Known to the Victim, page 23
My hands tighten on my thighs. “Okay.”
“What he did with her credit card is financial control. What he’s doing with your rent and tuition is also financial control. Same as making himself trustee. Whether he’s benefiting directly or not, he’s placing himself in a position of control over your finances.”
Pain stabs through me. “I know.”
“He also shouldn’t have whisked you out of the city into physical and cyber isolation after what you went through.”
“I know.”
“However, all that adds up to . . . Well, apologies to you, Dean, but it’s a very garden-variety sort of control that men often exert over women.”
“Not arguing,” Castillo says. “My grandmother never had a credit card. When I was growing up, my dad paid all the bills and gave my mom an allowance for household expenses. That was just how they did things then. My sisters are a different story, but yeah, old habits die harder than they should sometimes.”
“Exactly. Oliver thought he was right to cancel Laura’s joint card because she wouldn’t stop spending. He thinks he’s right to control your trust fund, Amy, because he’s not dipping into it—he’s safeguarding it for you. He’s wrong. But that’s what you two need to work out.”
“Do I confront him now?” I say. “There are things I want to look into first. I’d like to talk to Martine, if I can.”
“Do that. Don’t confront him. Just be firm that you need some time away, and if possible, get Dinah to back you up. That should help.”
Castillo doesn’t think I should return to my apartment, and I agree. We've picked up a burner phone from Castillo's office and I've texted Oliver to say, as nicely but firmly as possible, that what he did unsettled me, and I need time away, but I don’t trust that he won’t show up at my apartment.
The safest option is to go to Castillo’s place, which is super awkward. In the end, I admit that I just hate putting him on the spot. He says not to worry—he’ll add accommodations to my bill. I think he’s kidding, but I don’t actually care if he isn’t.
He drives to the east-central part of the city and pulls into the parking lot behind a three-story walkup.
“You can say it,” he says.
“Say what?”
He waves at the building. “I live in a shithole.”
“I wasn’t even thinking that, but if you did, it’d be understandable. You have two wives and five kids to support, while hiding from that murder you committed in Reno.”
“Yeah, yeah.” He pulls into a spot. “Before you actually do worry why a guy with a decent job lives here, there’s no sordid explanation. No drugs or gambling. Not even an ex-wife and a kid. I just . . .” He shrugs. “After that house in the country got sold out from under me, I decided I was tired of renting. Too much uncertainty. I’m living in a shithole because it’s cheap, and a guy like me isn’t worried about living in a rough neighborhood. I can save for a downpayment on a house.”
“Okay.”
“And that was more than you needed to know. I just didn’t want you worrying that I’m an addict or an alcoholic.”
I hop out of the pickup, calling back, “I wasn’t.”
“Good. Don’t worry about being here, either. If I need to leave, you’re coming with me. Now let’s get inside and get to work.”
The building might be a “shithole,” but Castillo’s apartment is freshly painted and immaculately clean with better furniture than mine.
“It’s nice,” I say as I walk into the living room.
He grunts, and I realize that might have sounded condescending. I open my mouth to fix it, but my gut says I’m safest just keeping it shut. Castillo heads past me into the kitchen.
“You hungry?”
No, but he’s already taking stuff from the fridge, so I say, “Sure.”
“I can fix some sandwiches. Or if you didn’t get enough Tex-Mex last night, I made enchiladas I can reheat.”
“Enchiladas would be great.”
I’m still standing in the living room, as if stuck there. I’m moving toward a leather armchair when a photo on the wall catches my eye. It’s a black-and-white shot of a woman swinging a toddler up into the sky, the little boy giggling. I presume it’s art, but when I step closer, something in the woman’s profile reminds me of Castillo.
“One of my sisters,” he says when he sees me looking. “And one of my nephews.”
I walk around the room, taking in what I now realize are all family photos. An older couple. Children. A bride and groom. They’re all gorgeously shot, and I’m about to ask who’s the photographer in his family when I see one in the back hall. It’s two men and a woman in army fatigues, sitting on the ground, obviously exhausted, faces streaked with dirt, but laughing as they share a cigarette.
“You took these,” I say.
“Yeah.”
“They’re gorgeous.”
He shrugs and flips over the enchiladas he’s reheating in a pan.
I’m about to say more when my phone buzzes. I glance down and then away again.
“Oliver?” Castillo asks.
I nod.
“He keeps texting?”
I nod again.
“You could ask him to stop.”
That’s the obvious solution. But what if I ask, and he ignores me?
I’m already trying very hard not to doom spiral. Oliver is the only family I have left. My father lives less than an hour away, and I haven’t seen him in years. When I got my master’s, I downed two shots and called to invite him to the ceremony. I got his voice mail. Left a message. The next day, a lovely gold watch appeared with a note in a looping feminine hand.
“Congratulations on your master’s degree! So proud of you!”
Yeah, not only was it written by his PA, but she’d penned the sentiment as well, because it absolutely didn’t come from him. I resisted the urge to toss the watch in the trash, sold it and donated the proceeds to the local women’s shelter.
