Twenty Years Later(88)

“Dammit!” she shouted as she swiped the photos to the floor.

Just then there was a knock on the door. She looked up from the desk and froze. After a moment, another knock came—three hurried taps. Avery quickly gathered the photos from the floor, noticing that one had slid under the couch. She stuffed them back into the envelope and then reached beneath the couch to retrieve the last photo. Coincidentally, or perhaps an omen of the situation she had found herself in, when she reached under the couch to retrieve the photo, she also discovered her father’s postcard. The photo that had skidded under the couch was of Walt in his SUV, studying the cabin when he followed Avery out to Lake Placid.

She pushed away the worry about what it all might mean—that not only Walt Jenkins, but the United States government, knew everything about what she had painstakingly planned for the last year. Another knock came from the door. She stuffed the photo and the postcard into the manila envelope and dropped it on the desk. She checked her reflection in the mirror, frustrated that her red-rimmed eyes and bloated face revealed her vulnerability and would allow him to see that his actions had hurt her. Avery hated the feeling of weakness, but there was no way to hide it, and she wasn’t about to run from this confrontation. In fact, she longed for it. She walked over to the door and ripped it open.

Natalie Ratcliff stood in the hallway.

“Hi,” Natalie said. “Is this a bad time?”

Avery blinked a few times. “Uh, no.” She shook her head. “I wasn’t expecting to see you, that’s all.”

“Everything okay?”

Avery recognized the concern in Natalie’s voice. Where men may retreat in paranoia at the sight of a woman crying, women pounce on the opportunity to help.

“Working out some man-related crap, that’s all,” Avery said.

“Is there another kind?”

Avery forced a smile.

“Can I come in?” Natalie asked.

Avery nodded and moved to the side. Natalie walked past her.

“How did you know where I was staying?”

“Pulled some strings,” Natalie said.

“Meaning?”

“Meaning I needed to talk with you after how you left things the other day. And I didn’t want to wait for a call back, so I figured out where you were staying.”

“Fair enough.” Avery closed the door. “What’s on your mind?”

“You can’t do what you’re about to do.”

Avery opened the minifridge and pulled out a bottle of water, took a sip. “What am I about to do?”

Natalie took a deep breath and exhaled it audibly. “You think you know the whole story, but you don’t.”

“Oh, I’m sure I don’t know the half of it. But I’m pretty sure I figured out the most important part. Victoria is not dead, is she?”

There was a stretch of silence that filled the hotel room, interrupted only by the occasional car horn that penetrated up from the street.

“Victoria was in an impossible position. She was no saint, and I’d never argue otherwise. She was having an affair with a married man. But she was looking at going to prison for a crime she didn’t commit.”

Avery saw Natalie swallow hard, on the verge of crying.

“She didn’t kill Cameron Young,” Natalie said.

“I know. Or, at least I think I know. I took a deep dive into the case and the evidence, and some other things that were not made public about the investigation.”

“How?”

“With the detective”—even peripherally saying Walt’s name brought her to the edge of tears—“who ran the investigation.”

“Can you prove it?” Natalie asked.

“That Victoria is innocent? No. Not this many years later. But I can certainly make a compelling argument that the crime scene was staged to make it look like she did it. And that’s all I need to do for my show.”

There was a long pause as they stared at each other.

“She did the only thing she could to survive,” Natalie said. “She disappeared because there was no other way, not because she was guilty.”

“She couldn’t have done it alone.”

“She didn’t. I helped her.”

“And Emma?”

Natalie paused before answering. “No. Emma has no idea.”

Avery mulled this over and ran through the possibilities.

“Avery, I’m asking you not to do this. There will be very serious and real consequences if you tell people about this.”

“It would ruin your writing career, that’s for sure. You’d probably go to prison.”

“I don’t care about my career. It’s not mine to care about. It’s Victoria’s. I’m just a facilitator.”

“She writes the manuscripts, doesn’t she? Sends them to you and then you publish them under your name and brand.”

Natalie nodded. “It’s a collaboration, but yes.” She took a step closer to Avery. “But it’s not a writing career you’d be ruining. It’s a life. A new life, fought for and scratched for and obtained against all odds.”

“She’s in Greece, isn’t she? You helped her to somehow get to the island of Santorini. Your husband’s family owns a villa there. You see her every year to finish the new manuscript.”