our estimate, there have been hundreds of children and young women funneled through these properties over the last decade. Your family is up to their necks in this secret society shit, and you had no fucking clue?”
“They were just supposed to be for the immigration papers,” I whispered. “That’s all he said they were for.”
“You can’t have really thought that. Even you aren’t that naive.”
Matthew looked thoroughly disgusted. It was something I knew well. That contempt. That derision. Like I was nothing more than something on the bottom of his shoe.
I just never thought I would see that expression from him.
Tears started welling before I could stop them. “I swear it,” I whispered. “Oh, God, Matthew, I swear it. That’s all he bought them for.”
“You swear it, when you signed the papers for every single one of these deeds?” he asked. “Christ, Nina, you just fucking admitted it! All fifty-three of them are under Pantheon, LLC.”
I swallowed. Another house of mirrors. Another pile of shards. “What?”
“Come off it, Nina. Stop with the big-eyed Pollyanna act.”
Hastily, I swiped at the tears that threatened to fall. “No, really. What are you talking about? I’ll own up to having my name on that LLC, but fifty-three properties? My trust provided a down payment for two properties in Brooklyn outside of the house I bought in Boston with my own savings. And there were perhaps ten deeds in that office that day. That’s all.”
“Just because we fucked a few times, sweetheart, doesn’t make me an idiot. I’m not falling for those big gray eyes again.”
My jaw dropped. “Matthew! I swear it, I don’t know what you are talking about.”
“Then how the fuck do you explain all of these?”
He exited out of the pictures and began scrolling through the other evidence he had been sent.
“Derek has weeks of this shit,” he said. “Video after video of you visiting every one of Pantheon’s properties. Giving instructions. Sometimes you actually walk the girls to their car. Sometimes you even bring some of them in.”
Again and again, I watched the woman in the waterfall-colored pumps exit the black Escalade.
She had my hair.
My shoes.
My dress.
She was…me.
“I—what—how—” I stumbled over every word.
Beside me, Matthew shook his head. “Do you have any idea how many of these Derek has? Most of the time, you never get out of your car. But on Sunday, you did.”
My jaw quivered. “I—I don’t know what to say. Matthew, these aren’t real.”
“That’s your car, isn’t it?”
I stared. “I—yes, but, I never—”
“And those are your clothes, aren’t they?” Matthew shook his head. “You were wearing those shoes the night we met. And I’d know those legs anywhere, Nina.” He sounded disgusted with himself.
“Matthew,” I said slowly, feeling my heart drop—first from relief, then from sadness. “This isn’t me. It can’t be. I never went to these houses. The one in Connecticut, yes, but that’s all!”
“It is you, Nina. In every single one!” Then he turned, and with a roar, hurled his phone against the wall, where it splintered immediately into the plaster. “Don’t fuck me, Mrs. Gardner!”
Tears flooded down my cheeks. I didn’t know who that girl was. I didn’t know why we looked so alike or what she was doing in Calvin’s business. But as my heart pounded so hard it shook my entire body, all I could wonder was why Matthew didn’t believe me. How, after all this time, could he think that was me unless he wanted it to be?
The thought ruined me all over again.
“That isn’t me,” I said again and again. “I swear, it isn’t me.”
But Matthew just stared at his broken phone. Then, in a mad dash grabbed his shoes and socks off the floor and made for the bedroom door.
“I trusted you,” he said in a creaky voice. “They said I shouldn’t. They even sent me here to find out what you were hiding.”
I shrank even farther into the covers, my nakedness somehow so much more than skin deep. “They? Who’s…they?”
But he only sniffed loudly, and it wasn’t until he opened the door to the bedroom that the light from the hallway showed the streaks of tears running down his face.
“I trusted you, Nina,” he said again. “But this…goddammit. You just broke my fucking heart.”
“Matthew!” I cried, suddenly finding my voice. “Matthew, please! Stay. Let’s talk about this. I don’t know what’s going on, but I know we can figure it out together!”
But he just shook his head viciously, then stood up straight. His features hardened into a stony expression,