Page 70 of The Woman I’ve Become

When she doesn’t say more, I suggest, “Is this where I start guessing who hired you?”

She claps her hands. “Let’s do that!” she urges like a cheerleader boosting her team’s morale. “What’s your first guess?”

Okay. I’ll play. “I can rule out Phillip because he would never, ever have wanted anything to happen to Eleanor.”

She pouts. “You’re right. When you jumped to the conclusion that I was talking to him on the phone, I just let you think it.” She shrugs. “It was a ridiculous idea. He would never have me drugging you or anyone else. Phillip doesn’t just like pussy, he is a pussy.”

I can’t argue with that assessment.

“He didn’t tell me to plant the necklace either.” She laughs. “Poor man, he has no idea who he’s married to.”

Yeah. Yeah. Time for the big reveal, I guess. “Since I’m confident Rick Howard would have chosen a vastly different strategy, we can rule him out as well.” Really, why play all these games. The former special agent would probably just have killed me if he wanted me out of the way. I decide to toss in the guy I hired just to make things more interesting. “As for the mystery man who gave us that cryptic message through Helen, I’m thinking this is all just a little too long and drawn out for him. Which,” I say as our gazes collide, “leaves only her.”

“Ding. Ding. Ding,” Acacia trills with a knowing glance beyond me, “we have a winner.”

It’s true then. The sensation of ice rushing through my veins steals my breath. She’s here . . . in the room. I can feel her now that the side effects of the drug are waning.

Alicia smiles and makes that little knowing sound in her throat. “Reality just hit you square in the face, didn’t it?” Her smile grows even wider and somehow more sinister as she leans close again. “I know exactly who you are and what you have done.”

“No.” I smile right back at her. “You don’t know the half of it. You only know her side.”

Movement to my right drags my attention there. I squeeze my eyes shut, then force them open once more in hopes the last of the drug haze will be gone from my vision. Twenty years of shock, anger, hatred, and disappointment whirl wildly inside me as I stare at the woman who was once my best friend—the one I worked so hard to become a better version of.

“Hello, Wendy,” she says.

It’s her . . . Julia.

Ten Years, Five Months Ago

30

Wendy

Westport, Connecticut

It was the last snow of winter when I escaped.

For weeks I drift. Avoid human contact. Afraid that someone will recognize me and what I have done. So I eat whatever I can find or steal. I am so grateful and overwhelmed to finally be free that I can’t be still or focus on anything but wandering . . . and looking at the clouds, the sun and moon and the stars. Breathing the air and smelling the scents of life. Oh and the sounds, they make me so happy.

Thankfully my keeper hadn’t drugged me in years, and for the past six I have stayed in very fit condition. So I’m clean and physically healthy. And I am so incredibly thankful to have my life back.

Except that is a lie, and it’s the last one I will ever tell myself.

My life—Wendy Neely—is gone. And no one really even noticed.

Beyond furious, I spend days at the library searching the net to learn what happened after the day I was left with my keeper. I discover that no one was ever told what happened to me. I was scarcely mentioned at all. Everything was about Julia Anderson, the daughter of pharmaceutical magnate, Carlisle Anderson. Julia insisted she didn’t even know Wendy Neely and certainly never saw her the day of her own abduction.

I am stunned at the details she related about her supposed abduction. I am certain none of that happened.

This new reality is not a pleasant one. Not only did Casey Duval leave me and never come back, but my best friend never told anyone she even knew me, much less that I was with her damned boyfriend the day I disappeared.

I was betrayed by the person closest to me. All because I tried to save her.

The renewed need for revenge roars to life inside me. For years I told myself if I ever escaped that I would find Casey Duval and make him pay. He deserved it. The bastard. But there is something more important I need to do first. I need to find Julia and make her see what he did to me—with her help, apparently—and what together they stole from me! She needs to know who and what Casey Duval really is. If my story doesn’t convince her, nothing will.

It takes time for me to decide how to approach Julia. Eventually I hitch from Manhattan to Westport. Once there I find a summer house and break in. There are canned goods and, lucky for me, one of the owners is about my size. I make myself at home and begin surveillance of the Anderson lake house. I always liked that place. Julia and I had some great times there.

Before.