I found what I was looking for in the last box I searched. A sketchbook that I’d bought for an art class back at Mount Holyoke. It had been the final semester of my senior year, and I’d already sent off all of my internship and med school applications. I was locked into a career in medicine, so I’d figured it would be okay for me to take an art class. Just one.
But I’d ended up dropping out the day before the class was due to start. I’d told myself it was because I didn’t need the credit and could use the extra time to chill and catch up on all the shows I hadn’t gotten around to watching during the four years I’d been studying like a maniac. But really, it had been because I was afraid.
I hadn’t drawn in years. And the last time I let myself have art, I’d fallen for Victor and almost ended up at RhIDS. I’d thought avoiding the class would keep something like that from happening again. Would keep me on the right path. I hadn’t wanted to mess up the unexpected course correction I’d received from my father.
But the truth was, Victor was always going to destroy me. He’d just been lying in wait while I was at college.
Now here I was in this huge house, my planned life in ruins. In a prison of Victor’s making, feeling utterly tragic. And that had only been our first anniversary. I still had nine more to go.
So, no more running away from art.
I needed it, I decided. Then I took the sketchbook back down to the kitchen counter.
Art might be the one thing that would keep me sane for the next nine years. That was what I told myself as I put my pencil on a sketchbook for the first time in five years.
But it felt like a long shot.
12
VICTOR
Dawn had stopped answering her old phone. Victor knew this because, for two months following their anniversary, he read all of the increasingly frustrated messages that came in from her friends and family in reply to the email she’d supposedly sent. He’d even listened to the voicemails.
The one from Dawn’s father especially thrilled Victor. The undercover agent seemed to sense that there was something wrong, but he couldn’t confirm it. He took time away from his undercover assignment to call her.
“Sweet pea, what’s going on? I know you and Doll don’t always see eye to eye, but you got her real upset. You’re an adult now, and you can do what you want. I just need to hear you’re okay. Not into drugs or anything like that. Byron said you weren’t returning any of his calls either. We’re all worried about you. Call us. Call us back.”
Several beats went by before her father added, “Please.”
Aw, poor Darrell Kingston. What would he do if he knew that the only thing that stood between him and death was the daughter he was so worried about? No wonder Dawn couldn’t bring herself to answer him.
Victor didn’t have that problem.
After listening to that message, Victor opened up Kingston’s last email and pressed the reply icon.
“You’re only upset because you can no longer control me,” he answered on Dawn’s behalf.
Her father only received a one-sentence reply to his long list of questions, but Kingston should have considered himself lucky. That was more communication than anyone else had gotten from Dawn, including her pregnant friend from college.
He doubted that after two months of letting emails, texts, and VMs pileup, Dawn would do any investigative work if she ever picked up her old phone. But just in case, Victor made sure to delete the lone reply email from her sent message folder and to mark all the ones he’d read as new.
Not that it mattered. Her father never answered the email Victor sent. And Dawn didn’t log back into her account for the next several months.
According to Wayne’s weekly reports, a former Red Diamond in his late 50s who made Phantom look like he had A+ social skills, she’d finally fallen in line. Not only had she stopped biking to work every day, but she’d also stopped going out altogether. No more gym membership. No more music festivals that summer or entire days spent at farmers markets and food and wine events. She dutifully let Wayne drive her to work. Other than that, according to his reports, she stayed quiet and no longer tried to engage him in conversation.
Good.
These years were meant to be a punishment. And he wanted it to feel that way.
Victor was proud of himself for a season or two. He’d had Wayne plant small cameras all over the house, but he didn’t bother to check them. And eventually, he weaned himself down to reading Wayne’s reports and her emails to once a month. Knowing she was miserable became enough. Besides, he had plenty of work to keep him busy.
