Abby nodded cautiously.
“That’s what I meant when I said this kind of loyalty is vulnerable. Because your secrets are never safe and that person who has your loyalty will betray you one day. That’s what Lucy did to Rick. Do you see?”
Leo answered her question. “Yes, Cass. I see.”
But Judy Martin did not see, and she could not stay silent for one more second. Something about this had gotten under her skin. “This is very silly talk, sweetheart. If this was true, we would all be killing each other, wouldn’t we? Some people can be trusted. If you choose the right ones. And if you are the type of person who’s worthy of their loyalty. That’s what I believe,” she said, finishing with a determined nod.
Cass ignored her and continued.
“When I was on the island and I came to these terrible conclusions, I was not sad. I added these conclusions to the expression I had seen on Rick’s face that day on the dock. Suddenly my plan to escape felt real, so real that it filled me with excitement.
“One day I was sitting on the dock waiting for the boat. Rick tied up the boat and tucked the keys into a small pouch he carried around his waist so we couldn’t steal it. He looked surprised but didn’t ask me why I was there. I watched him do his work and then grab some bags of groceries. ‘Can I help you?’ I asked. Hesaid no. He started to walk and I followed him. And then I just blurted it out. ‘I’m sorry about what happened to you in Alaska.’ He missed a step, stopped, but did not look back at me. He started up again and I let him go. That was enough then. I had planted the seed.”
Abby knew exactly what she had done. “You were letting him know that they had betrayed his trust. They had gossiped about a horrible thing he had done, that he was deeply ashamed of.”
Leo spoke then. “So you could sever the loyalty?”
Cass nodded. “It was the beginning, yes. It took a long time for that to eat away inside him, but it did. And when it did, it left a void.”
“A void which you filled?” Abby asked. She already knew the answer. It was the next logical step in this plan of manipulation.
“Yes.”
“Were you intimate with him, Cass? Do you know what I mean by that?”
Cass nodded and looked up abruptly, her eyes sharp and focused, and directed at Abby. “Yes,” she answered.
Judy gasped and covered her mouth with her hand like she was horrified. “Cass!” she said. “How could you not tell us this right away?”
Abby ignored her. “How did this happen? And when? Can you tell us that?”
“It took me a long time, but I used that power, you know? With sex. Sex power. It’s how women get power over men, right?” She was looking at her mother then. The room grew quiet for a moment.
Abby wanted desperately to go down this road, but not now. Not with Judy here. So she moved on. “You created the void and then filled it with something new.”
“Yes. I filled it with something new. I filled it with pieces of me. And every time I gave him a piece, it would take me days to remember why I was doing it,” she said.
Abby nodded. “It must have been very hard to be with someone like that. For reasons that are not known to him, only to you.”
The room grew silent for a long moment before Leo pushed forward. “So when you were able to sneak out one night, he was there waiting. With the boat and the friend with the truck on the mainland?”
“Yes,” she answered again. “Like I said. It was not easy. And it took a long time. It took months.”
“And in all that time, there must have been conversations. Does anything stand out? Anything at all about where you were, where Rick was from, how he knew the Pratts, how they paid him—?”
Cass started shaking her head wildly. “No! Don’t you think I would have told you? He barely spoke to me. And if I had pushed him on anything like that, he would have stopped believing that he could trust me!”
“Okay, Cass. It’s okay. What about the truck driver? Did Rick say how he knew this man?” Leo was not giving up.
Cass shook her head.
Abby jumped in then. “Cass, we need you to see another doctor. An adult doctor.”
But Cass refused. “I want you to do that examination, the one my mother keeps asking for. The one that will prove I’m not crazy.”
“No one thinks you’re crazy, Cass,” Leo said.
“We’ll do it tomorrow,” Abby agreed.
