Chapter 10 - THE OTHER WOMEN
There were four names.
Mine was the fifth.
Ashley brought the ledger to the state's attorney in exchange for consideration in her own case.
Christopher was allowed to confirm only what related directly to me.
Jared had spent nearly twelve years targeting financially secure women through family connections, social events, and introductions.
Not always for marriage.
Sometimes business partnerships.
Sometimes private loans.
Sometimes "temporary" property arrangements.
Dwight was not involved in the earliest cases.
But he had known about at least two before me.
That mattered.
It meant he had not walked blindly into his father's scheme.
He had joined it.
One of the names belonged to a woman named Monica Reyes.
She agreed to meet me.
We sat in a quiet coffee shop in Towson.
She was forty-eight, elegant, controlled, and angry in the way only people who have carried anger for years can be.
"Jared borrowed thirty-two thousand from me," she said. "Said it was for a construction contract."
"Did he repay it?"
"He repaid five. Then Susan called me unstable when I asked for the rest."
I stared at her.
"Susan was involved?"
Monica laughed bitterly.
"Susan was always involved. Jared was the hammer. Susan was the blanket. She made everything sound normal after he frightened you."
I thought about my first night in the apartment.
Susan's fruit plate.
Her perfect smile.
Everyone contributes here.
The hundred dollars in the envelope.
It had not been generosity.
It had been theater.
"Why didn't you sue?" I asked.
Monica looked toward the window.
"Because they convinced me I should be embarrassed."
That sentence stayed with me.
Embarrassment had been part of the business model.
Make the victim feel foolish.
Make her think she should have known better.
Make silence feel cheaper than exposure.
I had almost done exactly that.
Before leaving, Monica touched my wrist.
"Don't settle quietly."
"I'm not planning to."
"Good."
She smiled without warmth.
"Men like Jared don't fear being hated. They fear being documented."
Two days later, prosecutors searched Harbor Ridge's storage unit.
Inside they found loan files, forged deeds, blank signature pages, copies of driver's licenses, and photographs of potential targets.
One photograph was mine.
Taken three months before I met Dwight.
On the back, Jared had written:
NO SIBLINGS. GRANDMOTHER'S TRUST. GOOD INCOME. CAUTIOUS BUT LONELY.
I stared at the final word until it blurred.
Lonely.
They had turned my loneliness into a financial category.
Then the investigator placed another photograph beside it.
This one showed Dwight and Ashley together.
The date was four years earlier.
Two years before Dwight told me they had first met.
---
(To be continued)
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