My father has a daughter. She’s fifteen. I’m just some distant relative, like the child of an old friend. I cannot express how much that hurts, but I’ve learned to accept it. In accepting it, I do the only thing I can—I look to Oliver as my family.
What if my brother is exactly what Laura accused him of being? A controlling, gaslighting manipulator? What if he’s been controlling me? Gaslighting me? Manipulating me?
What if I ask him to stop texting, and he doesn’t?
I take a deep breath and look at my phone.
Oliver: Please let me know you’re okay, Amy. If you need time away, that’s fine. Just tell me you’re safe.
Me: I’m safe.
Oliver: Are you sure? Are you with someone?
Me: I’m fine. I’ve talked to Dinah.
Oliver: Okay. That’s good.
Me: Can I ask you not to text again today? I really need a break.
Oliver: Okay. I’m sorry.
I stare at the screen, waiting for more. When it doesn’t come, I pocket the phone as Castillo sets plates on the table.
“Do you still want to reach out to Martine?” he asks.
I nod.
“I can do it if you’d like,” he says, “but I’d say the request comes from you. I think that’s important.”
“I’ll do it.”
“Do you want to discuss what you’ll say?”
“Please.”
Chapter 28
I send a message to Martine. I explain that it’s me, and I tell her what we both ordered at the hospital coffee shop—as proof that it’s me. I tell her things have happened, and she’s going to hear them soon, and could I speak to her? I have questions about Oliver. I’m willing to communicate in whatever method she thinks best.
It takes an hour for a response to come. Then it’s a simple “I’ll think about it.”
I want to push, to tell her about Laura. Castillo convinces me to let it drop, and he’s right. What if the situation were reversed, and I suddenly got a message supposedly from Martine, claiming she’d been kidnapped by Oliver’s dead wife and framed for her murder . . . when I could find nothing of the sort in the news?
Castillo spends the afternoon and evening online, with digging, digging and more digging. Sometimes I’m there, answering questions about Oliver to help his research. Most times, though, I’m sitting and thinking. There are things I could do, but they’re all busywork, and I can’t bring myself to do them. My brother lied to me. He’s in control of my trust fund. He imprisoned me in a house in the country “for my own good.”
Did he really write down the security code? Was he really having such a hard time getting my phone replaced? Did he really explain what was in those papers I signed? Is it really a mistake that I can’t access my trust fund?
And what if he’s done nothing wrong? What if I’m the paranoid brat mistrusting her own brother, who has been nothing but kind and generous and supportive?
What kind of sister goes from “My brother is the best!” to “OMG, my brother might be controlling my life!” within hours?
The kind of sister blinkered by her own trauma and passions. A sister whose mother was murdered by a man in her life. A sister who has devoted her academic and professional career to spotting predatory and controlling men.
When you’re a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
I tell myself I’m doing the right thing. I’m doing what I would advise any woman in my position to do. Don’t ignore your concerns. Investigate.
And what does Castillo find, after hours of that digging?
Not a damn thing.
Which is good, right?
It would be, if Castillo declared all was well and Oliver was in the clear. But he can’t do that until my own questions have been answered. I need to know what happened with my trust fund. I signed those papers. I don’t doubt that I did. I can’t prove that Oliver didn’t tell me what was in them, even if I’m certain he did not.
I need to find out why I lost access. There must be a paper trail for that, one that proves it was a mistake . . . or proves Oliver ordered the change and lied to me.
Castillo tries to give me his bedroom for the night, but that just makes an awkward situation even more awkward. I insist on the couch, and we make an early night of it. Tomorrow, I’ll go to the bank and find out who ordered the stop on my trust fund withdrawals, and I’ll get my rent payments transferred to it. And with any luck, I’ll hear back from Martine.
I’m dreaming that I’m back in that room where Laura held me captive. Except it’s not Laura. It’s Oliver. He’s outside the door, and I can hear him there, and I’m crying and begging him to let me leave, but he keeps saying this is for my own good. I can’t look after myself. I couldn’t handle my mother’s death, and he needed to rescue me. Now I put myself in Laura’s sights, and he needed to rescue me again.
I obviously need protection. A man’s protection. His protection.
That’s when I stop crying and start raging at him. Meeting Beth was a reasonable decision to do what seemed like a reasonable and safe thing. I am not a child. I don’t need his protection.
“Are you sure?” a voice says outside the door, and this time, it’s not Oliver.
“Laura?”
“Are you sure you don’t need your brother, Amy? I think you do. I think you’re one of those girls who are happy to have a big strong man to look after her. You can’t seem to find one of your own, can you?”
“I don’t—”
“Poor little Amy. Can’t keep a man except her brother. Why do you think that is, Amy?”
I want to ignore her, but it’s a dream, which means I fall for her taunting, even when I’d know better in my waking life.
“I’m busy,” I say. “I just haven’t found the right guy.”
“Is that the answer? Or does Oliver drive them away? No one’s good enough for his little sister. I remember Milo. Such a nice boy. Whatever happened to him?”
