40
Westport, Connecticut
The doorbell echoes through the house, and I force myself up.
I suddenly feel very tired. For the past ten or so years, the idea that I might have to face this moment one day has haunted my last thought as I went to sleep each night.
Most mornings it was the first impression of awareness when my eyes opened.
But as the day went on, it evaporated like the lingering morning fog beneath the sun.
It was always one of those things you worried about but somehow secretly thought it wouldn’t happen. But here we are and it is happening.
The cover story we gave Helen is the same one we will present to Rick. I fear he won’t be as easy to convince, but hopefully the explanation will buy valuable time. Somehow time always seems to be my enemy.
As promised, Helen and Alicia returned promptly. The two are armed and taking a walk around the property. I’m not completely comfortable with Alicia being armed, but the decision was not mine to make. I’m not in charge here, at least not on the surface.
But I still have the hidden gun and the threat they all believe is imminent.
I open the door and force a smile onto my face. “Thank you for coming, Rick.” I step back for him to come inside.
“I’m glad you called. How many times have I told you that I am always here for you.”
I certainly know this. He repeats the line in every conversation. Twice sometimes.
He shakes his head and chuckles. “But I have to tell you, the timing was good for more than one reason. There were six reporters at the gate giving your security guard trouble. He’d called the locals, but no one had arrived just yet.”
Damn. That’s all we need, reporters showing up in the midst of all this. The possibility that she wanted reporters to find the two of us isn’t lost on me. I wonder how her little friend Alicia would feel about that.
“Don’t worry.” Rick winks at me, drawing me back to the moment. “My credentials look exactly like the ones I had while I was active. One flash and they were out of here.”
I manage a smile, a real one. “Thanks. I really appreciate it.”
Then again, the idea that an FBI agent was visiting the neighborhood will be great fodder as well. I’m confident those reporters will surmise all sorts of reasons for an FBI agent who worked the Judge case being here now.
I lock the door and show him to the living room. Julia remains on the sofa, so he sees her right away. He stalls in the doorway. I wait beside him. Give him a moment to absorb this new reality.
He looks from Julia to me. “What’s going on here, Julia?”
At least he still thinks I’m Julia. Or at least pretends to.
“Wendy Neely.” I gesture to her, then to Rick. “This is retired Special Agent Rick Howard. He worked the Judge case twenty years ago and for several more after that.”
She nods but says nothing.
I suffer a moment of panic. What if she agreed to all this and now turns the table on me?
Shit! I didn’t consider that option. Wouldn’t be smart if she wants access to the money in a timely manner.
I can make that a serious problem. I remind myself that she is supposed to be Wendy.
She wouldn’t have known Rick. But Rick would certainly know her—or at least her name—and any background info they dug up during the investigation.
“You’ll have to overlook the red hair,” she says abruptly. “I thought it was a good cover.”
Rick’s confusion turns to concern. “Where the hell have you been?” He shifts his attention to me. The shock on his face surprises me. “You want to bring me up to speed, Julia?”
“Please, Rick, have a seat. This is going to take a minute. Can I get you something to drink?” At this point I might even have a drink. “You’ll need one.”
“Scotch.” He wanders to a chair, his gaze glued to the woman on the sofa.
I open my mouth to ask her, and I almost say Julia. “Wendy, can I get you something?”
She meets my gaze then, and I can see a similar panic in her eyes. “Water.”
The word is more a croak. I hope this is part of the plan and not a clue that she’s having second thoughts. The fact of the matter is that we are in this together for now. If she takes me down, I’m taking her with me, and it won’t be pretty.
I pour the scotch and take the tumbler to Rick. A quick rush to the kitchen for two bottles of water, and I’m back to see where this little drama will go. I lower myself into a chair so that I can see Julia and Rick. If she starts making some sort of signals with her face or hands, I want to know.
Rick knocks back a deep swallow of his scotch and looks to me. “Why don’t you start at the beginning.”
“Wendy”—I gesture to her—“has been in hiding since her escape.”
Confusion deepens the lines on his face. “The Judge kept you all this time?”
“No,” she replies.
I hold my breath and wait for Julia to begin the story we agreed upon.
