What Carol Said
Chapter 07 - What Carol Said
Carol Bishop answered the phone on the fourth ring, her voice cautious and tired in a way that told Castillo immediately this wasn't a woman who received many unexpected calls.
"I'm calling regarding your daughter, Emma," Castillo said, keeping her tone professional and measured. "I understand you may not have been in contact recently, but I have some questions related to an active investigation."
There was a long silence on the line before Carol spoke again. "Is she alright."
"She's safe," Castillo said. "I need to ask you about your former husband, Frank Bishop. Do you know his current whereabouts."
Another pause, longer this time. "We divorced six years ago. I haven't spoken to him in almost three years, since he stopped by asking for money he never paid back."
"Has he mentioned Emma at all, during any of your recent contact with him," Castillo asked.
"Once," Carol admitted, her voice dropping lower. "About a year ago. He asked if I knew where she was living. I told him I didn't know, which was true at the time. I hadn't spoken to her either."
Castillo made careful notes, cataloguing the timeline against what Emma had already described. "Mrs. Bishop, I need to ask you something directly, and I need an honest answer. Were you aware of the abuse Frank inflicted on Emma during her childhood."
The silence stretched so long this time that Castillo nearly repeated the question before Carol finally answered, her voice barely audible.
"Yes," she said. "I knew."
"Why didn't you protect her," Castillo asked, unable to fully keep the edge from her professional composure.
"I was scared of him too," Carol said, tears audible now in her voice. "I told myself, for years, that leaving would make things worse, that staying and managing him somehow was safer for both of us than the uncertainty of leaving. I understand now how wrong that was. I've understood it for years, actually, ever since Emma left and I finally divorced him myself."
"Why didn't you reach out to her, once you'd left him," Castillo asked.
"I tried, once," Carol said. "Two years after she left. She didn't respond, and I understood, eventually, that I probably didn't deserve a response. I failed her when it mattered most. I don't think an apology years later erases that failure."
Castillo sat with the specific, complicated weight of a mother's genuine, if belated, remorse, understanding this wasn't a simple case of villain and victim, but something considerably more layered and human.
"I need your help locating Frank," Castillo said. "He's contacted Emma directly, and given the timing, coinciding with her wedding this weekend, I have significant concern about his current intentions."
"He's dangerous when he feels he's owed something," Carol said. "I don't know his current address. I might have an old phone number, if that's still helpful."
Carol provided what details she could, a considerable amount less than Castillo had hoped for, but enough to begin tracing Frank's more recent movements through phone records and financial activity.
"There's something else," Carol said, before Castillo could end the call. "Please tell Emma, if she's willing to hear it, that I'm sorry. I know that doesn't undo anything. I've wanted to say it directly to her for nine years and never found the courage."
Castillo relayed the message to Emma later that afternoon, watching her carefully for whatever reaction the words might produce.
May you like
Emma sat with it for a long moment, feeling something complicated move through her chest, not forgiveness exactly, not yet, but something that felt, for the first time in nine years, like the possibility of eventually getting there.
"Tell her I heard it," Emma said finally. "That's all I can offer right now. Maybe someday there's more. Today isn't that day."
