Page 50 of The Woman I’ve Become

“Why do you think”—Acacia faces me now, her hip braced on the counter—“Casey never tried to contact you after you escaped your captor? You were in the news for weeks, right? That would seem the perfect time for him to reach out.”

Unless he was involved, I keep to myself.

“Not just weeks. Months.” I think of all the news reports and true crime videos still available online from that time. “It was grueling. And all that time I hoped he would call or show up. As you say, it felt like the thing he would do. After all, I still believed on some level that what we had was real.” I sigh, disgust roiling in my belly. “Then again that may have been nothing more than a young girl’s wishful thinking.”

“It strikes me as strange, don’t you think? That he never reached out and instead just disappeared that way? I mean your relationship sounded really intense.”

Intense is an apt description.

“For years I googled him several times a month. I found nothing. There was no Casey Duval who looked like the man I knew.”

“You think he used a fake identity.”

Smart girl. The whole world is versed in getting away with crime. Back then and even more so these days. Look at all the docuseries and fictionalized true crime shows about this sort of thing. The central theme they all have in common are the details, the steps taken by the perpetrators as well as the investigators. Those that work and those that don’t. Everyone’s a profiler or forensic expert. The police don’t have a chance.

“I doubt he used his real name. I mean, I can’t be sure. I eventually came to the conclusion that I was just a distraction for him. Someone to tide him over until the next round of whatever he was doing.”

Looking back, I have to admit that Casey Duval didn’t quite strike me as the top of the food chain when it came to the missing girls. He was like the picker. At least that’s what I concluded. The profile my mind created of the man was no doubt influenced by youth and inexperience with evil on that level.

Eventually I understood that Casey Duval was not the man we thought he was by any stretch of the imagination. He was, actually, a terrifyingly brilliant and sadistically evil strategist who fooled everyone into believing a ghastly scenario that was nothing more than a diversion from the real crimes taking place—exactly as I suggested to Rick just last night.

“Maybe,” Acacia says, drawing my attention back to the present, “he saw the news about Phillip running for office and decided it’s time to come out of the shadows. Maybe he’s using Phillip to get to you for reasons we can’t see.”

“Anything is possible,” I admit. “The same thinking goes for Wendy. If she’s alive and free, she may have noticed the headlines and the need for revenge was reawakened.”

Acacia scrutinizes me for a moment. So watchful and perhaps curious. About me, I think. Does she want to take my place with Phillip? It’s possible. Or is she just doing what she’s told for the big payoff? Her curiosity may be nothing more than exactly that—a desire to hear my version of the story to compare with what she has been told.

I’m giving her a great deal of latitude here. Acting as if we’re in this together. Ignoring certain things in order to stay focused. Focus is essential if I expect to survive whatever is coming. Still, it grows more difficult with each passing hour. The idea that she brought someone into Eleanor’s home and then one or both took her life makes me want to bash Acacia’s head in. Right this instant, against the very counter she’s propped on.

“Why haven’t you hired a private investigator to find them?” she asks. “You could hire the best, and then maybe you would know if they were still alive and maybe even where they are.”

I start to sip my tea but remember she made it. I set the cup aside. “By the time I was in a position to do something like that away from my parents and the police, I decided it no longer mattered. He was long gone, and Wendy was”—I shrug—“lost or murdered. Whatever the case, I needed to move on with my life. I didn’t want to think about it anymore.”

She studies me for too long before looking away. I can envision what’s going through her head. The money. The position. The lifestyle. All the things I have that she wishes were hers. All the things the person who hired her intends to take.

Since I became aware of the situation scarcely four weeks ago—after emerging from the nightmare of healing and heavy pain meds—my primary concern was all about what might happen. How this person or persons could take everything—my life, Olivia . . . everything. But I eventually realized that one undeniable and defining factor in all this.

There are many things they can do—all sorts of ways they can torture me. But they cannot kill me—at least not right away. That single detail gives the ultimate control back to me. I am the only one who can access the money, and that is the real power in this situation. I smile to myself.

The doorbell’s echo startles me. Does the same to Acacia.

“I’ll get it.” She’s up and rushing to the door before I can assimilate the proper reaction.

If it’s Rick again, unless he has something useful to tell me, I’m sending him on his way. His insistence on dropping by uninvited is growing more than a little annoying. But what if it’s—

“I need to talk to her.”

The worried voice belongs to Helen. I relax a fraction, slide off my stool, and slowly head in the direction of the entry hall.

“Helen, is everything all right?” She’s soaking wet. The rain has started in earnest. Rather than wait for her answer, I say, “Acacia, can you get her a towel, please?”

I usher Helen into the living room. “Would you like tea or coffee?” She looks a mess. Her hair is tousled. Her face flushed, eyes frantic. Water drips from her clothes onto the hardwood.

She shakes her head at the offer. “I . . . I just need to tell you what’s happened. Cell service has been sketchy, so I couldn’t call you. In fact I only got your earlier calls on my way here.”

The delivery guy’s mention of an SUV with New York plates rushes to the top of my mind. “I need to go first.” This can’t wait any longer. “When you were here readying the house, did someone besides the delivery guy stop by?”

She looks startled and confused, then she frowns. “Well, yes. It was the man Mr. Belmont sent all the way from the city to check the security system. To be honest, I completely forgot. Mainly because Mr. Belmont didn’t want me to mention it. He didn’t want you to worry, given all you’ve been through.”