Chapter 2 - “SHE SAID YOU’D BELIEVE HER”Mason did not question Ava again that night.
Not properly.
He knew enough to know that frightened children could be influenced by the way adults asked questions.
So he did only three things.
He photographed Ava’s uneven hair.
He photographed the scissors and severed ponytail exactly where they had landed.
Then he called Dr. Elise Carver, the pediatrician who had treated both children since birth.
Ava had no physical injury.
The scissors had never touched her skin.
But Dr. Carver recommended documenting her emotional state and avoiding repeated questioning.
“Let her tell you what she wants to tell you,” the doctor said.
Mason agreed.
Ava slept in his room that night.
Ben insisted on sleeping on the sofa beside the bed.
“You have your own room.”
“I know.”
“You don’t have to guard her.”
Ben looked at Mason as if the statement were absurd.
“Yes, I do.”
Mason felt the first deep cut of guilt.
“How long have you felt that?”
Ben shrugged.
Mason sat beside him.
“Ben.”
His son remained quiet.
Finally:
“Since Clarissa moved Ava’s bed.”
Mason frowned.
“What?”
Two months earlier Clarissa had insisted Ava needed to become “more independent.”
Her bedroom was moved from beside Ben’s to the far end of the children’s hallway.
Mason had agreed.
It seemed harmless.
Ben hated it.
Now Mason understood why.
“She comes into Ava’s room when you’re gone.”
Mason’s chest tightened.
“What does she do?”
“She talks.”
“About what?”
“Me.”
Ben looked toward the sleeping Ava.
“She says I scare Ava.”
“Do you?”
“No!”
“I’m not accusing you.”
Ben’s eyes filled.
“She says I make the house stressful.”
“What else?”
“That I’m jealous.”
“That I don’t want her married to you.”
“That I break things.”
“Have you?”
“Sometimes.”
Ben looked ashamed.
“After Mom died, I broke the picture frame.”
Mason remembered.
Three years earlier.
Diana’s photograph.
Ben had been six.
He threw it after Mason announced he was dating again.
Clarissa brought that incident up repeatedly.
Mason had thought she was trying to understand his grief.
Maybe not.
Ben continued.
“She says you think I’m getting worse.”
Mason felt sick.
“I have never said that.”
“She says you don’t want to tell me because it will upset me.”
“Ben, look at me.”
His son did.
“I have never discussed sending you away.”
Ben’s face changed.
“Really?”
“Really.”
“What about Ridgebrook?”
Mason went still.
“What is Ridgebrook?”
Ben stared.
“You don’t know?”
“No.”
Clarissa had shown Ben a website.
Ridgebrook Behavioral Academy.
A residential school in Massachusetts.
She told him Mason had already requested information because of Ben’s “anger.”
“She said if I scared Ava again, you’d send me there.”
Mason could barely breathe.
“Did you tell anyone?”
“You.”
“When?”
Ben’s face twisted.
“I tried.”
Mason remembered an evening three weeks earlier.
Ben appeared in the study while Mason was on a call.
He said:
“Are you sending me somewhere?”
Mason had laughed.
“No one’s sending you anywhere.”
Clarissa entered behind him.
She said Ben had watched some video online and gotten anxious.
Mason believed her.
He kissed his son’s head.
Then returned to work.
Ben whispered:
“You didn’t listen.”
There was no accusation in his tone.
That made it worse.
Mason looked down.
“You’re right.”
Ben seemed shocked.
Adults rarely admitted that quickly.
“I should have.”
A long silence.
Then Ben said:
“She told me you’d believe her because adults believe adults.”
Mason’s throat tightened.
“Did she say that exactly?”
“Yes.”
“And today?”
Ben looked at Ava.
“She told Ava to sit in the chair.”
“What chair?”
“The one by the mirror.”
“She already had the scissors?”
“Yes.”
“What did she say?”
Ben started shaking.
Mason stopped him.
“You do not have to tell me tonight.”
“I want to.”
“Okay.”
Ben swallowed.
“She said Ava’s hair looked ridiculous.”
Ava loved her long hair because Diana had worn hers long.
Clarissa had complained about it before.
Mason remembered.
Too difficult to brush.
Too childish.
Too much work.
Ben continued.
“Ava said no.”
“Then?”
“Clarissa grabbed her.”
Mason’s jaw tightened.
“She said…”
Ben stopped.
“What?”
“She said, ‘After this, your father will finally understand what your brother is like.’”
Mason stopped breathing.
The scissors had not merely been used to humiliate Ava.
Clarissa had cut the hair intending to blame Ben.
The haircut itself was evidence she planned to manufacture.
Then Ben said something worse.
“She told me if I told the truth, she’d say I was lying because I’m angry.”
Mason looked toward the closed guest-wing door across the mansion.
Clarissa had not just hurt his daughter’s sense of safety.
She had been constructing a version of his son.
Dangerous.
Jealous.
May you like
Unstable.
And Mason had unknowingly been helping her.
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