Lovegame(100)

“What do you mean? The movie’s been made for months, Mom. No one is going to think I slept with him for the part, if that’s what you’re implying.”

“Of course not! Anyone who thinks that is small-minded and petty and completely beneath your notice.”

“As long as it’s not an Oscar judge.”

She sighs again, even more heavily. “I was only trying to help, Veronica. But I understand if you need to be angry with me about it. Just like I’ll understand if you need to be angry with what I’m about to tell you.”

Everything inside me freezes at the sadness in her voice. Someone who doesn’t know her might take it as genuine, but I can hear the manipulation in her voice. Can see it lurking in the depths of her eyes. Goddamn it.

“I guess that depends on what you need to tell me, Mother.”

“It’s about Ian.”

“I figured as much.” There’s nothing she can tell me about Ian that I want to hear from her and part of me thinks I should just get up and walk out right now. And yet, experience has taught me that it’s better to hear her out than to try to avoid it. Otherwise, she’ll just keep dragging whatever she wants to say out again and again until I finally listen.

“I’m so sorry to tell you this, but Ian isn’t what he seems.”

I stifle another yawn against the back of my hand. God, I’m just so tired. Too tired to deal with her shit right now. “Oh?” I reply, a little more sarcastically than I intended. “He’s not an award-winning true-crime writer whose every book has been optioned for film?”

“Of course he’s that. But…” She sighs. “Do you know what he’s working on now?”

“I don’t know if he’s working on anything, actually. I mean, besides the Vanity Fair article.”

“Oh, he’s working on something. It’s why he wanted to do the Vanity Fair article to begin with. Why he had his agent go after it months ago.”

“I think you’re confused. They went to him and he had to work to fit it into his schedule.”

“Is that what he told you?”

“He didn’t tell me anything. The editor of the piece told me that.”

“Yeah, well, my sources tell me that’s not quite how it went down.” She picks up the coffee carafe, delicately refills my cup.

“And what sources are those exactly?”

“When I realized you were interested in him, I asked around.”

“When exactly did you realize that? We haven’t even spoken about him, Mom.”

“I’m your mother, Veronica. We don’t have to speak about a man for me to know when you’re interested in him. And considering who you are—and who he is—it seemed better to make sure his interest in you was real and not because of some hidden agenda.”

My coffee cup slips from my suddenly clumsy fingers, hits the table with a bang and spills everywhere. I start to get up to get a towel, but my foot catches on the leg of my chair and I stumble a little. “Don’t worry about it,” my mom says, and she’s already across the kitchen, pulling a rag from the towel drawer. “I’ve got it.”

I watch in silence as she cleans up my mess, my thoughts a little muddy as I try to figure out exactly what’s going on here. After she’s done wiping up the coffee, she crosses back to the sink and rings out the wet rag. Then she grabs a folder from the other counter and carries it slowly back to the table.

“I didn’t want you to have to see this,” she says as she slides it across the wood toward me.

I make no move to take it. “What’s in it?”

“Information about Ian’s latest project. He’s already sold it—in fact, according to Publisher’s Marketplace, he got a major deal for it.”

“A major deal?”

“More than five hundred thousand dollars.”

“So? He’s a major author. That doesn’t seem out of the realm for someone whose books sell worldwide and regularly get optioned for film.” I stifle another yawn.

“No, but maybe it will strike you as strange when I tell you what the book is on.”

She wants me to ask. I can see it in her eyes, in the way she’s poised like a jungle cat ready to pounce. So I don’t. Instead, I deliberately wait her out.

It doesn’t take long. Big surprise. “He’s writing about the Red Ribbon Strangler, Veronica.”

The name sounds vaguely familiar, but…“Is that supposed to mean something to me?”

“It should,” she answers, reaching for the folder and flipping it open. “This is him.”

I glance down at the picture more to make her happy than because I have any interest in it, but the second I see it, everything inside of me freezes. “That’s…”

“Yes, it’s William Vargas. I’m sorry, sweetheart. I’m so sorry.”

Shock holds me in place, makes my thoughts even more sluggish. “I don’t understand.” And yet I can’t look away from the picture—or from my mom’s bright red fingernail pointing straight at the man who spent so many months molesting me. Raping me.

“Oh, Veronica.” She looks so sad as she shakes her head. “Everyone knows Ian Sharpe is the best at what he does. So what do you think the odds are that he’s writing this book about this man, and doesn’t have a clue who he is to you? His name might be different now—Liam Brogan not William Vargas—but in today’s age? It can’t be that hard to trace an alias, especially if you’re as good at what you do as Ian is. He knew, sweetheart. He wanted that interview with you, wanted to meet you, because he wanted to talk to you about what happened when you were young. He wanted to find out exactly what happened between you and William Vargas.”