Page 93 of The Lost Heiress
This felt uncannily like that. Except then, she had felt fear. Now, she felt only anger.
“You’ll make scorched earth of me?” she said.
The anger was a tight ball in her throat, so big she almost couldn’t get the words out. What a self-important, entitled motherfucker. Of course he would go and hide behind his lawyers like he’d always done, have them fight his battles for him. He would sit in his ivory tower while his mercenaries eviscerated a grieved, working-class man and his wife. A family that had only ever asked for answers.
“You know, for a moment, I thought maybe there was more to you than some cold, calculated, callous man,” Ana said. “But I had it right the first time. You’re a monster.”
Ransom’s mouth settled into a grim, hard line. “I’m the monster?” Ransom said. “You’re all the same. Coming at us like we’re some zoo animals in a cage, only there for your amusement and entertainment, rather than flesh-and-blood human beings. The ones with the cameras and the microphones that they thrust into your face are bad enough, but you lot are worse. Pretending to be something you’re not so that you can pick at our insides like scavengers.”
“Ransom,” Ana said, “what the hell are you talking about?”
“Don’t play coy,” Ransom said. “You’re a tabloid journalist.” He said these last two words as if they tasted foul in his mouth. “A vulture trying to get a scoop you can sell to the press.”
Ana let out a shocked, bitter laugh.
A tabloid journalist? How could he think such a thing of her? That she was here for mercenary reasons? That she had interpolated herself into his household, his family, out of cruelty? How could he get her so wrong? Did he think so little of her character?
No, she decided. It had nothing to do with her character. The impenetrable walls he had built around himself were made of glass, but he didn’t see through them like he thought he did. Instead, they reflected back at him all his own worst fears and insecurities.
“I’m not a—” She paused and shook her head. “I’m not a tabloid journalist, Ransom. My name is Elena Castillo. Rosie Castillo was my cousin.”
For a moment, Ransom looked utterly confused. “Rosie Castillo,” he repeated, as if trying to place the name.
Recognition slowly dawned on Ransom’s face, then horror. He turned away from her, toward the window, his hand on his forehead, as if he were trying to stave off a coming migraine.
“My God,” he whispered under his breath. He looked back at her in disbelief. “This whole time, I thought you seemed familiar,” he said. “You look like her. I don’t know how I didn’t see it.”
Elena didn’t say anything. Every time he had asked her if they’d met before, a thrill of terror would rush through her. She swore, twice now, that she had given herself away, that he would know, with just one glance, who she was.
“You’re here to expose me in some way?” Ransom asked.
Elena shook her head. “No,” she said. “All I want is the truth.”
“The truth,” Ransom said sarcastically. “Coming from someone who posed under a fake name, who came into my home under false pretenses. Has anything you’ve told me since I met you had any semblance of truth?”
“If I’ve been dishonest, it’s because you’ve given me no other choice,” Elena said heatedly. “Any time my family has tried to get answers, we have been met with silence or legal sleights of hand. We do not have—how did you put it? ‘Vast resources at our disposal.’ Or ‘lethal lawyers.’ I saw a way to finally get answers, and I took it. If that makes me a liar, so be it.”
Ransom rubbed his forehead, trying to puzzle it out. “I don’t understand,” he said. “How did you come about the job posting?”
“Sophia, my sister, is a nurse at UCLA,” Elena said. “She saw the job posting that Jacqueline put out. She knew who Jacqueline was, who she worked for, and she told me about it. I thought—if I could just get through the doors, I don’t know—maybe I could find something that would finally tell me the truth about what happened that day. But I knew you’d never hire me if you knew my real name, if you knew my connection to Rosie.”
“And Ana Rojas—who is she?” Ransom asked.
Elena shrugged. “I don’t know her. My cousin, he sort of runs a side business making fake IDs. This time, of course, the ID had to be a real person. He knew a girl who fit the profile we were lookingfor—someone our age who was going to nursing school—and he paid her to use her information.”
“So everything you’ve told me about yourself is a lie?” Ransom asked.
“No,” Elena said. “Mostly, I’ve been myself. I’ve told the truth. My relation to Rosie and the real reason I’m here are the only things I’ve been dishonest about.”
“Well, I’m sorry you’ve wasted your time,” Ransom said. “Everything I have to say about what happened that day, I’ve told to the police.”
“I’ve read their report,” Elena said. “Your version of events doesn’t make any sense to me.”
“Well, those are the facts,” Ransom said. “Whether or not you can make sense of them is beyond my purview.”
Elena bristled at his condescension. “The facts contradict themselves,” Elena spat.
“You weren’t there!” Ransom said, raising his voice now. He breathed deeply, tried to rein in his temper. “Any view you have on the matter is pure speculation,” he said.