I grit my teeth. “He dumped me. You know that.”
“Are you sure? I seem to recall . . . Oh, never mind. But now there’s Dean Castillo. Oliver really doesn’t like Dean. Says he’s chasing you for your money, but you know what the real problem is. You’re getting a little too comfy with Mr. Private Investigator, and Dean Castillo isn’t the sort of man Oliver can buy off like he did to Milo.”
“Oliver didn’t buy off—”
“Why do I waste my breath? You aren’t interested in listening. You like where you are, safe under your brother’s wing. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have ignored the message I left, would you?”
“What mess—?”
I bolt upright so fast that I tumble off the sofa. A door slaps open. Footsteps run in, and I can make out the dim figure of Castillo in the dark.
“My car,” I say as I scramble up. “I forgot about my car.”
Castillo turns on a lamp with one hand as he rubs his face with the other. He’s dressed only in sweatpants. Scarring dapples his left shoulder, spraying onto his chest. There’s another scar over his abdomen, thick and ragged, and the sight of it makes me forget what I was saying.
“You were dreaming,” he says. “You’re okay. We left your car in your parking lot, remember? Because of the tracker.”
I shake my head as I snap back to myself. “That’s not it. I remembered something Laura said about my car when she held me captive. She said I’d ignored the message in my car. She was saying a lot of things, and I was groggy and not paying much attention. I completely forgot about it.”
“A message? In your car?” He pauses. Then he says, “Shit. The tracker wasn’t the only thing she left that night.” He turns toward the door and then back to me. “You want to go now?”
“Please.”
We reach my car fifteen minutes later. It’s still parked behind my apartment building, exactly where I left it.
“Wait here,” Castillo says, and he’s out of the truck before I can argue.
I watch as he circles my car, giving it a wide berth. I slide out of the pickup, and at the sound, he glances over sharply, but I motion that I’ll stay where I am. He nods and circles again.
Because this could be a trap. I wouldn’t have thought of that, even given what Laura did to me. After a second pass, Castillo approaches. He bends to where the tracking device is—in the wheel well—and he shines his flashlight in and cranes his neck. Looking to see whether there’s a message taped in there. Then he straightens and waves me over.
“Check any place you can think of,” he says.
We do that and find nothing.
“Are the keys upstairs?” he asks.
I shake my head. “The fob is on my keychain, which is in my purse.”
“Lost along with your phone.”
“But I can get into the car. There’s a key safe. I locked myself out once, and that was once too often.”
I walk to the gas tank flap and open it. The key safe is tucked inside, out of sight.
“Could Laura get the message into a locked car, though?” I ask. “I guess maybe if it’s just a sheet of paper it could slide in somewhere?”
“Window is most likely. Push it past the rubber.”
I open the driver’s door and check the back seat. I’m pulling it forward when Castillo shines his cell phone light on something across the floor. A piece of white peeking from the passenger side.
I hurry around and open that door, and an envelope falls out.
Chapter 29
We’re back in Castillo’s apartment. I haven’t opened the envelope. I just sat with it on my lap as we drove back in silence. Now I’m on Castillo’s sofa with that envelope still on my lap. He hands me a beer poured into a glass, and I take two long draws while he folds himself onto the chair across from me.
He sips his beer and says nothing. Just gives me the time I need, and after one more draw on my beer, I set the drink aside and pick up the envelope.
On the outside, there’s a little drawing that looks like a playing card. Next to that, it says “Open Me.”
“Alice in Wonderland,” I murmur.
Castillo grunts. “That something Laura liked?”
I shrug. “Not that I know of, but I get the sense I didn’t know her at all.”
At his snort, I say, “Understatement of the year?”
“From what I dug up, I’m not sure how well anyone knew her,” he says. “Some people gushed about how nice she was . . . and some said you shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, so they had nothing to say. My guess? She was nice when it got her something. Otherwise?” He shrugs.
“Otherwise, she wasn’t above faking her own death, shooting an innocent woman and kidnapping her sister-in-law to get a payout from her former husband.”
He puts his feet up on the coffee table. “Yeah, but considering how it turned out, she’s not exactly a master criminal. She got greedy. If she’d waited another day, Oliver would have been out of prison, and she could have made her ransom demand.”
“Instead, she jumped the gun and did something that made her partner-in-crime—the fake Beth—nervous. They fought, Fake-Beth killed her and framed me. Or that’s the theory.”
“Now I just need to find Fake-Beth. I made a bit of progress on that last night, after you went to sleep. I think . . .” He trails off and waves a hand. “And you’re letting me distract you from opening that envelope.”
I want to ask him what he found. A lead on Fake-Beth? Does he know who she is? Where to find her? But he’s right that I’m letting him distract me, and until Fake-Beth is caught, I’ll only have more questions.
More questions . . .
I look down at the envelope with that cutesy drawing. Ironically cutesy, I think.
Who were you, Laura? Who were you really? I hate you for what you did to Martine. I hate you for what you did to Oliver. I suppose I should hate you for what you did to me, but that crime seems insignificant compared to the others.
