Chapter 4 - Eleven Years of Watching
Mason denied stalking me.
He called it “keeping track.”
The distinction did not improve things.
Through police and an attorney, I arranged one controlled conversation.
Public office.
Cameras.
No private home.
Mason looked calmer than he had at dinner.
That somehow made me angrier.
“You knew where I went to college?”
“Yes.”
“My first job?”
“Yes.”
“My apartment?”
“Yes.”
“Relationships?”
He hesitated.
“Yes.”
“For eleven years.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Caleb asked me to.”
Everything stopped.
“When?”
“Before he disappeared.”
Daniel—Mason—had been with Caleb after the fire.
Not in the hospital.
Before.
Caleb woke briefly while firefighters were still treating them.
He shoved something into Daniel’s coat.
A small metal key.
Then said:
“If anything happens to me, don’t let Emma end up like Dad.”
Mason spent years believing Caleb died afterward.
Only recently did he learn Caleb may have survived.
“So you watched me because my brother asked?”
“At first.”
“At first?”
Mason looked away.
Then he found evidence Richard continued monitoring Diane and me after we moved.
Private investigators.
Financial checks.
He believed Dad was searching for whatever Caleb had hidden.
So Mason watched from a distance.
Did he protect me from anything?
Maybe once.
At twenty-four, I nearly accepted a job at Mercer Development’s Boston affiliate.
An anonymous complaint about my prospective manager caused the offer to collapse.
Mason admitted sending it.
Why?
The manager reported directly to Richard.
I stared.
“You changed my career without asking.”
“Yes.”
“Anything else?”
He said nothing.
“Mason.”
He had also interfered with one boyfriend.
Not because the man worked for Richard.
Because Mason disliked him.
There was the line.
Protection had become possession.
“When did you decide to meet me?”
“Two years ago.”
“Why then?”
“Your father returned to Boston.”
I froze.
Dad was alive.
I knew that.
We simply had not spoken in twelve years.
I believed he lived abroad.
Apparently he had returned.
Mason approached me because he wanted access to Richard.
“You dated me to reach my father.”
“At first.”
Same poison every complicated man eventually offered.
At first.
Then feelings became real.
Maybe.
But real feelings did not retroactively sanitize deception.
I asked:
“Why marry me?”
“Because I loved you.”
“Why kick the table?”
His face changed.
No good answer.
“Because I was angry.”
“Why demand my passwords?”
He looked ashamed.
“Because I found Caleb’s key missing.”
I stopped.
“What?”
The metal key Caleb gave Daniel had remained in Mason’s possession for fifteen years.
Three weeks before our wedding, it disappeared from his desk.
He suspected me.
I had never seen it.
Then he began watching my finances, messages, bags.
The obsession grew.
By the stormy evening after our wedding, he had convinced himself I had secretly recovered whatever Caleb left behind.
“So when you said marriage changed things…”
“I thought you were hiding something.”
I stared.
“You were right.”
Mason looked up.
I had not known about the key.
But three days before the wedding, my mother mailed me an old jewelry box.
Inside was a brass key.
May you like
Caleb’s key.
There were two.
