The Impostor, A Love Story (33 page)

“Brad said you were in a bind. I can help out
for about a week but that is all,” Karen said as I was leaving.

“This is so perfect. I need to make a little
money before Jess goes home with my friend Emily. Really, this is
perfect. Thank you.”

I didn’t do any doubles. During the day, I
stayed and played with Jesse—mostly in the snow or in the
gingerbread house. Emily and I worked the night shift. Steve seemed
a little upset that I was taking her somewhere else. He said he
would be home anyway, but I explained to him she had made a little
friend, and they were having fun sleepover parties.

Oh, it felt so good to go to work and get out
of that house. I was wrong about Steve. He had good intentions, but
I really hated being around him so much.

It was different with Dylan and even Chris. I
never got sick of being with them even if we were doing nothing. I
missed the days when it was just Emily and I eating Cup of Noodles
by ourselves. I missed the basement room I had rented back in the
Lower 48. Even though it had the horrible smell of the mildew in
it, the apartment was all my own. It’s funny how you take the
simplest things for granted.

One evening, we finally got a storage unit
and unloaded the trunk. As Emily and I were walking into work, a
woman startled me outside the entrance. “Nicole?” she asked.

I stopped, startled for a moment.
Who was
this lady? How does she know my name
?

“I’ll meet you inside Nikki.” Emily hurried
in the door.

I had spent the day playing in the snow with
Jess, and my winter coat was hanging in the closet to dry. The
jacket I had on did little to protect me from the cold, so I was
eager to get inside as well.

“Nicole?”

She seemed familiar. The woman wore a gray
scarf around her head that covered her hair, but I could see short
blonde hair peeking through. Her eyes were covered by tinted
glasses, which I thought odd because it was dark outside. There was
something about her though—I felt like I had seen her before. Or
maybe it was her voice. “I’m sorry to just come up to you like
this, but I wanted to talk to you.”

“I’m so sorry, but do I know you? You seem
really familiar. Have we met?”

“You are dating my ex-husband.”

What? Dylan never told me he’d been
married
.

“I was hoping we could talk. I promise not to
take much of your time. I can’t stay long, anyway. Could we go to
the restaurant across the street?”

“Sure, sure. I don’t have to be in for an
hour. I was just going in early to make a little extra money, but
we can grab a quick coffee.”

Dylan had been married? Wow, did he have
any kids
? Maybe that is why he was so wonderful with Jessica.
The woman appeared to be older than he was. I examined her as we
crossed the street. Why wouldn’t he have told me he had been
married? I had so many questions. We walked into the restaurant,
grabbing a booth in the corner.

I motioned to the waitress. “Two coffees,
please. And can I have extra cream and sugar?”

She nodded, took the order and walked away. I
couldn’t wait. I had to ask.

“So you were married to Dylan?” I wondered if
she could see the shock plastered across my face. “I didn’t know he
had been married.”

“Dylan? Who’s Dylan? No, Steve. That is what
you call him, right? Steve is my ex-husband.”

“Steve? What made you think I was dating
Steve?”

“He has told everyone you are together.”

“What? Steve said that?”

“Yes. I didn’t believe him at first, but you
are driving his car, and you moved in with him.”

“I bought the car,” I answered defensively.
“He said we were dating?” A really sick feeling came over me. I was
so disgusted by the thought.
He was telling people we were
together
?

“He said you are getting married.”

“Married?” I almost spit out my coffee. “No
way. I just rent the basement apartment.”

“He said you all were going to fight to get
custody of our kids.”

Ok, let’s back it up a moment
. “He
told me he has full custody. He’s got their bedroom upstairs with
the Thomas the Tank Engine covers.”

“Are there any clothes in the closet? Are
there any clothes in their drawers? I have full custody. He hasn’t
seen them in years. He has tried to kidnap them, but failed. I have
a restraining order against him. I’ve had to go into hiding.”

“I thought the kids were with his
parents.”

“They are with me.”

