Chapter 4: His Real Name
I showed Grandma the message.
She read it.
Her expression didn't change.
"He's getting nervous," she said.
"Should I be scared?"
"No.
But you should be careful." She stood up slowly and crossed to the small desk in the corner of the room.
She opened the bottom drawer and lifted out a manila folder, thick with papers.
She set it on the table beside the envelope.
"Everything I have is in there."
I opened it.
Bank records.
Printed emails.
A handwritten timeline going back eight years.
Photographs.
Photocopies of documents I didn't fully understand.
And at the back, a business card with a name I didn't recognize — *Detective Carol Reyes, Financial Crimes Unit* — with a handwritten note in Grandma's writing: *Spoke to her in March.
She's waiting.*
"You already talked to the police?"
"A detective.
Yes." Grandma sat back down.
"She was very interested.
But she said without a direct complaint from someone personally affected, her hands were tied."
"Personally affected." I looked at her.
"Like me."
"Like you."
I sat with that for a moment.
My phone buzzed a third time.
I turned it over.
*"I'm outside your grandmother's building.
Come down and talk to me.
Five minutes."*
My stomach dropped.
"He followed me here."
Grandma didn't look surprised.
"He's done it before.
He followed your mother to my door once, early in their marriage.
She thought it was romantic." A pause.
"It wasn't."
I stood up.
My legs felt steadier than I expected.
"I'm going down."
"Sophie—"
"I'm not going to give him anything.
I just want to look at him." I picked up my phone.
"And I want him to know I've been here.
That I've seen what's in that envelope."
Grandma was quiet for a moment.
Then she nodded once.
"Don't let him touch you.
Don't let him walk you anywhere.
Stay in front of the building where the cameras are."
"You know where the cameras are?"
"I had them installed," she said, "six months ago."
I took the stairs.
When I pushed through the front door, Ronnie was leaning against the wall beside the entrance, hands in his pockets, the same easy smile he'd worn at my dorm.
"There she is," he said.
"You followed me."
"I was in the neighborhood."
"You live four hours away."
The smile held.
"I was worried about you, sweetheart.
You went quiet."
"I've been talking to Grandma."
Something moved behind his eyes.
Just for a second.
"Oh yeah?
How is she?"
"She's well." I kept my voice flat.
"She showed me some things."
"What kind of things?"
"Documents." I watched his face.
"About Ronald Dexter Marsh."
The smile didn't disappear.
But it stopped reaching his eyes.
"I don't know what she's been telling you," he said, his voice dropping half a register, "but your grandmother is an old woman who has never liked me.
She's been trying to poison you against me since before your mother was gone."
"She tried to warn my mother," I said.
"My mother didn't listen."
"Your mother loved me."
"My mother left me a letter."
That landed.
His jaw tightened.
The hands came out of his pockets.
"Sophie.
Let's not do this out here.
Come get a coffee with me.
Just talk."
"No."
"I'm asking nicely."
"I know." I took one step back, toward the door.
"That's how you always start."
I went back inside.
My hands were shaking, but I didn't stop walking until I was back in the stairwell with the door closed behind me.
He called my name once through the glass.
I didn't turn around.
When I got back upstairs, Grandma was on the phone.
"Yes," she was saying.
"Today.
She's here with me now." A pause.
"I'll tell her."
May you like
She hung up and looked at me.
"That was Detective Reyes."
