Priscilla Foster had become the butt of the joke a long time ago. There are people out there who feel as if the entire world conspires against them. Most of them are simply delusional, some literally mentally impaired in some way. Priscilla had been given the evidence basically her whole life.
The man who became known as Tyler Salazar, one of the kidnapping victims from two decades earlier, the same point at which her son had been murdered, the ugly custody battle that had forever labeled her the mother-in-law, the first time anyone associated her with Kate Meadows, the grandchild who would end up herself murdered…
No one listened to Priscilla about Salazar. That was because no one knew who Salazar really was. A conman, who had first come to Berlin in another of his many scams. Who had seduced her mother. Who was in fact her biological father.
In those days such things were covered up. No one wanted the scandal. No one could’ve known, then, how these things would play out. So much worse. So much infinitely worse.
When Salazar ended up dead, years later, she’d known. He’d killed her son. Everyone would assume she’d killed Salazar. No one ever bothered to find out the truth. The truth doesn’t matter. It’s always the best story. She didn’t know much about what had happened, between Salazar, Dixon, Hargraves, Shelton. Some kind of cult, maybe. Partners in crime, at any rate. Ended badly. Continued in that direction until it got worse. She didn’t care which one had done it, had killed Salazar. Maybe some other pathetic associate. But no one else did, either. They assumed it was her. She’d made too much fuss already.
So they locked her up. Put on a sham trial. In those days, so much easier. Not as much burden of evidence. Proof by way of hearsay.
And now, all these years later, she heard…everything. There was actual support for her. Not everyone bought into the narrative. Easier to do that, when you were removed from the chatter in the community. Folks from around the state, who had never stepped foot in Berlin, they looked at the evidence and didn’t see how Priscilla fit in it. But they had no authority. And the authorities didn’t care.
Kate’s mother died of cancer. But she died of a broken heart. She’d never believed what they said about Priscilla. They’d had a good relationship. The custody battle another drama created by the system, by lawyers. But all of it had taken a toll on Kate, and no one had been paying attention. Priscilla saw, but she was powerless. Behind prison bars.
And then it happened again. She blamed Salazar even though it was irrational. But she was beyond reason. That’s what the life she’d been given will do to you.
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