“I thought they were coming up with the
nanny. He said I could use the nanny for my daughter—that is the
main reason I moved in.” The reality of the layers of lies started
to hit me.

“Nanny? He tried to use that one in court.
The nanny who has trouble with Immigration and never shows, that
nanny? She is a school teacher, right? Perfect? She doesn’t exist.
He probably used that so you would move in with him.”

“I just let him borrow five thousand dollars
to bring her up here. There were complications, and they needed the
money.”

“Why would you let him borrow five thousand
dollars? You will never get that back.”

I finally remembered where I had seen her
before. She was the lady in the videos. But her hair in the video
was different—she had long dark hair like mine.

“He has no money.”

“But the videos of all of your houses
throughout the world . . .”

“He showed you that? Those are all model
homes. We were just playing around when we made that. We would go
in random model homes and pretend they were our homes. We never
owned anything.”

“Oh my god, I feel so stupid. He showed us
the videos to make us think he had money so he could steal from us?
I trusted him. We just moved in there because he had a perfect
nanny, and when I saw the gingerbread house he built, I knew my
daughter would love it there.”

“He is extremely manipulative. He told you he
built that? It came with the house he’s renting. He hasn’t built a
thing in his life. He has a gift of swindling people. You are lucky
it was only five thousand dollars.”

She took out some pictures and some letters
from her purse. “You look a lot like I did when I married him.” She
paused for a moment as if in thought. “He always seemed so easy
going, but soon I realized he was fine as long as he was in
control. I started to notice things when the kids were born. We
need rules, you know. I wouldn’t let him smoke in the house, and I
began making more money than him. He was so pathetic. He was
supposed to be setting an example. We fought more and more, but
when we fought, it was mostly me doing the arguing. He would just
go for his drives and stew. But then one day I caught him with my
little sister! The monster! My sister! We left. I took the boys and
left.” She the pile of letters in her hand, stopping as if she
didn’t want to relive any of the terror. “These—these are the
letters he has been sending to some friends of ours. They know he’s
unstable, so they gave them to me.”

I thumbed through the pictures. They were
pictures from when we had all gone out as a group together, but he
had cropped them to make it seem that it was just Steve and I. I
rummaged through the letters for a moment.

“Wait, this letter is dated a month before I
met him.” I thumbed through the pictures some more. “These
pictures, these are from before I met him also. These, these are
pictures from the day I went ATVing. It was him. Oh my god it was
him. I saw him, I knew I saw someone! And this one, I had taken my
daughter to this store alone. I thought I saw him, but he walked
away. All of these are cropped and altered so it seems like we were
together, how?” I sat for a moment in silence. “He has been
stalking me.” The realization sent a tremor up my spine.

In a letter dated before we even met, Steve
talked about how we were so in love. It said I would be moving in
with him soon. “He planned to deceive me even before I met him?”
The thought really scared me.

Acid entered my throat. I could taste it in
my mouth. I knew I was going to throw up.

“Nicole, he raped my little sister. I will
die before he finds my kids. I want him in jail where he belongs.
He’s a sick man. Look between his mattresses if you don’t believe
me.”

I shook my head in disbelief, “He told me you
were the drug addict, he told me . . . oh my god. I have been so
stupid. I brought my daughter into that home.”

I ran to the bathroom, barely making it to
the toilet in time. I couldn’t take anymore. I was shaking. I felt
so stupid, so betrayed, so disgusted. She walked in behind me
helping me hold my hair away from my face in the small stall as my
insides emptied unwillingly. I spit in the toilet and went to the
mirror to clean myself up, spitting in the sink to try and get rid
of the taste of vomit in my mouth. I washed my face.

“He is a sick man, Nicole. You should really
get out of there before you see that side of him.” She handed me a
picture of herself in the hospital. Black eyes, broken bones,
hooked up to an IV.

I held my stomach. “What have I done?”

