’s true.
We have similar facial features. Eyes and complexion fairly close.
It was the hair that set us apart. Julia was always noticed first because of that thick auburn mane.
My common brown with only meager natural red highlights was nothing special. But so easy to change.
“How convenient for you that my parents were out of the way,” she tosses at me. If looks could kill, the one accompanying the comment would damn sure do the job.
“That was a plus,” I admit. “Not that I had anything to do with what happened. I learned about it through the news.” How dare she even bring that part up.
No one wanted her parents gone more than Julia herself.
The selfish, ungrateful sole heir of a pharmaceutical empire—one I sold off the first chance I got.
I know exactly what she wanted and how far she went to make it happen.
I wonder what her minion will think of her when she learns that little tidbit?
“Other than your parents’ household staff,” I go on, “there was no one else to fool. You had finished school and hadn’t started your career yet. I gave the staff their orders by phone since I was holed up in a hotel in the city after the trip abroad. Going home was just too painful.” Piece of cake.
“I made it easy for you.” She jabs a crooked finger at me.
“After what happened that morning with Casey and you, I pushed everyone away. If I couldn’t trust my best friend, how could I trust anyone else.
So you’re correct, I isolated myself to a large degree.
Paved the way for you to waltz right in. ”
I laugh, a bitter sound. “You think you had trust issues after that.” She has no fucking idea.
“You just took over,” she says, evidently stalled on the point.
“I did.”
“That’s why you did all that volunteer work,” Alicia says, speaking again finally. “You didn’t know how to be a therapist. You weren’t the one with all the degrees.”
“That’s right,” I admit. “But I knew far more than I would have preferred about shitty childhoods and dealing with men who are predators. I had something to offer other women, so I put it out there. For free.”
“You left me with that monster for nine long years.” Julia’s voice is vicious. A part of her would love to tear me to pieces. “Then when you decided to eliminate them, you saved the worst for last.” She hugs herself as if the memories shake her even now, a whole year later.
My own haunting memories shake me even ten-plus years later.
“That’s right. Nine years. It was nine and a half for me, so you got off a little light.
” I lean forward to make sure she sees the barely restrained rage in my eyes.
“In all that time you never told anyone about me or the person I was last seen with. So don’t go feeling sorry for yourself that you had to suffer the same sentence I did.
And, just so you know, I left you with the only one who played fast and loose with the rules, allowing for an anonymous drop-off.
None of the others would have dared. Ask me if I regret it?
” I shake my head. “Not one fucking bit.”
Her lips pinch with the need to lash out at me, but what is there to say?
Oh yeah. There’s this. I remind her, “At least I came back for you.”