I watch Rick closely. He didn’t know Julia or her family before her faked abduction twenty years ago.
And though they had numerous interactions after she returned, they never really saw each other again after she left for Boston.
She went off to college and rarely came home—mostly because she hated her parents.
It wasn’t until well after her parents were killed that he started to come around again, and by then, I was Julia.
There is no reason for him to be suspicious. At least, I sure as hell hope not.
“I was with a man I believed to be Casey Duval,” she explains. “On the day I went missing, he drove me into New York City. He said he had something to show me. Instead, he left me with a horrible man who became my owner.”
“Wait. Let’s take this one step at a time. Tell me about this Casey Duval.”
Whatever Rick is thinking now, he isn’t sharing. His face is expertly schooled. He spent twenty-five years as an FBI agent. No doubt he is trained in all sorts of deceptive tactics. Just another reason why I don’t trust him.
“He was twenty-five at the time.” She shrugs. “Handsome, charismatic. I was infatuated with him. I would have gone anywhere with him.”
“You took off to the city with a twenty-five-year-old man?”
“It was crazy, I know. But I was young. He was Julia’s boyfriend.” She glances at me. “So I thought he was safe.”
Rick clears his throat and gives me a questioning look. I say nothing. It’s still her turn. She isn’t finished with my story.
“He took me to this mansion. To the home of a very wealthy man.” She makes a face as if trying to pull the address from her memory. “Oh yeah. On Sixty-Second, between Madison and Fifth.”
I stiffen. Wait. How did she know that? I only mentioned the street, not the exact block where the house was located.
Then I remember. Of course she knew. The only surprise is that she remembered it so well after all this time.
Her knowledge of the location is the part I’m not supposed to know.
The part she was still hiding from me. I wonder if she realizes what she just did.
Even if I hadn’t already known she betrayed me, I would now.
She couldn’t have known where Casey took me that morning unless she was in on the plan or spoke to him after.
Rick pulls out a pocket-size notepad and jots down the address.
I am still reeling just a little. It’s one thing to have learned something but another one altogether to have it confirmed by the perpetrator—the person who was once your best friend.
Damn. I quell the reaction. So many emotions have rolled through me already today.
I cannot allow any of it to splinter my focus.
“He took me inside and turned me over to the man. This man called himself my keeper. Casey never came back, and it was years later, after someone killed the old bastard, that I escaped. My plan was to go to the police or to the FBI, but when I did some research online, I saw that Casey had never been captured. All the cases of murdered girls were still unsolved. Under the circumstances, I wasn’t about to risk letting anyone know where I was.
With him still out there . . . I knew I wouldn’t be safe.
It wasn’t until that article came out in The New York Times the other day that I realized I had to do something.
So I dyed my hair red, and I came here to wait for an opportunity to talk to Julia.
I hoped if anyone saw me hanging around, they would just think I was her or a relative and not some intruder.
” She shakes her head. “It sounds foolish now when I say it out loud.”
Rick says, “What did you believe you had to do?”
She turned to me, eyes big with worry. “I knew I had to find Julia and warn her about Casey. About everything. She had no idea what was going on beyond her insulated world.”
I try not to take offense at her description.
“I never saw him again after that last morning he and I were together,” I say, picking up the story from there.
“He dropped me off on the road near my house. My parents were so strict, I didn’t dare have him pull into the driveway.
But before I reached my driveway, someone came out of the woods—out of the darkness—and put something over my head.
The next thing I knew, I was in a trunk, and then I was injected with a drug of some sort.
When I regained consciousness, I was locked in a basement.
” I shudder. “You know my story. I don’t have to walk you through that nightmare.
The rendezvous with Casey is the only thing I left out.
I had no idea he went to Wendy’s after that. ”
He nods slowly. “But you heard Casey drive away after dropping you off?”
I fix my face into one of uncertainty. “I thought he drove away, but it was like four in the morning. I was completely focused on getting to my house before my parents got up. And, to be honest, I was probably still a little drunk.”
Now he stares at me for a long time. As if he’s trying to see what I’m hiding. “Why did you not mention this Casey Duval in your statement twenty years ago?”