I had trusted him.
But I was wrong if I thought that trust made me a weak woman.
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I dressed, kept all the pictures and the note inside the envelope and went down the stairs.
At the reception, a young manager looked up and smiled politely at me.
“Good morning. Are you going to leave the room?
I need you to call the police.
His smile disappeared.
He took me to a private office and locked the door behind us.
I was expecting questions.
Judgments.
Maybe even compassion.
But instead, he gave me a glass of water and said,
“He’s safe here.
Those four words were about to collapse.
Two detectives arrived twenty minutes later.
I told them everything.
The bar.
The wine.
The Room of hotel.
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The missing phone.
The photographs.
I did not hide the fact that I had voluntarily gone up with him.
One of the detectives, a woman named Claire Morgan, listened without interrupting me.
When I finished, he leaned forward.
“You didn’t commit any crime, Evelyn. He does.
He examined the photograph in which the reflection of the mirror appeared.
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“I was right. There was an accomplice.
The hotel security footage showed Julian entering the building with a blonde woman several hours before approaching my table.
Later, the woman had used a service elevator to get to our apartment.
He had entered the room with a card registered in the name of a cleaning worker, who had reported her missing two weeks earlier.
Detectives also discovered that Julian was not his real name.
Actually, his name was Marcus Vale.
He had used at least four other identities.
And I was not his first victim.
Over the past eighteen months, several older women had reported almost identical threats.
Widows.
Divorced women.
Women who lived alone.
Women who believed their children would judge them for wishing for intimacy.
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Most of them had paid.
No one had told his family.
Marcus and his accomplice had built their entire plan around one thing.
The shame.
Detective Morgan asked me if I would be willing to help them catch him.
My first reaction was to be afraid.
Then I remembered his voice.
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You believed everything else.
I wanted him to believe one more thing.
