Girl, Forgotten (Andrea Oliver 2)

“The sex wasn’t great.”

“Mom.”

“All right,” Laura said. “I suppose there’s a better way to say it. The sex really didn’t matter. Being able to hold his attention was the aphrodisiac. Obviously, I wasn’t the only one he kept in thrall. I saw him do it with men, other women, even children. He watches people, and he figures out what they need, and he finds a way to become the only person in the world who can give it to them. After that, they’ll do anything he asks.”

Andrea knew instinctively that Wexler followed the same pattern. He had denied having contact with the volunteers, but Star was clearly under his thumb. She was literally torturing herself into an early grave.

“Considering your current location,” Laura continued, “I never believed your father killed that poor teenager. Not when I was told about it, and not now.”

Andrea did not want to get sidetracked, but she couldn’t help asking, “Why not?”

“I don’t agree with your current career, but I’m still your mother. I looked at the syllabi you emailed me. Six of your courses at Glynco dealt with analyzing criminal psychology.”

Andrea should not have been surprised. “And?”

“Look at the charges that were made against your father. At least the crimes that the government knew about. Everything was conspiracy this, conspiracy that. He never got his hands dirty. Committing acts of violence was beneath him.”

Andrea knew that wasn’t true. “I’ve seen a scar that tells me otherwise.”

“Darling, it was the eighties. Everyone got a little rough.”

Andrea was silent. Laura always spoke too lightly about the violence she had suffered at Clay’s hands.

Laura said, “Your father’s kink wasn’t committing actual crimes. He got off on making other people commit crimes for him.”

Andrea bit her lip. Another personality trait Wexler had mimicked. Nardo Fontaine screened all the prospective volunteers. His name was listed on the fake charity that had netted Wexler $3,000,000. Andrea could easily see Nardo coming up with the original plan to blackmail the judge. And she could see him following Guinevere around town with a camera, reveling in the chaos the photographs would bring.

“Andy?”

“You tricked him into incriminating himself,” Andrea said. “How did you do that? How do you trick a psychopath into telling the truth?”

Laura kept silent for so long that Andrea wasn’t sure she was still on the line. Eventually, her mother said, “You do the same thing that they do to you—you make them think that you believe in them.”

Andrea knew that Laura had believed quite a lot of Clay Morrow’s destructive philosophy.

“Your father was—” Laura seemed to be searching for a word. “He was so believable. He would tell you things that sounded true, but weren’t necessarily accurate.”

“Were you allowed to disagree with him?”

“Of course,” Laura said. “He loved a healthy debate. But you can’t have a logical discussion with someone who makes up their own facts. There was always a statistic or a data set that only he knew about. He was smarter than everyone else, you see. He had it all figured out. In the end, you felt embarrassed for not coming round to his point of view sooner. It takes a tremendous amount of arrogance to honestly believe that everyone else in the world is clueless and you’re the only one who knows the truth.”

Andrea felt herself nodding. That was Wexler, too. “So how do you make them think you believe what they’re saying?”

“Start with skepticism, but make it clear that you’re open to persuasion. After a while, concede some of their points. Expound upon some of their reasoning. Make them believe you’ve been swayed by their genius. The easiest way to make someone trust you is to parrot back everything they say.” Laura stopped, as if she was afraid that she was giving away too much. “People think psychopaths are so clever, but they generally only go after the low-hanging fruit. I wanted to be persuaded. I needed something to believe in.”

“How did you get away from him?”

“What do you mean?” Laura asked. “I told you how I—”

“Not physically.” Andrea was thinking about Star Bonaire. “Mentally, how did you get away from him?”

“You,” Laura said. “I thought I loved him, but I didn’t know love until the first time I held you in my arms. After that, you were all that mattered. And I knew that I had to do everything within my power to keep you safe.”

Andrea had heard her mother make similar declarations many times before, but instead of rolling her eyes or brushing it aside, she said, “I know what you gave up to keep me safe.”

“Sweetheart, I gave up nothing and I gained everything,” Laura said. “Are you sure you don’t need me?”

“I needed to hear your voice.” Andrea didn’t know if it was stress or exhaustion that brought tears to her eyes. “So I’ve heard your voice, and I’m going to go. But I’ll call you this weekend. And—and I really love you, Mom. I love you very much. Okay? I really do love you.”