She stares at me for a second, then says, "Good night,” and turns quickly towards the stairwell. Her sister is peering through the window, her face flushed and puffy, her crazed expression matching her sister’s. Nora shakes her head at Kat, who caves in on herself. Whatever has passed between us becomes irrelevant. I follow Nora to the stairwell, and when she opens the door, I go with her.
Kat looks at me. "Hello, Mr. Rojas."
Nora starts when she realizes I'm standing directly behind her.
“What happened?" I ask.
When neither of them answers me, I say, "I think I can guess, based on whose room you were coming out of.” Turning to Kat, I say, "He recorded you, didn't he?"
Kat’s jaw drops, tears springing to her eyes as she nods.
"How did you guess that?" Nora asks.
"He did the same thing to my stepmother." Somehow I manage to keep my voice calm, even though I'm shaking with rage.
"Did he use it to blackmail her too?" Nora asks quietly.
I nod. “After my father died, I offered to pay for his tuition and boarding for law school. He asked for the cash instead, and when I refused, hoping he’d change his mind, he made a tape with my stepmother and used it to blackmail her.”
“What a bastard,” Nora mutters.
“Agreed.” I look over at Kat. She’s got that same distraught look that Alaina had when he did this to her. I suddenly realize it doesn't make sense for him to have pulled the same trick with a nineteen-year-old intern. "What could he possibly hope to gain from blackmailing you?"
Nora's face screws up. "He knows our parents have access to a lot of money."
My heart drops. “He wants you to steal from their church?"
Nora nods. "How can someone be so cruel? He has to know that either way, he's going to ruin our parents—two innocent people. If Kat were to steal the money, our parents would get blamed and could end up in jail. But if she doesn't…"
I briefly close my eyes, not wanting to think about what could happen. “He doesn’t care.”
"Why didn't I listen to you? You tried to warn me.” Nora lets out a frustrated groan and flops onto one of the steps. "I don’t know what to do. I went into his room to try to find anything I could, like a backup drive or something, but he's already packed up and left."
"He would have been prepared to make his escape before he said anything to Kat."
Kat sits next to her sister and lets out a sob. "How could I have been so stupid?"
Nora puts an arm around her and pulls her close. "You thought you could trust him. He does an excellent impression of a good person."
Kat nods and wipes the tears from under her eyes. "He really does. He knows exactly what to say and when to say it."
My mind races to find some way to fix this for them. With everything else on my shoulders, the last thing I need is to find myself tangled up with Paz Castillo again. I could walk away, go home, and take care of the people who want to be part of my life. But I can't very well leave Nora and her family in this situation. They simply don't have the resources to deal with this, and the truth is she may not care about me, but I still care about her.
"Maybe we can still find him," Nora says to me. "What if he's hiding in somebody else's room? We could go to the police. He made the recording without Kat’s knowledge, which is a serious crime here."
“It's worth a shot," I say. "But I have to tell you the most likely scenario is that he's already gone."
“I have to try.” She takes her arm off Kat and stands. “I’m going to security to see if they have footage of him leaving with his suitcases.”
“They’ll have it, I’m sure,” I tell her.Last chance to escape without getting involved.“I don’t want to make promises I can’t keep, but there might be something I can do.”
Nora shakes her head, her cheeks darkening. “This isn’t your problem. We can’t ask for your help.”
Kat turns to her. “Yes, we can, Nora. He might be our only hope.”
“Kat, seriously, we can’t ask Mr. Rojas to get involved. We’ll figure something out. Maybe Uncle Dan and Aunt Beth can help. They have money. They could pay him off.”
“Don’t pay him off,” I tell her. “Then he’ll know he can keep coming back every time his bank account is empty.”
