She shifts on the futon, picking up a pillow, then gazing at it as if not sure how it got into her hands before tucking it back down again.
“I eventually asked Garrett not to contact me, and he wouldn’t for months. I think he was trying to break free, too. I wasn’t the only one cut off, refused friends, not allowed to date. One therapist said I should forgive him. Another said I was wrong to even consider his side of the story. Neither was right. But I don’t know what is right.” She pauses. “I can give you the therapists’ names and any permission needed for them to share their notes. I’ll provide whatever you need to prove my story, but the truth is, nothing excuses what I did.”
“Tell me about that. What you did.”
“Like I said, Garrett would go months without making contact. But that always ended. If I wouldn’t take his calls, he’d come around. Just wanting to talk. Coffee, dinner, a drink. Couldn’t we do that? Be brother and sister again. I tried. I wanted that, too. But we’d go out, and it’d seem fine … and then it would start. He missed me. No one was good enough. No one else was me.” She looks toward the window. “I know there are a lot of women in Rockton who’ve dealt with abusive partners. Maybe some men, too. My story won’t be any different. It’s just the ending that…”
Her hands squeeze. “I moved a lot. I’d take contract jobs so I could move when I had to—not escaping the cartel but escaping my brother. Then came the night I woke up with him in my bed. Holding a knife. I got away and threatened to call the police. But I didn’t. The shame of explaining that my own brother…”
She swallows. “That’s when the cartel renewed their interest in us. My father had taken money. We got it after he died. Garrett bought himself a fancy sports car, and the cartel caught wind of that, but he didn’t have a proper job or a permanent address. I was easier to find. When they showed up, I made a decision.”
“You gave them Garrett.”
“I had a plan. I thought I was so damned clever. I called Garrett and told him I was giving the cartel his location unless he promised to never see me again. He called my bluff. In the past, I’d threatened to report him and never did, so he figured I wouldn’t do this. I proved him wrong. I told the cartel where to find him. Then I called him and said I’d done it and that he had to run. He didn’t. They caught up with him and…”
She starts to shake. “My father used to tell us what the cartel would do if they found us. We thought he was just trying to spook us. He wasn’t.”
“About the money. You had your share. Hidden. And Garrett didn’t tell the cartel that.”
Her whole body flinches, her eyes closing, face screwing up. “Yes, he never told them. He knew I’d betrayed him, and he didn’t do the same to me. I wish he had.”
“But the cartel still came after you a year later. They tortured you and then they threw you in a hole.”
She goes still.
“That is what happened, right?” I say. “They put you in a pit and held you captive, but you escaped. Yes?”
The muscles in her jaw work, but her lips stay pressed together, as if holding the words back. Then, slowly, she shakes her head.
“That’s not what happened?” I prompt.
“No,” she says finally, voice barely above a whisper. “I lied.”
“I know.”
She shudders as if in relief. “I know how that looks now. I tell a story about being held captive in a pit back home and then I’m actually held in a hole here. It’s too coincidental. So I must be lying again.” She looks at me. “I’m not. Tell me what I need to do to prove that.”
I say nothing.
She fingers the rash on her arm. “This isn’t enough, is it? Not after…”
“After the last time? When you showed obvious signs of torture—all self-inflicted?”
“I was desperate. The detective in charge of my brother’s case wouldn’t stop digging. He figured out what I’d done. He was coming for me.”
“He kept digging for a whole year? So he could get an accessory charge?” I shake my head. “Never.”
“He didn’t care about charging me. He just wanted leverage against the cartel. He thought I knew more, and if the cartel found out he was trying to use me against them…”
She goes quiet. Then she says, “I didn’t care if I went to jail for Garrett. I deserved that. But I would not become my father. I wouldn’t live his life. I knew about Rockton from when someone suggested it to my father. He gave me the contact information before he died. So I staged my story about being captured and tortured. Then I called that number.”
When I don’t reply, she brings up the very question I cannot answer, the one I keep asking myself.
“Why would I fake it again?” she says. “I had a motive the first time. What would it be now?”
“I don’t know enough about you to answer that.” I glance at the two books she brought back from the cave. “Those are your journals?”
“No, they’re just stories.”
“Stories?”
“Silly, crazy stories to keep me sane.” She walks over and hands them to me. “I almost wish they were journals. That might help. You can still read them. At the very least, maybe they’ll help prove I was down there that long.”
I take the books.