“I’m here in Alaska to identify him in a
line-up. I’m helping a police detective find him. The detective has
been following him, and he’s going to surprise him and arrest him
tonight. Detective Jackson asked me to be here to identify Steve
and then leave right away. I was very nervous, but he assured me
Steve will be locked up and I would be safe. Eugene confirmed you
were living at the house and found out where you were working. I
realized I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t warn you. Steve’s
real name is Dennis Walters. He has been on the run for two years.
We finally found him. If you find anything or can think of anything
I can use in court to help me, please call.”

She handed me a business card.
Eugene
Jackson.

“This is the number of the private
investigator. Dennis is wanted in Florida. Nicole, he is wanted for
murder. After I won custody in court, he tried to kidnap my kids. I
ended up in the hospital in ICU, and he killed everyone else in the
house. He grabbed them, but somehow they were able to break away
from him and run. I have relocated three times. He keeps finding
us. He is dangerous, Nicole. You shouldn’t stay in that house. I’m
leaving town again in the morning to go back into hiding. I think
he may know we are staying in Oregon, so I have to relocate again.
Get the hell away from him.
”

Tears poured from my eyes, I had been so
stupid. I had been so naive. She patted me on the back and hugged
me. I was still shaking. She stood with me there in the ladies’
room until I could regain my composure.

“Be careful, Nicole. Be careful. We are
having him picked up tonight, so if you need to get anything out of
the house wait until tomorrow to get it. He is a master
manipulator, so they may let him back out but you will be safe if
you go tomorrow. If you can think of anything that will help keep
him behind bars, please call Detective Jackson.” She pointed to the
pictures. “You can keep those. We have copies in case we can use it
as evidence.” Once she walked out of the bathroom, I looked at the
pictures and almost threw up again. Hysterically, I began ripping
up the pictures, disgusted by the thought I had trusted such a sick
man.

After a few hours, I finally pulled myself
together enough to get to work. I needed to get Jess back to the
East Coast. Running over to Emily, I told her what I had just
discovered.

“You gotta come with us, Nicole.”

“I’ll be right behind you all. He is supposed
to be locked up tonight. I will get the rest of our stuff out of
there when he isn’t home and fly out.”

Before I clocked into work, I was able to
call and get Jessica and Emily a flight out in the morning. The
plane wasn’t full so we just had to pay a fee for changing the
date. I booked us a hotel room in town so we were close to the
airport. There was no way we were going back to that house if he
was there.

I looked around the bar for Katie. Where was
she? I needed to find out if I could crash at her place. When Brad
walked in the bar, and I hadn’t even taken off my jacket off
yet.

“That’s not all you wore, is it Nikki?” He
glared at me like I was crazy.

“My winter coat is at the house, soaked. Jess
and I were playing in the snow.”

“Have you heard of something called
hypothermia? Maybe you don’t have to worry about it in Maryland,
but you sure as hell have to worry about it here. How many times
have I told you? You gotta dress warmer, Nikki. I’m serious. You
can die here from the cold . . . if something happened to your car
or something and you were stuck out there. I really am serious.
Tomorrow’s gonna be crazy cold.”

I knew he was trying to help, but the last
thing I needed right now was a lecture. “You’re not my father, I
snapped at him and walked over to hang up my jacket. A tear invaded
my eye, but I was able to wipe it away before anyone saw it.
What was I going to do? How could I have been so stupid?
The
woman’s words haunted my mind.
How could I have been so
blind?
I collected myself. I couldn’t allow myself to start
crying again. I needed the money. I had to work. I took a couple
orders, reluctant to go to the bar. I had never snapped at Brad
before, and my timing really sucked. I realized I needed his help.
I had no one else to turn to.

“Bradley,” I fidgeted, pulling out the
detective’s card from my pocket. Can I use your phone?” I put the
card on the back counter by the phone and dialed the number the
woman had given me. There was no answer.

“Hi, my name is Nicole Carlisle. I was given
your number by a lady tonight. I forgot to ask her name. Well, um,
can you call me if you get this message? It’s extremely important.
The number here is 907 234 4341. ” I hung up the phone, and I
turned to Brad. “Well, if he calls, it’s for me.”